Larry David Grouses About the Wright Flyer in ‘Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness’ Trailer

“I’ve got to sit in the middle with shitty snacks for five hours?” Larry David, in character, hectors at the Wright brothers in the trailer for his new HBO Max series. “Are you crazy?” One of the Wrights (Jon Hamm) retorts, “This is the airplane experience.” And that short vignette sets up Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, the eternal malcontent’s grouchy deep dive into America’s history, or as the trailer says, “an almost history of America.” The seven-episode series will kick off on June 26.

The two-minute trailer includes a recreation of the famous sailor-kissing-a-nurse photo from V-J Day, a woman insulting David’s butter churning, some trench warfare repartee about the looks of a soldier’s love back at home, the Boston Tea Party, and jokes about child labor. In every clip, David finds something to grouse about hilariously.
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The clip ends with David presenting the First Congress with “a Declaration of Common Sense,” which for him means not sharing dessert. “It’s unsanitary,” David says. And when Ben Franklin says he doesn’t want a slice of pie, just a taste of it, David bellows, “Get your own damn piece of pie, Franklin.” And, considering David is brandishing a sword, it’s a shame this (fictitious) piece of history didn’t stick.

David co-created the series with Jeff Schaffer, who directed the “Seinfeld finale” episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The pair wrote each episode, and Schaffer directed all of them. Barack and Michelle Obama are among the producers for the show, which variously features Jerry Seinfeld, Susie Essman, Jon Hamm, Isla Fisher, and Jane Krakowski, among others as guest stars.