J.B. Smoove Cusses Out Larry David, Announces the New Season of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Has Begun Shooting

In case the aggravated shouting that’s been echoing across the valleys of the greater Los Angeles area didn’t give it away, Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 12 has started filming. In a video posted yesterday on J.B. Smoove’s Instagram page, Leon Black took a moment on set with Larry, Susie, and Jeff to plug his own stand-up tour dates, prompting an unscripted shouting match between Smoove and the series’ creator.

Though Smoove was clearly more interested in selling tickets to his tour than breaking news about the return of the 51-time Emmy-nominated sitcom, the post gives us a perfect taste of that Curb-style acrimony as we anxiously await its return after almost a full year without Larry David’s petty, bitter, explosive misadventures. Clearly he’s been saving up his anger for a while.

The post comes in the wake of a New York Post article from this past Saturday in which Smoove discussed how, during his early years with the show, the Mount Vernon-native actor and comedian struggled to differentiate between play-fighting and for real-fighting among the series regulars. Smoove joined the sitcom in Season 6, long after the caustic chemistry had coalesced between David and his bickering band of castmates, and the line between friendly banter and full-on conflict was often blurred. Said Smoove, “I’ve literally been on set and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, they’re gonna kill each other.’ One day, Larry even threatened to call 911, that’s how bad it was.”

At the end of the day, it’s (mostly) all in good fun. Smoove was an immediately successful addition to the series, both onscreen and off. Smoove told The New York Post that, when he first started on the series, David told him, “Even our first week working together … It feels as though we’ve been working together for years.” Smoove is now entering his seventh season on the show, and his character of Leon Black is such a fan favorite that those early seasons before his emergence feel incomplete. Leon Black is almost as much a part of Curb as Larry himself.

But that doesn’t stop the two from cussing each other out on set and ruining takes of a promotional Instagram post to loudly decry any sad sack who would waste their money on tickets to a J.B. Smoove show. It’s comforting to know that the off-screen antics on Curb are just as contentious, cantankerous, and quarrelsome as the fights that get filmed. Life imitates art.

Also, the appearance of Jeff Garlin on set post-Goldbergs controversy further proves Amber Ruffin’s point that cancellation isn’t real when it comes to comedy.