‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ is dead — and so are funny sitcoms

With roughly a trillion shows on TV, the ending of a series is no longer the “cancel all my plans” event it once was.

Nowadays it’s hard to imagine that the 1983 finale of “M*A*S*H” was watched by a staggering 106 million people — nearly half the country at the time. Or that “Cheers’” last episode snagged 84 million viewers in 1993. And that, in 1998, 76 million tuned in for the controversial closer of “Seinfeld.” 

Sunday night’s finale of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” by “Seinfeld” creator Larry David, won’t do numbers like those. Not even pretty … pretty … pretty close.

But, after 24 years on the air, the finish line for “Curb” feels momentous all the same. That’s because it’s one of the last comedy series — if not the last — to let us laugh without cumbersome strings attached.   

The brilliant show, which ran 12 seasons, had no morals, no grand causes and no hug-it-out, heartwarming conclusions. Unless, of course, you count Bill Buckner successfully catching a baby thrown from a fiery Manhattan apartment. building as heartwarming.

With its largely improvised dialogue and personalties so huge they should be Wonders of the World, “Curb” was all about the bit. Unsparingly so.