Each every so often, the celebs will align to make for some really fascinating tv, not due to something happening within the script however due to the context of the actors concerned. The short-lived 2000 TV sequence “Freaks and Geeks,” for example, is fascinating not simply because it is good TV however as a result of so most of the actors in it had been just some years away from turning into large stars.
Likewise, there is a 2007 episode of “Hannah Montana” that is fascinating not due to the precise plot, which is fairly boilerplate relationship drama stuff, however as a result of Larry David and Austin Butler are for some purpose concerned. Sure, that Larry David, the crotchety outdated man most well-known for enjoying a childless, profanity-spewing jerk on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” And sure, that Austin Butler, the man who just lately performed a hairless psychopath in “Dune: Half Two.”
Larry David was already fairly well-known by this level, however Austin Butler wasn’t. Simply 16 on the time it aired, the episode, “My Finest Buddy’s Boyfriend,” was Butler’s second vital performing credit score. Butler performed Miley’s one-off love curiosity Derek, a man who offers Miley the ick by being a bit of too petrified of the scary film they watch on a double date collectively. For sure, Miley doesn’t go on a second date with the man.
This was Butler’s ultimate look on “Hannah Montana,” however he rapidly grew to become repeatedly concerned with the opposite large youngsters’ sitcoms of the time. He performed Zoey’s late-series boyfriend James in “Zoey 101,” in addition to Carly’s temporary love curiosity in an early “iCarly” episode. He was additionally seen on “Ned’s Declassified” as a recurring background character, and there is a rumor going round recently that Butler performed Seth Powers, the jock who at all times had a basketball twirling on his finger, however Butler was really taking part in Zippy, a really minor scholar who simply type of reacted to stuff within the background (aka, a Shrugger.) We perceive the confusion, nonetheless, as the 2 characters did type of look alike.
What did Larry David do on Hannah Montana?
David’s look in “My Finest Buddy’s Boyfriend,” was a bit much less important to the plot. He reveals up briefly in a restaurant scene attempting to get a desk, however he and his daughters are denied one as a result of he is not as well-known as Hannah Montana. The sequence feels prefer it was taken straight out of “Curb,” particularly the half the place Larry tells the host it is his daughters’ birthday, just for each of them to contradict him instantly. To rub extra salt within the wound, Larry’s daughters complain that “Uncle Jerry,” aka Jerry Seinfeld, would’ve been capable of get them a desk. It is a large blow to poor Larry’s ego.
One other enjoyable little bit of trivia right here: Larry’s daughters on this scene are his real-life daughters, Cazzie and Romy David. Cazzie would later make headlines for courting Pete Davidson for 2 years. When she was combating heartbreak throughout Pete’s subsequent engagement with Ariana Grande, Larry David reportedly instructed her, “Cazzie, come on! Your ancestors survived the Holocaust.” In 2017, Cazzie created and starred in her personal net sequence “Eighty-Sixed” and later performed a minor character in “Umbrella Academy.”
As for why Larry, Cazzie, and Romy had been on “Hannah Montana” to start with? Nicely, it was apparently a present from Larry to his daughter Romy. “My sister was like an obsessed ‘Hannah Montana’ fan,” Cazzie defined in a 2022 interview. “My dad took my sister to the viewers someday to look at the present, they usually requested him later if he wished to be on an episode.” Though Cazzie herself wasn’t a “Hannah Montana” fan (and actually hated filming this scene, later joking that she’d blocked it out of her reminiscence), it did a minimum of make her youthful sister blissful. For Larry a minimum of, that was a win.