Spoiler Alert: This interview contains spoilers for Episode 4 of “Life, Rally, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: Almost an American History,” now streaming on HBO Max.
Larry David weaponizes history to mock his former friend Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the HBO sketch comedy show “Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Misfortune.”
In the latest episode of the Barack Obama-produced series, Larry plays Dora Salk, the drag-clad mother of Jonas Salk, the virologist known for developing the first successful polio vaccine. As Jonas goes upstairs to work, his mother repeatedly interrupts him by chatting unpleasantly to the neighbors in the garden about his scientific advances.
Eventually, another neighbor shows up, a dark-skinned, craggy-voiced guy named Bobby (sound familiar?) and declares, “That vaccine is going to kill people. It’s going to give them heart attacks!”
David, who plays Dora, doesn’t shut up. “Bobby, die. You should die like a dog. You don’t know anything about science and you’re not a doctor.”
Bobby responds, “If I were in charge, I would definitely prevent my child from getting that vaccine. And that goes for measles, too.”
Then Dora said, “If you were in charge, God help us all! If some fool or fool puts you in charge, it will be a dark day for humanity.”
There is a rich backstory to David’s thinly veiled attack on the US Secretary of Health. Kennedy’s wife, Cheryl Hines, played David’s wife (and ex) Cheryl on 12 seasons of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” And it is well known that David, who was once close to Kennedy, introduced him to Hines. Despite their political differences, they appeared to be friends until the end of “The Curve.” Kennedy, who was running for president as an independent at the time, also appeared on the red carpet for the show’s final season premiere in 2024.
However, relations between David and the couple soured over the next few months as Kennedy supported Donald Trump and subsequently entered the Cabinet. (David has been a strong critic of Trump, mocking him on both “Curve” and “Life, Rally and Misadventures.”) Hynes said in an interview that he didn’t speak to David after the series finale of “Curve” because “I think he’s mad that Bobby is in the administration.”
David and Kennedy in 2013
Ari Perilstein
Their rift is also evident in the fact that the entire main cast of “Curve” appears in “Life, Rally” (or at least showed up at the premiere), except for Hines. As for whether Hines was informed about the sketch mocking her husband, “Life, Larry” co-creator and director Jeff Schaefer told Variety: “I don’t know.” And as for why Hines wasn’t asked to make a cameo, Shafer quipped, “You know, it just didn’t work out that way.”
Regarding satirizing Kennedy in a skit set in the 1950s, Schafer said, “One of the things we tried to do with the show was to talk about what’s happening now through the lens of history. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. We’re talking about vaccines, and there’s an incredible amount of ignorance going on right now about vaccinations.”
For David and Schaefer, that ignorance was compounded by Kennedy, a leading figure in the anti-vaccination movement who has questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. During his administration, President Kennedy reduced the number of recommended childhood vaccines and overhauled the CDC’s Vaccine Advisory Committee after incorrectly linking childhood vaccines to autism.
Schaefer said that reflecting on Salk’s breakthrough “seemed like a perfect way to comment on the stupidity that’s going on.” The matchup with RFK Jr. was simply “too good to pass up.”
The sketch ends with neighbor Bobby going on at length about how fluoride causes gender confusion and how the Spanish flu was a biological weapon designed to keep Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese away. He says he “cut off a whale’s head with a chainsaw,” and there’s also a direct reference to a dead bear he once transported in his car. Finally, he is taken away by two men in white suits, presumably to a psychiatric ward.
“Life, Rally, and the Pursuit of Misfortune” airs Fridays on HBO. The show features David at pivotal moments in history, from the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the trenches of World War I to the bus where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. So far, the comedy series hasn’t been afraid to take jabs at current politicians. In the second episode, the late Rob Reiner played George Washington in a skit in which he criticized President Trump, calling him a “sociopath,” “a lying bastard,” and “a friend of pedophiles.”
