The theme song makes the show. This is not only true for HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm but also of shows like The Walking Dead, Friends, The Simpsons, Cheers, Family Guy, The Twilight Zone, Miami Vice, The X-Files, South Park, and, of course, Game of Thrones.
Usually, there's a huge effort put into perfecting a television shows theme music. Showrunners and composers slave away for hours to find the perfect sound that encapsulates the tone of the show and even the journey they are inviting their audience to take part in.
But that's not the case with Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Curb creator Larry David has always used real-life influences to guide his comedy. For example, his terrible experience working on Saturday Night Live influenced one of the most iconic episodes of Seinfeld. Even his real-life love/hate relationship with comedian Richard Lewis created the dynamic between them on Curb Your Enthusiasm. A tidbit of the making of Curb Your Enthusiasm is that Larry files all of his notable observations away and comes back to them when he needs to write them in... And the same thing happened with the now-iconic tune that opens and closes every single episode of the HBO comedy.
This is the fantastic way that Larry David unearthed this piece and why he felt it was perfect for Curb...
The Origin Of The Curb Your Enthusiasm Theme Song
Years ago, during an interview about the first season of Curb Your Enthusiasm with the Paley Center, Larry David explained the unique origin of the Curb theme song, which is actually called "Frolic" by composer Luciano Michelini.
"I was watching television about five years ago and it was a bank commercial," Larry explained of the Curb theme song. "I thought 'Boy, I love that. Where did they get that?'"
Larry said that the commercial ran for a week and he never saw it again. But he later had his assistant research it in order to find it. However, he didn't know which bank the commercial was for. It ended up being quite the ordeal for Larry's assistant to track down the theme song... but she did... And Larry got the name of the song. He ended up sitting on the song for a whopping four years until the right project came along. And that right project was HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.
"[It] was a great piece of music I [wanted] to use and boy, people really like it," Larry said back when Season One aired.
Now, as the show goes into its 11th Season, people are even more jazzed about it. In fact, the theme song for Curb has become synonymous with anytime something embarrassing, frustrating, or straight-up strange happens... Therefore, it's been used in a lot of memes.
But, most importantly, it's become synonymous with Larry David himself.
As the producer of Curb Your Enthusiasm said, in the same interview with The Paley Center, the music is very "Fellini-esque, and Larry is very Fellini-esque".
"It just sort of introduces the audience that you're in for something pretty idiotic," Larry added.
There is also something quite circusy about the song. As if the score knew it was meant to be part of a show where the main character metaphorically bends and twists his way out of any social situation he desperately wants to get out of. As well as the fact that no matter how much Larry offends someone with his indifference or perspective, he will always come out the other side.
While on the Podcast, Origins, Larry told the host "I like to get away with things, comedically, and sometimes music can help in that regard. It tells the audience: Don’t take this seriously, it’s just funny."
Where The Score Actually Comes From
According to Entertainment Weekly, Luciano Michelini's "Frolic" was written for the 1974 Italian film La Bellissima Estate. The tuba-heavy song fit perfectly in the old film but was dug up by the bank commercial producers years later... And that's how Larry found it.
During a 2017 interview with Vice, Luciano Michelini explained how he was contacted by Larry and his team:
"Larry David's production team contacted the music editor, and I found out Larry had chosen Frolic as the main theme song for his new series. The funny thing is they also wanted to know if I was still alive because the movie was from 1974!"
He continued, "I can only guess it was just the right song for the right TV show at the right time. I wrote the instruments including mandolin, tuba, piano, and strings to really catch the ear of the listener. It’s a piece with comical DNA."
