Larry David doesn’t know when to quit.

And that isn’t such a bad thing, at least on paper.

The 79-year-old funny man said, ‘goodbye’ to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in 2024 after 12 mostly solid seasons. He’s fabulously wealthy thanks to that program, plus all those “Seinfeld” residuals.

David co-created the iconic NBC show.

He doesn’t need the money, and his cranky alter ego suggests the “fame” part of celebrity isn’t a top priority.

David still felt the need to star in a new show for HBO Max, one that examines American history through a very Larry David-style lens.

“Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness.”

The show, co-produced by the Obamas, debuted to tepid critical reviews. The finished product, to be blunt, is bad.

Pretty, pretty bad, at least from the sketches this critic has endured.

Yet was there a secondary reason to create such a program? We’ve already seen an extended skit for the show that doubled as an anti-Trump screed.

The HBO sketch show ‘Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness’ surprised us all this weekend. https://t.co/Nmx74ujWqL

— Esquire (@esquire) July 6, 2026

That one recruited the late Rob Reiner, in his final acting appearance, to mock President Donald Trump via a historical re-creation.

The bit proved pure clapter – a sketch meant to inspire applause, not actual chuckles. Painful barely describes it, all the more so given Reiner’s cruel fate.

Now, we’re learning of “Life” sketch that takes a not-remotely-veiled swipe at another GOP target. That’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The sketch in question finds David playing Dora, the mother of Jonas Salk. The character gets into a fight with a neighbor who takes a strong anti-vaccine stance. It’s akin to people on the Right questioning modern vaccines after being lied to during the COVID-19 epidemic.

A good satirist might use that as a launching point for humor. Not David. He weaponized the skit to call out RKF Jr. by name.

“Drop dead, Bobby,” says Dora. “You should die a dog’s death! You don’t know anything about science, you’re not a doctor. God help us all if some idiot, some moron, ever put you in charge. That would be a dark day for humanity I can tell you that.”

Had David and co. made a sly allusion to modern figures, even those uniformly on the Right, it might have been witty. Funny. Ripe.

Instead, he and his partners decided to go for a crude, obvious approach. That technique turns what might have been humorous into something else.

And it’s certainly not funny.

David could be resting on his sizable laurels right now. Instead, he’s committed himself to a weak tea comedy series that seems to exist to settle political scores.

Except David isn’t a politician. And both Trump and Kennedy are the ones in power.

The post Is ‘Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness’ a Score-Settling Screed? appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.

From PFS members John Leask, “We Wanted Flying Cars,” Madness of Crowds (Substack; Jul 18, 2026)

“We wanted flying cars; instead we got 140 characters.” – Peter Thiel, 2011

The science fiction genre — Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, George Lucas — created a sense of wonder between the ‘50s and the ‘70s. Robots, flying cars, interstellar travel. I grew up in the ‘90s watching the Jetsons, which featured video conferencing, smart home technology, robots, and handheld digital devices. Additionally, I watched Luke Skywalker transform from a (somewhat annoying) rural farmer on Tatooine to a space-traveling heroic Jedi. And finally, The 6th Day starring Arnold Schwarzenegger featured self-driving cars! So where is all that technology that science fiction creatives have been obsessing over for decades? Why did Elon Musk buy Twitter and rename it to X, when he could be working on some real technological advancements? Well, while it’s still unknown to many, it looks like the technology is here. Apparently Elon has engaged in numerous simultaneous science projects. And so have others.

A Retrospective on Human Progress

1. Money — While we can argue very clearly that we have gone backward in terms of progress on the technology of money (government-issued fiat is the equivalent of toilet paper with an official stamp on it), we can indeed see plenty of progress from barter to the use of gold and bitcoin for commerce. In What Has Government Done to Our Money?, Murray Rothbard summarizes the complications of barter:

So barter was used — exclusively — as far back as 6000 BC by the Mesopotamians, and as recently as 1,000 AD throughout Western Europe. There are still certain times and places in which barter is used in the developed world, but the development of money helped usher in the Commercial, Scientific, and Industrial Revolutions. Rothbard again:

The invention and progress of money truly humbles the student of ancient Greek and Roman history.

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TO BE FAIR, IT HAS NEEDED DESTROYING FOR … MOST OF MY LIFE:  J.K. Rowling Is Absolutely Destroying Amnesty International, and We’re Enjoying It.

LANSING, MI — Six years after friends and neighbors mercilessly mocked him for filling his garage with industrial-sized towers of toilet paper during the COVID pandemic, local man Greg Hutchins reportedly emerged from his home Friday with a smug grin and a fresh roll of Charmin draped triumphantly over his shoulder.