Each episode comprises four sketches that drop David—sometimes portraying a historical figure but always behaving like the schlemiel we know and mostly love—into different, non-chronological defining moments from our nation’s past. You can imagine him and Schaffer writing with an American history textbook on the table, opening to random pages and riffing on what role TV Larry might play in that chapter. What if nobody invited Larry to the Boston Tea Party? What if Larry took the first stab at writing the Declaration of Independence? What if Larry were Deep Throat, wasting Bob Woodward’s time with random Pat Nixon gossip? Usually, the answer is that Larry will get much angrier than the situation merits, piss off the people around him, and often both. In a wry preface to the premiere, Obama situates him within a long line of “irascible, petty, selfish, cheap” complainers and assures us, with his signature optimism, that America has always overcome “deeply unpleasant people who stood in the way of progress.”
