Other than the first season, this is all Sony will provide of The Larry Sanders Show on DVD which is very frustrating. In addition to repeating three of the first season episodes, it’s also heavy on the last season. Rumors abound on it being Sony’s fault because the past sets’ sales were poor or Garry Shandling’s reluctance to release the rest.
Despite the can’t-be-confirmed gripes, what is on this four-disc set is comedy gold. This is the show Judd Apatow and Jon Stewart honed their current talents on and it rejuvenated the careers of Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor by remolding them into funny supporting characters. I remember wanting to spend the money on HBO in the Nineties just to see this because it took the chances no network sitcom would, including the more risque Fox. HBO and Showtime had past attempts with Brothers and Dream On but those were annoying, especially the latter on how it relied on old TV clips and bare breasts to cover up its lameness. What Garry and his crew did instead was make a modern, cable version of he Dick Van Dyke Show and pushed it further, especially with the actual celebrities playing themselves. Well, probably not their true selves, more like caricatures and/or how we’d expect them to behave when interacting with the vain, insecure Larry, his scheming sidekick Hank Kingsley, his gruff producer Artie and neurotic staff.
Several that I remember seeing on cable the first time are present: Alec Baldwin doing the show which starts an argument between Larry and his first wife/current girlfriend; Jon Stewart’s first attempt to host the show which never airs thanks to him not taking Artie’s advice; and David Letterman telling Larry he has hired Tom Snyder to follow his new show on CBS (truth can be stranger than fiction). There were others I’d heard about from friends but I never saw until these DVDs: Hank’s sex tape, Larry dating Sharon Stone but gets jealous over her having a better table at a White House Dinner, Carol Burnett’s disastrous appearance involving tarantulas and David Duchovny’s possible homosexual advances on Larry.
There are additional features, mainly low-tech interviews conducted by Garry with the key supporting players, many of whom thank this show for elevating their careers: Wallace Langham, Janeane Garofalo, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Scott Thompson, Sarah Silverman, Penny Johnson, Jeremy Piven and Bob Odenkirk. He even got Alec Baldwin to come back to box with him and discuss doing the show. This doesn’t work as well as expected yet I have to applaud Garry for trying something different. The bigger surprise was Linda Doucett being interviewed by Garry; they were a couple, broke up between the second and third seasons, then it turned nasty because she sued him along with the producers. I’ve read they’re on amiable terms; she appeared in the last episode with Jeremy Piven too. The standard DVD-set elements are present: deleted scenes, the making of the show (Garry’s career before then) and commentaries.
Not Just is a good starter kit for those who missed out on Larry Sanders when it originally ran from 1992-1998 on HBO.
- It reveals where Judd Apatow’s directing and producing style originated.
- It vindicated Jon Stewart enough to make him a worthy successor to Craig Kilbourn on The Daily Show (his past talk shows were awful until this).
- Lastly, the show’s sense of humor also borrowed from and contributed back to The Simpsons via the involvement of writer Jon Vitti and director David Mirkin.
The negative side effects set in shortly after watching this four-disc set. If you were already a fan or converted, you really want to know what happened between these key episodes:
- Why did Larry’s second wife leave?
- When and how did Phil become the head writer?
- When did the network turn on Larry?
- When did Hank get married?
- When did Steve become Larry’s agent?
- Why did Paula leave?
- So on.
Sadly, these aren’t necessarily throwaway subplots, many are key arcs vital to explaining how the events of the last two seasons came to fruition; Larry went from being vital to the network’s evening programming to a liability it couldn’t wait to replace with Jon Stewart.
The other detrimental factor is how dated this program appears:
- The fuss over Ellen DeGeneres publicly discussing her sexual orientation.
- Jay Leno’s takeover of The Tonight Show.
- Brett Butler’s drug problems.
- Jim Carrey’s sudden stardom.
Those references may take a bit of memory jogging to recall why they were a big deal.
Still, until Sony releases Seasons Two through Six, this is what everyone has to be satisfied with. Hopefully it won’t lead to some self-fulfilling prophecy of doom preventing further sets. I’m optimistic the rest will appear eventually. Why? If the short-lived Square Pegs and obscure Weird Science sitcoms have been digitized, Larry Sanders is inevitable in my opinion.