Middle-aged bald guy is thrilling

In Season 4 of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", Larry David continues to do what he does best: alienate almost everyone around him by saying and doing whatever he pleases, while finding himself in humorous and embarrassing predicaments along the way. Like George Costanza, the "Seinfeld" character based off of him, David has the uncanny knack for getting under people's skin. Even at his most polite, he still refuses to adhere to any normal social standards. Season 4 of "Curb" has plenty of classic Larry David moments as, among other things, he hires a prostitute to use the carpool lane, steals a golf club from a dead man's casket and has his manhood bit by a dog. \nSeason 4 also finds Larry preparing to star in Mel Brooks' hit Broadway musical "The Producers." Larry and co-star Ben Stiller can't seem to get along as Larry refuses to sing "Happy Birthday" to Stiller and later accidentally stabs him in the eye with a skewer. Stiller eventually leaves "The Producers," and David Schwimmer is brought in as his replacement, with the season culminating in Larry's semi-successful Broadway debut. \nThis set, as with all the other seasons of "Curb," is full of great humor unlike anything else seen on TV. The show's great strength is the actors' abilities to play off of each other. "Curb" is shot without a working script, with nearly all the dialogue ad-libbed. This allows for much more spontaneous and hilarious interaction between the cast, as well as a realism not found in traditional sitcoms. Cheryl Hines as Larry's sweet and eternally patient wife and Jeff Garlin as Larry's heavy-set and joyful manager/accomplice are perfect foils to Larry's antics.\n"Curb" also greatly benefits from being on HBO, where the show is free to explore David's darkly bizarre sense of humor. Only Larry David could make light of the mentally challenged or Holocaust survivors, and have it come off as so funny. There are a few weaknesses, as there are basically no special features to speak of. The hour-long finale is also a bit of a letdown, getting bogged down by about twenty minutes worth of Larry acting in "The Producers." But even at its worst, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is funnier than any half-hour on television today. In a season 4 episode, Mel Brooks says of Larry, "There's something about this middle-aged bald guy that's thrilling." I couldn't agree more.