The real reason Larry David attacked Elmo
In an assault seen around the world, the ‘Curb’ star took on the ‘Sesame Street’ icon
By PJ Grisar February 2, 2024
This article has been updated to include an explanation from David, reported by Variety after publication.
On Thursday, when I saw the footage of Larry David assaulting Elmo — the most jarring televised attack from an American Jew since Jack Ruby gunned down Lee Harvey Oswald — I, like many, asked myself “Why?”
Was this attack on the Today show staged? A last minute bit of footage needed for the valedictory season of Curb Your Enthusiasm? One could imagine David’s HBO counterpart acting in this way, and it would explain why David would shlep to New York for a rare bit of publicity ahead of the Sunday premiere.
But this didn’t quite add up. Curb’s plot points are famously secretive (in the past they didn’t even supply screeners to the press) and there is no way that they would tape this shocking encounter live in front of a national audience. What’s more, every ostensible instance of David shooting something for Curb — his appearance at Fashion Week, taking a phone call by the runway, comes to mind — turned out to be unrelated to his long-running improvised sitcom, a rare exception being his appearance at a Dodgers game that ended up clearing a man of murder charges.
So I was forced to consider other context clues. After Larry deployed the Iron Claw — or was it the patented Kendall Roy “eldest boy” eye gouge — on the beloved Muppet, all he offered by way of explanation was “Somebody had to do it.”
What did this mean? Well, Elmo is a famously divisive figure. Many parents find the plush monster annoying, all the more so for how rapt their tots are by his escapades. The fanatical love of Elmo prompted some real life problems. His “Tickle Me” iteration briefly stirred up bedlam in toy aisles in the holiday season of 1996, a year when David’s eldest daughter, Cazzie, was around 2 and his youngest, Romy, had just been born.
David may have had to square off with other desperate parents at a big box store or, if he managed to secure the doll via his connections or an assistant, at least looked on as news reports blared retail scrimmage of the sort he in particular would detest. Perhaps this was payback.
(David did apologize later, under pressure; Elmo accepted.)
Or maybe it’s the third person of it all. Elmo is always saying his name, as when, reeling from the attack, he piped up “Mr. David, Elmo liked you before.” You’ll recall Jimmy from Seinfeld, a gym rat so self-regarding he never learned the pronouns “I” or “me.” David didn’t write that episode, but it likely still betrays a disdain for this way of speaking that Elmo exemplifies.
There is also the possibility that David was retaliating against the actual Elmo based on an unlicensed Times Square Elmo’s antisemitic tirades in the 2010s. (It seems that street performer — improbably named Adam Sandler — is still at large, having turned up in Santa Cruz last February, dressed as Cookie Monster.)
But then I considered something else. It’s easy to get distracted by Al Roker’s look of shock (and what looked like a watch chain on his vest), Elmo’s soul-patch sporting dad Louie threatening a lawsuit and, of course, the violent act itself, and forget what prompted Elmo’s appearance in the first place.
Elmo was there due to his own viral moment earlier in the week, in which he went on X (formerly Twitter) and asked followers a benign, kind question: How is everybody doing?
The response was a torrent of brutally honest answers, with users trauma dumping at a record rate.
Elmo and Louie (this dad character was apparently absentee until 2006, leaving his perennial toddler alone to doodle with a fish for over two decades) were discussing mental health. Larry must have heard, and while he doesn’t seem to reject the practice of therapy — he did a spell of it on Curb — he may well resent the fallout of Elmo’s query.
There’s a saying that goes something like this: “A nudnik is a person who, when you ask how they are doing, tells you.”
While it may have been cathartic for everyone to air their grievances on X, David has no tolerance for nudniks, and this alone may have roused him to act like John Wilkes Booth — or Crazy Joe Davola — and cause a stir before a captive audience.
For his sins, Elmo had to be stopped. It’s hardly surprising that David, crusader that he is, appointed himself for the task and that Elmo would end up the shlimazel to his shlemiel.
In an interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, David seemed to confirm my theory. Ish.
When Meyers pressed for an explanation, David said, “Elmo was talking. I was waiting to be interviewed, and Elmo was going on about mental health and I had to listen to every word. And I was going, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, I don’t think I can take another second of this!’ And so I got off my chair and I approached him and I throttled him! I couldn’t take it!”
What’s more, David quipped, “I would do it again.”
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