10 times J.B. Smoove was the best part of Curb Your Enthusiasm

This really could have been a boring, strictly expository scene—but not with Leon around. Larry is telling Freddy Funkhauser his suspicions about the guy who has engineered some special mugs to keep coffee from getting cold at Latte Larry’s, as well as his feeling that Susie may have ill intentions trying to throw Jeff a surprise party when the man has a heart condition. We know those things are going to matter plot-wise, but the scene is only really entertaining because Leon is there, latching onto any weird little detail that reminds him of something he likes. He goes from talk about how he loves tornado chasers (but they’re “dumb as fuck”) to an invention he has in mind (“Pussy Tea”) to Columbo being so convincing as a TV detective that by the end of watching an episode, he thought he himself had done the crime. He makes the whole scene.

Dressing up and pretending to be someone else to trick a person is such a classic gag, and it’s a joy to see Leon do it. During the show’s fictional Seinfeld reboot, Leon comes to Michael Richards as Danny Duberstein, a Jewish survivor of Groat’s Disease, there to counsel and comfort Richards who has just been diagnosed himself. Leon makes up so much shit, both to establish himself as Jewish (he says he’s been bar mitzvahed three times, every 13 years to “recharge the mitzvah” and keep it at “mitzvah capacity”) and to ensure him that he has had, and beaten, Groat’s Disease. He makes up some truly outrageous symptoms, like everything tasting like peaches or forgetting how to multiply due to Groat’s. But the wildest part is when he credits his recovery from the illness to the hat that he’s wearing. “This hat saved my life,” he says. And Richards buys it … for a while.

When Larry encounters a skinhead at the doctor’s office, who lobs some slurs at him, and he comes to Leon for advice, his pal offers him a simple, yet not so simple, answer: “get in dat ass.” (Fun fact: This is apparently ) We say his answer is not so simple, because he elaborates on its meaning in the most kaleidoscopic way. You’re not supposed to just get in someone’s face and give them a verbal tongue-lashing to defend your manhood; you have to, “pull that asshole open, step into [it],” spray-paint, “Larry was here, wash me, all that kind of shit”—and even throw paper on the floor: Snickers wrappers, the newspaper you apparently just read while you were in there. And of course, you leave that asshole open when you exit. How else would he know you’ve been there? This was early in Smoove’s run on the show, and it establishes exactly the kind of wildly inventive improvisational mind he has.

This whole clip is great, from Leon delivering an explanation of what distinguishes “lampin’” from “chillin’” (the former is done with feet up, while the latter is done upright) to sharing his belief that Jimmy Kimmel “foisted” an ineffective assistant onto Larry (i.e. recommended her knowing full well she was bad at her job). As Larry details his woes concerning this bad assistant calling out sick due to a simple case of constipation, Leon jumps in to take his side and share a few impressive things he has done while constipated: shot a porno, ran a 5K, and entered a hot-dog-eating contest (and won). And hey, according to the actor, those little facts of Leon’s life may just pop up again sometime. (We hope they do.)

Larry walks into the kitchen to find a fruity smell and Leon “scurrying” back to the kitchen table. A quick peek in the trash reveals a half watermelon, clearly just cast aside. After admitting that his fear of serving as a visual confirmation of a persistent stereotype about Black people has kept Leon from enjoying his “favorite fucking fruit in the world,” the two men go grocery shopping together to buy the foods they’ve been keeping from themselves for ethnic reasons (Larry, a Jewish fellow, buys gefilte fish), and Leon even makes a new pal who has lived with the same shame about his own love of watermelon. It’s funny, but it’s also … sweet?

Leon goes through some of Larry’s parents’ boxed-up stuff with him, and they find some neat old junk. First, there’s Larry’s baseball glove, which looks, to Leon, like the kind a little kid might have played with during the polio scourge. “I didn’t have polio, asshole,” Larry snaps back. Then, there’s Larry’s mother’s mink stole, which prompts Leon to explain to Larry what gender roles were like in the 1940s: fellas calling women “Toots”—as in “Hey, Toots”—and women seductively wagging a finger at men while saying, “Poo poo pa doop,” as a “cute thing” to get “a rise out of guys.” Yes, he acts it out. And yes, it’s the best.