Larry David & Austin Butler Had Cameos In The Same Episode Of... Hannah Montana?

Every once in a while, the stars will align to make for some truly fascinating television, not because of anything going on in the script but because of the context of the actors involved. The short-lived 2000 TV series "Freaks and Geeks," for instance, is fascinating not just because it's good TV but because so many of the actors in it were just a few years away from becoming massive stars. 

Likewise, there's a 2007 episode of "Hannah Montana" that's interesting not because of the actual plot, which is pretty boilerplate relationship drama stuff, but because Larry David and Austin Butler are for some reason involved. Yes, that Larry David, the crotchety old man most famous for playing a childless, profanity-spewing jerk on "Curb Your Enthusiasm." And yes, that Austin Butler, the guy who recently played a hairless psychopath in "Dune: Part Two." 

Larry David was already pretty well-known by this point, but Austin Butler wasn't. Just 16 at the time it aired, the episode, "My Best Friend's Boyfriend," was Butler's second significant acting credit. Butler played Miley's one-off love interest Derek, a guy who gives Miley the ick by being a little too scared of the scary movie they watch on a double date together. Needless to say, Miley does not go on a second date with the guy. 

This was Butler's final appearance on "Hannah Montana," but he quickly became regularly involved with the other big kids' sitcoms of the time. He played Zoey's late-series boyfriend James in "Zoey 101," as well as Carly's brief love interest in an early "iCarly" episode. He was also seen on "Ned's Declassified" as a recurring background character, and there's a rumor going around lately that Butler played Seth Powers, the jock who always had a basketball twirling on his finger, but Butler was actually playing Zippy, a very minor student who just sort of reacted to stuff in the background (aka, a Shrugger.) We understand the confusion, however, as the two characters did kind of look alike.

David's appearance in "My Best Friend's Boyfriend," was a bit less essential to the plot. He shows up briefly in a restaurant scene trying to get a table, but he and his daughters are denied one because he's not as famous as Hannah Montana. The sequence feels like it was taken straight out of "Curb," especially the part where Larry tells the host it's his daughters' birthday, only for both of them to contradict him immediately. To rub more salt in the wound, Larry's daughters complain that "Uncle Jerry," aka Jerry Seinfeld, would've been able to get them a table. It's a massive blow to poor Larry's ego.

Another fun bit of trivia here: Larry's daughters in this scene are his real-life daughters, Cazzie and Romy David. Cazzie would later make headlines for dating Pete Davidson for two years. When she was struggling with heartbreak during Pete's subsequent engagement with Ariana Grande, Larry David reportedly told her, "Cazzie, come on! Your ancestors survived the Holocaust." In 2017, Cazzie created and starred in her own web series "Eighty-Sixed" and later played a minor character in "Umbrella Academy."

As for why Larry, Cazzie, and Romy were on "Hannah Montana" to begin with? Well, it was apparently a gift from Larry to his daughter Romy. "My sister was like an obsessed 'Hannah Montana' fan," Cazzie explained in a 2022 interview. "My dad took my sister to the audience one day to watch the show, and they asked him later if he wanted to be on an episode." Even though Cazzie herself wasn't a "Hannah Montana" fan (and in fact hated filming this scene, later joking that she'd blocked it out of her memory), it did at least make her younger sister happy. For Larry at least, that was a win.