Larry David, Barack Obama spoof American historical past in HBO present – Overview

June 26, 2026, 8:02 a.m. ET

For Larry David and Barack Obama, historical past is a laughing matter. They usually’ve received the sketch comedy present to show it.

Sure, the co-creator of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” has teamed up with the forty fourth president of the USA and what they got here up with is that this: “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness,” a sketch comedy present about American historical past, simply in time for our 250th anniversary.

Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, “Unhappiness” (HBO, Fridays, 9 p.m. ET/PT, ★★ out 4) locations famend curmudgeon David in sketches about well-known American historic moments, from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to VE Day.

However when it is Larry David writing a historic doc, we will hear extra about the appropriate to have an umbrella to himself than all these foolish inalienable rights. Typically it is humorous. More often than not, sadly, it is simply cringey.

Joined by a slew of celeb associates enjoying his fellow historic heroes − together with (after all) Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Hamm, Richard Variety and Joe Manganiello − David goes on a tour of the previous 250 years and is deeply aggravated by each side of it.

Should you like Larry David, you’ll most likely like “Unhappiness.” The comic has a definite (and considerably restricted) model and repertoire of jokes. Obama’s presence is definitely fairly insignificant. That is David’s showcase, his model of “Drunk Historical past” or “The Historical past of the World” Elements I and II.

However inevitably, this format, foolish historic sketch comedy with a contemporary sensibility, was perfected in “Historical past,” a 2013-2019 Comedy Central collection that did the very same factor as “Unhappiness” with a far much less well-known solid (though Lin-Manuel Miranda did cease by as soon as for an Alexander Hamilton episode). And to be trustworthy, with a lot sharper and fast-paced humor.

“Unhappiness” is desperately gradual, from the precise tempo and density of the jokes to the achingly lengthy transition between sketches. David performs, primarily, the identical character in every sketch, whether or not that is a Founding Father, Alexander Graham Bell or a WWI soldier.

He insults different individuals, bothers them, mugs on the digicam and does not attempt to do something new. In a single sketch, David as Bell makes the historic first cellphone name, however the man on the opposite finish will not shut up. It is a one-trick joke that’s extra grating to the viewers than to David’s fictional model of the inventor.

The Obamas and their Greater Floor Productions have tentatively waded into the world of Hollywood with TV and films, principally documentaries and youngsters’s reveals. I might counsel they stick with these genres.

For America’s large 250th anniversary, there’s a plethora of tales to inform. There will probably be stay celebrations throughout the nation on July 4, there are dozens of documentaries about how we received right here, books to learn and patriotic songs to take heed to. There may be area for us to poke enjoyable on the journey the nation has been on over two-and-a-half centuries, which has been rocky to say the least.