In ‘The Larry Sanders Show,’ Larry, Garry and the Audience Made a Comic Love Triangle

  • 7 December 2016
  • podcast

The first thing you hear in “The Larry Sanders Show” is Hank Kingsley (Jeffrey Tambor), the sidekick to the late-night host Larry Sanders (Garry Shandling), preparing the members of the studio audience of the show within the show. The host, he tells them, needs their help — their applause, their affirmation. “The better you are,” he says, “the better Larry is.”

How Garry Shandling (and Larry Sanders) Changed TV

  • 7 December 2016
  • podcast

Long before Tony Soprano, Carrie Bradshaw or the fictional version of Larry David, HBO had Larry Sanders.

As the hilarious but self-centered late-night talk show host, Larry Sanders, Garry Shandling provided HBO with its first great series, The Larry Sanders Show, and set HBO on its top-shelf series path, which eventually led to shows like The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Deadwood and The Wire. 

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