Before Entourage, before 30 Rock, before any of the seemingly infinite number of behind-the-scenes-of-Hollywood programs currently clogging the grid, there was The Larry Sanders Show, starring Garry Shandling as a needy, self-centered pretender to Johnny Carson’s late-night talk-show throne. And it was good. Actually, it was perfect.
Of course, it never became a phenomenon. The critically acclaimed series from Shandling and coproducer Peter Tolan (Rescue Me) somehow stayed on HBO from 1992 to 1998, but it always drew puny audiences. In retrospect, that doesn’t seem surprising. Larry Sanders didn’t carry itself like a hit. It was stylistically subtle (no score, no laugh track, numerous pregnant pauses), verbally much rougher than any sitcom made up to that point (in the pilot, the title character’s producer, Rip Torn, playfully offers to shove a red-hot poker up the hero’s ass) and probably too insular in its approach to the subject matter. Its showbiz characters talked about their industry in shorthand, which gave the series a documentary vibe—a feeling heightened when the characters made selfish or clueless spectacles of themselves. Spectacle No. 1 was Larry himself, a hapless narcissist who would finish a taping, then run home and critique himself. No wonder the show didn’t catch on: Watching it was a masochistic experience. The laughs hurt.
To read the review of the DVD box set Not Just the Best of The Larry Sanders Show, click here.
This article was originally published on The House Next Door.
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