The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
October 11, 2009
TO this day, Garry Shandling still wonders what his career would have amounted to without his breakthrough comedy, the one that skewered television conventions even as it religiously observed them and provided a framework for countless imitators.
No, not “The Larry Sanders Show.” The other one.
Before “Larry Sanders,” there was “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” a parody sitcom that ran on Showtime from 1986 to 1990 and is receiving a DVD release on Oct. 20.
Shout! Factory
A scene from an episode of “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” which ran on Showtime from 1986 to 1990. Fox also broadcast repeats of the show.
It may be lesser known, but “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” played its own crucial role in television history, providing a shop class for a cadre of young writers to tinker with ideas they would carry over to more lasting programs. And it gave its star an early sandbox to play with a character who shares his name as well as a familiarly affable, self-absorbed nature.
“When I speak about myself in the third person, it’s because I’m embarrassed,” Mr. Shandling, 59, said in a recent telephone interview. “It’s like in therapy, I say, ‘You’ll never believe what Garry did last week.’ ”
Created by Mr. Shandling and Alan Zweibel, an alumnus of the original “Saturday Night Live” writing staff, “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” superficially resembled a network sitcom. Mr. Shandling played a Los Angeles bachelor with a nebbishy best pal, a platonic female friend and a nosy neighbor but was also permitted to step out of the story and address the audience directly. (When Mr. Shandling pitched a similar idea to NBC, the network asked if he could instead talk to a dog.)
“Both of us had a distaste for what was a very predictable, pat situation-comedy formula,” Mr. Zweibel said. “What we thought was, let’s be Off Broadway — let’s be more theatrical about it.”
So at every level, “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” was infused with self-awareness and self-reference, even in its theme song, whose lyrics reminded viewers that they were listening to a theme song. (“I’m almost halfway finished/How do you like it so far?”) Episodes were crammed with pop-cultural allusions, absurdist humor and guest appearances from retro-chic stars like Red Buttons, Steve Allen and Florence Henderson.
Otherwise, the “Shandling’s Show” writers had to observe only two rules: keep their star armed with plenty of one-liners, and make sure he was the funniest person in the room.
“Garry likes stuff where he gets the laughs,” said Tom Gammill, a “Seinfeld” and “Simpsons” veteran who with his writing partner, Max Pross, contributed to the show. “If there’s a scene where everyone else is getting laughs, he goes: ‘I think there’s a problem with this scene. I can’t put my finger on it.’ ”
For Mr. Shandling, the offbeat opportunity came with a significant sacrifice: in 1987, he quit “The Tonight Show,” where he had been invited to share guest-hosting duties with Jay Leno, to focus full time on “Shandling’s Show.” In a tentative phone call, Mr. Shandling broke the news to his mentor, Johnny Carson, who had recently frozen out his former protégé Joan Rivers when she became his broadcast rival.
“He jokingly said, ‘Here we go again,’ ” Mr. Shandling recalled. “And I said: ‘No, Johnny, the show is on Showtime. I’m not even going on a regular network, Johnny. I promise you I am no threat of any kind.’ ”
Nonetheless, Mr. Shandling felt he needed new challenges. “I had hosted ‘The Tonight Show,’ ” he said, “but I had not explored what I could do as a writer and an actor. I thought it might limit me. I’m sure there was also fear of it.”
From its young, mostly male writing team, “Shandling’s Show” demanded long hours, nights and weekends, but in return yielded desirable credits on a series that was well regarded by critics and the entertainment industry.
There was also frustration that the program was not widely seen on Showtime, which in the 1980s lacked the prestige and the subscriber base it has now. “I can’t even begin to tell you the FedEx bill I ran up in the first year,” Mr. Zweibel said, “sending out cassettes to my friends and family in New York, just to prove to them that I was working.”
In 1988, the fledgling Fox network started running repeats of “Shandling’s Show,” but ratings were disappointing. The following season, during which Garry married a woman played by Jessica Harper, sapped the show of some of its irreverence, and its creators chose not to pursue a fifth season.
The “Shandling’s Show” writers were snapped up by programs like “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons,” where their abilities to deconstruct sitcom conventions were valuable. Working for Mr. Shandling, Mr. Pross said, “showed us how that kind of humor could work in a more traditional setting that turned out to be more successful in a mass-market way.”
Mr. Shandling, too, was inspired by a “Shandling’s Show” episode in which Garry tries to placate his angry girlfriend after joking about her in a television interview, and channeled the idea into “The Larry Sanders Show,” on which he played a neurotic, self-defeating television host.
“ ‘Larry Sanders’ was much more complicated, with many more layers of intention,” Mr. Shandling said. “Shandling’s Show,” he said, was about “pure fun and being funny, and I was content with just being funny until towards the very end when I thought, ‘What’s next?’ ”
Two decades later, Mr. Shandling has no immediate answer to that question and is even a bit melancholy about the DVD release of “Shandling’s Show,” his last major project that has not been available on home video.
“I really felt, like, wow, this is the last item of my garage sale,” Mr. Shandling said. “There are no shows left.”
He also said the occasion was “an interesting time for me to see the arc” of his career. He took it as a positive omen that while on a meditation retreat in Hawaii, during a break from working on the “Shandling’s Show” DVDs, he was contacted by the director Jon Favreau, who offered him a role in “Iron Man 2.”
While Mr. Shandling was in this retrospective mood, he was asked if he had contemplated the tradeoff he made for “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” and if he ever wondered how events might have otherwise turned out.
“Well,” he answered, and then paused. “Hold on while I call my therapist.”
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