Curb your enthusiasm season 1 dvdJuan Catalan must be feeling “Pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, good.” His poor luck seemed to exceed Larry Davidian proportions when he was accused of murder. But his luck took a turn for the better after over five months in Jail.

Catalan claimed to be at a Dodgers game with his daughter when the murder occurred. His defense attorney scoured TV footage of crowd shots from the game but could not find Juan. After learning that the show Curb Your Enthusiasm, starring Larry David who co-created Seinfeld, had taken footage at the ballpark that day (I think I remember this episode!), HBO allowed the attorney to search through their footage and he found a time-stamped shot of Catalan in the outtakes.

HBO allowed Melnik to look through the footage, and he found a shot of Catalan with his 6-year-old daughter and two friends. The footage was time coded, confirming that Catalan was at the ballpark shortly before the time of the slaying 20 miles away in the San Fernando Valley.

“There he was in the outtakes,” said Gary S. Casselman, the attorney handling Catalan’s lawsuit. “He’s glad it’s over. It’s terrible to be in jail, and he thought he would never see his daughters again.”

I read this in the Los Angeles Times yesterday morning and laughed at his good fortune to be saved by a television show.

Catalan was not a fan of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” before his time in jail. “He is now,” Casselman said.

I bet he is. The full Los Angeles Times article is here.