How Ted Danson’s Empty Gesture to Larry David Led to His 10-Season ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Run

Ted Danson thought he was doing Larry David a favor when he joined his friend’s TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm in its first season. It turned out it was the other way around.

On his podcast, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, the Man on the Inside star opened up about what led him to originally join the long-running series and how it ended up impacting his life.

“We watched the pilot of Curb, Mary [Steenburgen] and I. Mary thought it was great. I thought it sucked,” he said. “I thought it absolutely sucked. And I felt sorry for my new friend, Larry David. So in trying to be encouraging kind of thing, I said, ‘You know, if you ever need us to play ourselves, we’d be happy to.’”

He continued, “And in that sort of idiocy, you know, yeah, I ended up being part of something that changed my life,” adding that “it reinvigorated my desire to be funny.”

Danson played a fictionalized version of himself, who is despised by David’s character on the show, and the ex-husband of Steenburgen (who is his real-life wife). He and the Oscar-winning actress joined the show in its first season, making their Curb debut in episode two. Danson went on to appear in every season except two and eight, while Steenburgen only appeared in seasons one, six, seven and nine.

In season nine, Danson begins dating Cheryl Hines after her character and David’s separate. Danson and Hines eventually get married.

The Good Place star previously shared an anecdote from his time on the HBO sitcom’s set early on while on Late Night With Seth Meyers. He recalled getting to his mark too early and overhearing David and another actor talking and David saying, “Yeah, Danson, he’s a real asshole.”

“I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ Because I never read the scripts,” Danson said in November. “I went to Jeff Garlin, and he said, ‘You don’t know? You’re the worst human being on the planet. Larry hates you!’”