I have found my non-Jewish equivalent!I give you Louis CK, whose show Louie just had its second season premier on FX this last week.
I would invite all my fellow schlubs to check out this fat, balding, middle aged genius. (If you don't have cable, there are a handful of episodes from season one on the Louie web site.)
It's not just that Louis CK is funny. Anybody who watched any of his standup more or less knew that. But this show has nearly as much intelligence as it does comedy. It's very much in the Seinfeld/Curb-Your-Enthusiasm vein; Louis CK is a standup comedian and single dad in the city.
Just as CYE was a shade darker than Seinfeld, Louie is a shade darker than CYE. It might also not be quite as funny. I haven't seen anything on Louie that made me laugh as much as one of Larry David's great meltdowns. But if it isn't quite as funny, it's way more dramatic. And more artfully done.
The New Yorker's Nancy Franklin wrote an extremely an extremely smart tribute to the show two weeks ago, that I probably couldn't improve upon. (Subscription only.) And I got a sneak preview of some of the second season. It's true, not every episode is brilliant (I didn't love the Joan Rivers episode), but for every miss, there's a homerun. (The one where Louie is invited into a "friends with benefits" situation is genius.)
Long and short: Watch this show.
