TVSquad

I'm starting to wonder if TV and movie stars playing poker is more than just an interesting trend. Maybe it's a requirement.

Jason Alexander recently popped up on my TV, not in a Seinfeld rerun or his recent appearance on Curb Your Enthusiasm but in the most recent World Series of Poker. And it didn't look as though he was there playing with his own money. He appeared to have his own sponsor and everything.

Here is ESPN's coverage of Alexander's elimination from the tournament. Watch for the fan at the end who accidentally calls him George. It's cringe-tastic.

(S07E03) "This is your plan to get your ex-wife back. Pretty f*cking brilliant if you ask me." - Jeff

Larry David a selfish man? Nooooo. How could someone who's never given, nor has any idea how to give, someone the benefit of the doubt be a selfish guy? Wait - don't answer that. Instead ponder this: the moment we've all been waiting for - the Seinfeld reunion - has finally arrived, and we almost didn't get it because for a brief minute, it hinged on what Larry found more enjoyable, a potential funeral or a potential marriage. Selfish? How about sick.

The beauty of Curb Your Enthusiasm has always been its roots. Born from the mind of a man who launched a show about nothing, Curb is little more than an edgier version that's still... about nothing. It only makes sense that one day we would witness the colliding vortex created by those two masses of nothingness and that day has finally arrived. Well, almost. Season seven of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm premieres on HBO this Sunday night, September 20, at 9 p.m. ET and having seen the first three episodes, I'll say this about the long-awaited Seinfeld reunion - it's real and it's spectacular.

If you're a Seinfeld fan, that is. If you're not a Seinfeld fan, please scroll up or down.

This week's Entertainment Weekly features a new photo of the cast for their Curb Your Enthusiasm guest appearances with Larry David. The cast will be in several episodes this season, playing themselves. The plot will have David getting them together for the Seinfeld reunion that fans want to see and we'll get a behind-the-scenes look at the fictional reunion and the fictional making of that reunion, which itself will be a real reunion.

Got that?

Joel reported from the Television Critics Association tour yesterday about the Seinfeld reunion that will take place on Curb Your Enthusiasm this season. Now HBO has released the first photo.

If the meta-ness of my headline confuses you, I apologize. It's the best way I could phrase it, because it's kind of mind-blowing in concept.

At today's HBO session at the TCAs, Larry David came on stage to talk about the upcoming season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. In it, as we all know, he'll be reuniting the Seinfeld cast on the show. And what will they be doing? They'll be working on... a Seinfeld reunion episode.

"The context is that for years I've been asked about a Seinfeld reunion," said David, "and i'd say no it's a lame idea. And then i thought it might be very funny to do that on Curb, and I kept thinking about it and different scenarios of how to pull it off."

When he talked to Jerry Seinfeld and the cast about it, they were all game. "So doiung a Seinfeld reunion show on Curb we'll see writing read through rehersals show being filmed. You won't see the entire show, you'll see parts of the show get an idea of what happened eleven years later."

I'm hearing a lot of things about NBC's Meteor miniseries, that it was deliriously awful, stupid, ridiculous, and overall a candidate for Mystery Science Theater 3000. Is that true?

I think these "Earth being destroyed by rocks from space" movies played themselves out years ago, and I thought the casting of people like Christopher Lloyd and Jason Alexander was kinda funky, but was it that bad? Give us your thoughts below and let me know if I should even bother watching it.

Back in the late 70s, there was a major disaster movie about a huge meteor coming to Earth and causing havoc. It was called Meteor and it starred Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Henry Fonda, and a ton of other big names, like all 70s disaster movies had.

Now we have another movie about two large meteors coming to Earth to cause havoc called Meteor, only this time it's on television and it's a miniseries and it stars Christopher Lloyd, Stacy Keach, and Jason Alexander. What did you think? Here's Part 1 if you missed it (Part 2 airs next week).

It's been a good long while since Michael Richards has been on television. If you don't know the reason why, then you either don't watch TV or you've been frozen since 1952 and had your body reanimated to combat the deadly disease for which you've found a secret cure.

If it's the second option, then stop being so selfish and share your cure with the world. Stop being so cold, no pun intended.

2009 could mark the beginning of Richards' comeback, as he and the rest of his Seinfeld pals will make an appearance during the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Can you picture Late Show with David Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer as George Costanza on Seinfeld? He was actually offered the role but turned it down, according to Shaffer's new book, We'll Be Here For The Rest Of Our Lives.

Now, this isn't one of those situations where a group of people were brought in to audition for the role, Jerry Seinfeld actually told him he didn't have to audition for the role, the role was his, he just had to accept it. But Shaffer didn't call back because he was too busy with other jobs. It wouldn't have been the first sitcom role for Shaffer. He co-starred in the 1977 show A Year at the Top, with Mickey Rooney and Greg Evigan.

This month we're taking a look at celebrities who did TV commercials.

Whenever you get into any profession, you have to start at the bottom. The TV business is no exception. The stars you see in prime time today probably cut their teeth working in TV commercials. Heck, some of them still do TV commercials even after they become big stars (but it's often overseas...shhhhhhhh).

After the jump, a sampling of TV commercials from years ago that star celebrities who are now household names. If you're old enough to remember these commercials, you'll probably say to yourself, "Oh yeah, I remember this ad, but I didn't realize that he was in it!"

What's a better place for a Seinfeld reunion than on the other television show of its co-creator? EW reports that the cast members of the Seinfeld NBC television series will be reuniting for a multi-episode arc on Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO.

Granted, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has a career at the moment with The New Adventures of Old Christine, but the others haven't really had a hit in a while. Jerry had his short-lived Microsoft commercials, Michael Richards had his on-stage racist blow-up and Jason Alexander is...somewhere, I'm sure.

Three of the cast members (Seinfeld, Dreyfus and Alexander) have appeared on Curb before, but never together. I still catch Seinfeld on re-runs time to time and at its best it still makes me laugh out loud.

I credit the excellent writing (and success) of Seinfeld more to Larry David than Jerry itself. It's nice to see the cast come back to where I consider its excellence came from.

A lot of you probably read that headline and got confused, because the first season DVD set for Seinfeld has already been released - twice, once as a separate set and once as part of the mega, collectible complete series set. But it's true, another version of the first season is coming out on September 16.

Actually, this will be the first time that the first season is released on its own. The first set released was a combination of season one and season two, because season one was only five episodes long. Now Sony wants to release the first set on its own at a cheap price (around $15.00) so TV fans who are thinking about getting the later full season sets can sample the DVDs. You get all the extras from the season one set (gag real, deleted scenes, commentary, etc) and a $5.00 rebate for one of the larger sets.

Eh, I'm just going to buy the complete series set.

You think some of the contestants on Dancing with the Stars are terpsichordian-challenged, that they look like klutzes? Well, some do. And you might think you can guess that a guy like Jason Alexander would be a complete joke on the dance floor. After all, as George on Seinfeld, did he ever seem like he could make it across the dance floor without tripping on his shoelaces?

Well, the man can move. On this week's episode of Bravo's Step It Up & Dance, Jason Alexander will present his credentials as a guest judge. He'll challenge the contestants to do what he's done -- very successfully in his career -- learn musical theater choreography.

In a TV Guide exclusive, Michael Ausiello reports that The New Adventures of Old Christine could be moving to ABC if CBS doesn't give it a third season pick up. The way I see it, this is great news for ABC. They seem to do great at one-hour dramedies -- Ugly Betty, Pushing Daisies, Desperate Housewives -- but just swing and miss when developing good sitcoms. Only Samantha Who has been a winner this year; its most recent effort, Miss/Guided, has left me cold.