Like millions of viewers across the country, NewsNation anchor Dan Abrams has always been a casual fan of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
So when the cable news veteran and legal analysts got a call from his agent asking if he’d like to be featured in the show’s final season, he recognized the show’s sustained popularity and was thrilled.
“I thought ‘that could be funny and fun,’ so let me see a script,” Abrams told The Hill of how his cameo came together. “When the season started, I thought it might be at the beginning of the season when he [protagonist Larry David] got arrested … and then the season finale happened, and I started getting a lot of random people who are big ‘Curb’ fans saying they saw me in the finale.”
Abrams is featured, along with MSNBC host Chris Hayes, in the long-running series’s final episode, which centers on a fictional criminal trial David is facing.
David, throughout the show’s final season, is facing criminal prosecution for giving a Georgia voter water to drink while they were waiting in line to vote.
The bit is a spoof on a real-life Georgia law that prohibits any from participating “in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector.”
Abrams, who today hosts the prime-time show “Dan Abrams Live” on NewsNation, appears on the screen from a New York studio reporting that the Seinfeld co-creator has “run afoul of the new Georgia voting law that he views as partisan, draconian, and unconstitutional.”
“How this plays out could have major ramifications for the next election,” Abrams says during the episode.
Once he reviewed the script he was sent, Abrams and his team recorded the cameo “pretty quick,” adding he was encouraged by the show’s producers to ad-lib as much as he wanted.
This week’s appearance in the “Curb” finale was not Abram’s first cameo across film and TV. The longtime television news personality has been featured in films such as “Nothing But the Truth” and “Zoolander 2.”
“Curb,” as it is affectionately referred to by many of the show’s fans, is one of HBO’s most successful sitcoms, spanning 12 seasons across more than two decades on the air.
The final episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” drew an estimated 1.1 million viewers, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Abrams said his appearance on the popular show creates further exposure for NewsNation, a network that was launched in 2021 and, like The Hill, is owned by Nexstar Media Group.
“Anytime the network is sort of the go-to when people are talking about news coverage, we want NewsNation to be part of the conversation,” he said. “It’s a piece in the puzzle. It’s not as if this is going to fundamentally change the fortunes of NewsNation, but I do think incrementally more things, not just like this, but more people talking about NewsNation is always helpful.”
Tyler Mitchell