Die Larry Sanders Show

Avant-garde and iconic in many ways, the Larry sanders show paved the way for later tv comedies like The Office, 30 rock, etc.

The show is about... well, a show. The viewer get a behind the scenes look into show business and the world of Hollywood in the 90s. It's very topical due to the nature of it being a talk show using real guests, but it only ads to the realness of it.

Not quite a mockumentary (the 4th wall is never broken) and seemingly mostly scripted with streaks of improv and natural, overlapping dialogue, the writing at times comes off as intentionally 'regular' before being unexpectedly whipped in a direction of authenticity and cynicism.

The show is mostly carried by the characters of Larry sanders (Gary shandling), Arty the producer (Rip Torn) and Hank Kingsley (Jeffrey tambor) as well as a talented and funny supporting cast.

Hank Kingsley may be the funniest TV character in all of television... And I mean that as no exaggeration. I have never laughed out loud at a singular character more than any other. Out of all the characters he somehow feels the most real, and is somehow so likable despite being such a despicable person. A legendary performance by Jeffrey tambor.

This show is a must see for any comedy aficionado.

The comedy is on point 90% of the time. The characters are believably insane. The stories are understandable and to the point. The series maintains it's quality (albeit it does get kind of dark in the last season or two). Really a fun watch for the incompetence and insecurities on display. Easy to watch as a main focus and passable for background (you will miss much of the performance, there are a surprisingly large amount of site gags). Recommend to really anyone.

This was a smart,funny and very cynical show that showed Hollywood behind and in front of the cameras. This show may have been about Larry, but some of its funniest moments were all about Hank. Hank Kingsley was one of the most hysterically funny characters in TV history. Hank had such an underlying sense of poignancy and humanity that you had to feel bad for him. One of my favorite scenes from the series is when Artie put Hank into a headlock to keep him from speaking at Larry's roast. Hank actually sat back down at the roast after the headlock as if nothing had happened - imagine the low self worth the man must have had to not just storm out of the banquet hall. Another funny episode is where Hank insists on having Phil write up a script for "Hank's Hot Potato," a backwards, confusing game of Hot Potato. After Phil writes something that includes the audience shouting out a profanity at Hank, all Hank can do is comment on the fact that the audience wasn't supposed to have a line. My favorite episode has to be the one with "Hank's Look Around Restaurant". The tables moved around so you have a different view every few minutes. Everyone knew it was a bad idea, but Hank wanted it so badly. When Larry is eating there, the tables creak and wobble and the glasses tip over...it kills me every time. To quote Artie, "That's great television, my friend." And of course, Rip Torn was superb as Artie, the producer whose years of experience in Tinseltown had made him bitter, over-aggressive, disenchanted to the point of being total sullen, and perhaps more realistic than anyone else in that environment.

Also, as an aside, if you buy the entire series don't let season one throw you. The characters struggle trying to find themselves, and Larry is even married during that first season, still I'd highly recommend the entire series as quite hilarious.

The Larry Sanders show was the best, nastiest, and funniest comedy program on either side of the Atlantic during the 1990s. Filmed without a laughter track, it features Garry Shandling as TV talk show host Larry Sanders (motto: "No flipping!"), who we follow on and off camera.

On camera, the Larry Sanders Show is slick, professional, and vacant, as celebrities appear pretending to be best of friends with Larry and delighted to be on the show when all they're really doing is plugging their latest product and when everyone in the paranoid entertainment industry actively hates everybody else. Exactly like real talk shows, in fact. As a parody, Larry Sanders is extremely subtle, aided by the fact that many A-list celebs from real life appear, showing a surprising willingness to send themselves up (David Duchovny, for example, features in one episode where the main storyline centres on his crush on Larry!). It's bad, but not obviously: you can really imagine it on air (in sharp contrast to Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge, who in real life would never make it even to hospital radio).

But the funniest material comes backstage. The leading characters (Larry, his loser sidekick Hank, and his alternately tough-talking and sycophantic producer Artie) are all so horrible, the main joke is basically that everyone continually behaves in a manner both in character, and yet also worse than you could possibly expect. The sheer unpleasantness of these individuals is jaw-dropping... you continually wonder "did he really just say that?" Hank, for example, after his agent has been hospitalised and he hasn't been allowed to visit, comments: "It's so unfair! I mean so much to him!" then immediately starts phoning potential successors. The character of Hank is perhaps the best of all, his role on the show is to appear talentless and genial alongside Larry, a role he fulfills with partial success because he is naturally talentless but not in the least genial! But all the cast (including many regulars) are wonderfully portrayed, Shandling is great but at the end of each brief episode you almost wish you had seen more of the others... in fact this is probably just another sign of the show's strength, instead of wheeling out our favourites each week for a familiar laugh, this show is always looking for fresh ways to make us uncomfortable.

In some ways this is a very un-American program (there's not an ounce of sentiment, or a hint of redemption for its characters). In the UK, Peter Kay's "Phoenix Nights" is perhaps the closest thing to a successor. But the Larry Sanders show remains a major loss from the late-night schedules.

The Larry Sanders show may be the finest American television show. The comedy always has the perfect precision and they take such great care to small details. In one episode, Larry visits Hank's office, which he rarely does, and Hank puts his jacket on to try to look his best, that's the level of detail you don't see in most crap sitcoms. No American show since has held no punches and has been so bitterly cynical yet hilarious.

The three main actors really make the show. Garry Shandling as the good natured but selfish and cowardly Larry Sanders really plays the perfect vain talk show host. Jeffrey Tambor as Hank Kingsley really fleshes out the talentless asshole sidekick who you still root for, similar to George Costanza. Rip Torn masterfully portrays the over the top obsequious producer with a dark streak. The simple pleasure of seeing these three men interact is entertaining enough on its own.

The show is actually based on talk shows, you see all the politics and show biz phoniness unvarnished. The ugliness and hypocrisy in Hollywood will really surprise the uninitiated viewer. One wonders how much of Larry was in Johnny Carson and how much of Hank was in Ed McMahon.

This show is a true gem that is not nearly as popular as it should be since it doesn't pander. Any fan of intelligent programming owes it to himself to watch this.