Last night, the PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. returned with its Season 4 premiere, which included a rather shocking and hilarious revelation. The series, where Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. traces the genealogy of various celebrities, featured bothCurb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry Davidand U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, revealing that both men are actually cousins. Here’s the official episode description that reveals more of Larry David and Bernie Sanders' family history.
“Two guests linked by one hilarious impersonation trace their roots from 1940s Brooklyn back to Jewish communities in Europe. Larry David discovers his German heritage by way of ancestors who settled in Mobile, Alabama in the mid-19th century, including one who became aslaveholding Confederate. Bernie Sanders gains greater understanding of his father’s dangerous childhood in Austrian Galicia during World War I. Both guests discover what happened to the family members who were still in Europe during the Holocaust. Larry David’s grandfather lost nine siblings, Bernie Sanders' uncle, a member of the Limanowa Judenrat, heroically went head to head with a Nazi officer. Through DNA testing, our guests learn that there is more to their uncanny likeness than they ever suspected.”
While PBS has made the full hour-long episode available to watch, which you can do so below, the PBS Facebook has also released a brief clip that shows how both Larry David and Bernie Sanders react to the news that they’re actually long-lost cousins. The news is quite surreal, since last year,Larry David’s Bernie Sanders impersonationonSaturday Night Livelast year, during the Presidential campaign, became the stuff of legend. Bernie Sanders even admits in this clip that people have told him that Larry David does a better Bernie Sanders impersonation than himself. Given the uncanny impersonation that Larry David delivered on multipleSNLepisodes, perhaps it’t not too surprising that they share the same bloodline.
The only downside to this news, if any, is that it didn’t come in time to be used onCurb Your Enthusiasm Season 9. It isn’t known when the premiere episode ofFinding Your Rootswas filmed, but even if it did happen whileCurbwas in production, all the episodes had been written in advance by Larry David, so it might have been too tricky to fit in a bit about their newfound heritage. Since there is often a lengthy hiatus betweenCurbseasons, with a six year gap between Season 8 and Season 9, which debuted this past weekend, it seems unlikely that a Larry David/Bernie Sanders geneology bit is coming in the near future.
Given how popular Larry David’sSNLsketches as Bernie Sanders were, including the episode where Larry David hosted and Bernie Sanders made a surprise appearance, it would be interesting to see if the late-night sketch comedy show will try to bring the real comedian and U.S. Senator together for an episode during Season 43, which just kicked off last week with host Ryan Gosling, with Gal Gadot (October 7) and Kumail Nanjiani (October 14) hosting the next two episodes. Take a look at this clip fromFinding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr.below, courtesy ofPBS Facebook, and you’re able to also watch the full episode below as well.
