From protesting a piece of pie to debating the origin of an outgoing phone message, Larry David got into some really petty arguments throughout Curb Your Enthusiasm’s 12 seasons. Within its first couple of years on the air, Curb Your Enthusiasm landed on a winning formula: send this fictionalized, misanthropic Larry David persona crashing into a dignified social situation, get him into a disagreement over an absurdly minute issue, and watch the chaos unfold. From a sweaty $50 bill to the proposition of getting a drink before dinner, the tiniest things could set Larry off.
Not all the arguments in Curb Your Enthusiasm were over such insignificant topics. Larry unwittingly started a holy war when he mistook Becky’s fiancé’s baptism for an attempted murder, and season 8’s “Palestinian Chicken” used a chicken restaurant to satirize the long-standing conflict between Israel and Palestine. But the majority of Larry’s arguments were easily avoidable as they tackled the mundane minutiae of everyday life. Whether Susie wanted to give Larry a tour of her new house or Dean Weinstock wanted Larry to replace his broken sunglasses, Larry got into some really petty arguments throughout Curb Your Enthusiasm’s run.
When Larry and Cheryl are making plans to go out for dinner in season 2’s “The Shrimp Incident,” Cheryl suggests stopping off somewhere for a drink along the way. Larry protests this as an unnecessary addition to the evening, because they could just get a drink at the restaurant without going to a whole other place. Cheryl, of course, just wants to extend the date night and spend more time with him, but Larry just sees the pointlessness of the drink.
The drink argument gets so intense that eventually, Cheryl doesn’t even want to go out for dinner, let alone a drink beforehand. She figures that if there’s no point in going out for a drink, there’s no point in going out for dinner, so they get takeout instead. This gag stems from the classic Curb running gag that Larry married someone he doesn’t seem to enjoy spending time with.
Larry reunites with Seinfeld star Jason Alexander to develop a new sitcom in the early episodes of season 2. Inspired by Jason’s own experiences, Larry has cooked up a show idea about a famous TV actor who can’t escape the role that made him a star. However, this idea doesn’t make it past the earliest stages of development, because Larry and Jason can’t agree on where to meet.
Neither of them wants to make the trip across town to the other’s office. When Larry has car troubles on the way to Jason’s office and arrives at the meeting hours late, they get into a huge fight over whether they actually had the meeting. They can’t agree on an equidistant location, so the project falls through and Larry retools it as a Julia Louis-Dreyfus vehicle instead.
When Larry returns from shooting a Martin Scorsese movie in New York in season 3’s “The Special Section,” he’s shocked to learn that his mother died while he was away and no one called him, because her last wish was that the family not bother Larry on his trip. Larry is furious at his dad for not calling him and having the funeral without him. But he gets sidetracked when his New Yorker cousin, Andy, asks why he didn’t call him while he was in the Big Apple.
Larry says he was busy with the movie, so he couldn’t have met up with Andy. But Andy says he didn’t want to meet up; he just wanted Larry to call. Larry tells Andy that he can call him when he’s in L.A., but Andy says it’s different when it’s a local call. Larry just found out his mother died, but he can’t let this go.
Jeff and Susie’s dog Oscar has to be put down in season 8’s “Vow of Silence,” and Susie sends Jeff to get Oscar’s favorite food – frozen yogurt from Pinkberry – as a last meal. However, on the way back from Pinkberry, Larry and Jeff decide to have a bite each. Jeff takes an extra bite, so Larry insists on having an extra bite. Jeff thinks Larry’s bites are bigger than his, so he takes even more.
Rather than focusing on the dying dog whose final day will be brightened by the Pinkberry, Larry and Jeff just bicker over who’s had a bigger portion. They end up shoveling the whole thing into their mouths, so there’s nothing left for Oscar. This is a perfect example of Larry’s pettiness having a negative impact on everyone else around him.
In season 7’s “Vehicular Fellatio,” while visiting Loretta’s doctor, Larry bumps into his old neighbor, Dean Weinstock, played by guest star Wayne Federman. Larry initially doesn’t recognize Dean, and when Dean goes in for a hug, the sunglasses hanging around his neck break. Larry apologizes and Dean mentions offhandedly that he’ll send Larry a bill in the mail. Larry immediately protests this, because Dean is the one who instigated the hug and they’re his sunglasses, so it’s up to him to replace them.
This leads to a classic Curb confrontation until Dean reveals that he has cancer and his doctor has told him to avoid getting into confrontations. Larry instantly backs down and agrees to pay for the sunglasses. He has a point about Dean instigating the hug, but Dean’s cancer revelation puts the pettiness of the sunglasses dispute into perspective.
Larry had plenty of petty disagreements with Richard Lewis over the years in Curb Your Enthusiasm. They argued over a meditation mantra, they argued over whether a lunch meeting needs a “confirmation call,” they argued over the best aisle seat at a funeral, and they argued over whether a left-handed phone call is as respectful as a right-handed phone call. But the pettiest argument they ever had was their disagreement over who came up with their outgoing phone message.
Larry claims that he came up with the message, but Richard says he wrote it in Paris. Ultimately, Larry decides to be the bigger man and changes his outgoing message. But he still refuses to let it go and even tries to get Cheryl to call Richard and confirm that Larry came up with the message.
One of Larry’s longest-standing rivalries was with coffee shop proprietor Mocha Joe. The rivalry started in the season 7 finale, “Seinfeld,” when Larry innocently asked Joe to bring some jumper cables to an office he was heading to for a coffee delivery anyway. Mocha Joe then asked Larry to pick up his beans to return the favor, but it ended up being a much bigger undertaking than Joe dropping off Larry’s jumper cables. And when Larry finally got to the warehouse to pick up the beans, it was closed.
Since he made the drive, Larry believes he did the favor. But since he didn’t get the beans, Mocha Joe doesn’t count the favor. Larry and Mocha Joe get into a huge argument about what constitutes a favor, and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s greatest rivalry is born.
Marty Funkhouser rarely saw eye-to-eye with Larry. They had bitter arguments over everything from leaving a party early to use the bathroom to how old is too old to identify as an orphan to whether it’s okay to wear a yarmulke at a Palestinian chicken restaurant. Season 6’s “The Ida Funkhouser Roadside Memorial” featured arguably the worst thing that Larry did to Funkhouser: stealing flowers from his dead mother’s memorial site.
But before that, Funkhouser gives Larry back $50 that he owes him – but he takes a sweaty $50 bill out of his shoe. Larry finds that no one will take the bill, so it’s effectively useless. Instead of letting it go, because $50 is nothing to the multimillionaire co-creator of Seinfeld, Larry decides to call a close friend who’s grieving the death of his mother to complain about sweaty money.
Larry had plenty of fights with Susie Greene over the years. In fact, they rarely had a conversation that didn’t eventually turn into a yelling match. But one of them usually had a good reason to yell at the other. Larry had a good reason to yell at Susie when she ate his cheese. Susie had a good reason to yell at Larry when he told her daughter to “shut the f*** up!” when she was singing. Their pettiest argument arrived in season 3’s “Krazee-Eyez Killa.”
Jeff and Susie have moved into a new house and Larry stops by to pick up a script from Jeff. While he’s there, Susie offers to give him a tour of the house, but he politely declines. He tells Susie he gets it – bedrooms, bathrooms, a staircase – so he doesn’t need a tour. Then, Susie starts screaming at him and kicks him out. Larry makes sure not to make that mistake again. When Krazee-Eyez offers him a house tour later in the episode, he takes the tour.