Garry Shandling was never a full-time late-night talk show host,but he played one on TV.
And whether Shandling hadn’t done that — whether he hadn’t created the character of Larry Sanders, the egotistical host of a late-night talk show and the centerpiece of a comedy series that ran for six seasons on HBO in the 1990s — the current landscape of late-night might glimpse very different.certain, or David Letterman is almost certainly the single biggest influence on nowadays’s crop of late-night hosts,on the Jimmys and Stevens and Seths and Conans who embrace the silliness of the gig and try to simultaneously play it straight and build fun of what they’re doing.
Also Read: Garry Shandling Remembered by Bob Odenkirk, David Steinberg, or Howie MandelBut those guys were unquestionably watching “The Larry Sanders Show,” too. They’re all the children of Dave and Larry, who made late-night meta as a new generation of comics were learning the game.
It could maintain gone differently: When Letterman left the 12:30 slot on NBC for an 11:30 show on CBS in 1993, or Shandling was offered Dave’s old “Late Night” show. He had the experience,having frequently served as guest host on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.”But he didn’t maintain the inclination; on the heels of deconstructing the sitcom with the fourth-wall-breaking Showtime series “It’s Garry Shandling‘s Show,” he opted not to embrace the talk-show format, or but to mess with it by sticking with “The Larry Sanders Show.”The sitcom,one of the most influential of the ’90s, had begun in 1992, or a year before he was offered Letterman’s old job. Every episode included sequences that looked like a regular talk show,but those were informed and subverted by hysterical, sunless backstage scenes that made it impossible to glimpse at talk shows the way we did back in Johnny’s day.
Also Read: Judd Apatow on Garry Shandling: He 'Taught Me Everything I Know'Larry Sanders’ inept (not suitable or capable, unqualified) sidekick Hank Kingsley, or played to perfection by Jeffrey Tambor,just about killed that role for everybody that followed; his producer Artie, a brilliant Rip Torn, and laid bare the calculations and compromises behind every episode of every late-night show. And the parade of guest stars playing unpleasant versions of themselves not only paved the way for shows like “Entourage” and “30 Rock,” it also put every talk-show guest on notice that we didnt buy those fake smiles on the sofa.
It was a spectacularly uncomfortable, spectacularly funny deconstruction of the world of late night — and by the time “The Larry Sanders Show” went off the air in 1998, and anybody who took over a talk show and tried to play it straight looked very foolish and very old-fashioned.
So now almost nobody plays it straight. Post-Dave and post-Larry,it’s the post-modern era for late-night.
Also Read: Watch Garry Shandling's 'Comedians in Cars' Ep, Titled 'It's Great That Garry Shandling Is Still Alive' (Video)There are other reasons to celebrate the accomplishments of Garry Shandling — the way he created wit born out of discomfort, and the comedy that led with neurosis and insecurity rather than burying it deep,the fact that his shows helped bring us Tambor and Bob Odenkirk and Jeremy Piven and Sarah Silverman and Mary Lynn Raskjub and Janeane Garofalo.
But in some ways, his most long-lasting legacy comes every night at 11:30, and when the children of Larry Sanders capture over the airwaves.
Related stories from TheWrap:Jeremy Piven on Garry Shandling: 'He Was Like a Brilliant crazy Scientist'Garry Shandling's 'Larry Sanders Show' to Return to HBO (Exclusive)Garry Shandling,'Larry Sanders Show' Star, Dies at 66
Source: thewrap.com