Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

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In 1992, well before The Sopranos and Six Feet Under, this backstage, behind-the-cameras, showbiz comedy established HBO as the destination for cutting-edge programming. Comedian Garry Shandling mines his real-life experience as Johnny Carson's longtime Tonight Show guest host to star as fictional late-night talk show host Larry Sanders. Navigating his way between bottom-line network execs, egomaniacal guests, trifling staff members and a stream of eligible actresses, the insecure and eager-to-please Larry still manages to make his audience laugh. The show's once-in-a-lifetime ensemble cast includes Rip Torn as Larry's salty, blustery producer Artie and Arrested Development's Jeffrey Tambor as putzy sidekick Hank "Hey, Now!" Kingsley. The series, which ran for six seasons from 1992 to 1998, launched the careers of Jeremy Piven as a womanizing head writer, Sarah Silverman as a balls-out assistant writer who holds her own in the writers room, Janeane Garofalo as the thoroughly unimpressed celebrity pre-interviewer and 24's Mary Lynn Rajskub as her inept protégé.

A parade of Hollywood heavyweights -- Sharon Stone, Alec Baldwin, Jon Stewart, Dave Chappelle, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey -- comes on The Larry Sanders Show to lampoon their public personas. Especially memorable is Ellen DeGeneres, who dispels the lesbian rumors swirling around her at the time by bedding Larry in a 1996 episode titled "Ellen, or Isn't She?," airing months before she actually came out of the closet. Season one's "The Spider Episode," in which comedy legend Carol Burnett awkwardly informs Larry she saw his balls under his Tarzan costume, may contain one of the funniest moments in modern television history. A decade before Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office, this groundbreaking series earned a cult following and paved the way for a new generation of seemingly improvised comedies.

Garry Shandling redefines the possibilities of DVD on this four-disc compilation that bundles 23 of the series' 89 episodes. In eight hours of new footage dispersed evenly among the episodes, the cast and creative team -- including director Todd Holland (Malcolm in the Middle) and writer Peter Tolan (Rescue Me) -- testify as to how the show strived to capture "real moments" in its artificial showbiz environment. Fitting with the real-ness theme, episode audio commentaries are preceded by video of the narrators wearing headphones, squeezing into the sound studio chairs for their recording sessions and interacting with one another before the tape rolls. The backbone of the DVD set is Shandling's raw, unedited, 15- to 20-minute interviews with the show's most memorable guests, packaged as "Intimate, Personal, Indulgent Visits With My Friends That Are Meant for Only Me to See." These are real moments indeed. With few exceptions, they begin self-consciously with the stars being miked by a soundman as they try to figure out what's going on. Once a comfort level is established with Shandling, the interviewees get remarkably candid. In an L.A. boxing ring, Shandling and Alec Baldwin physically spar and trade verbal jabs about power and fear on the set. And during a walk through a New York City park, Shandling and Jerry Seinfeld volley about language and theories of humor, giving fascinating insight to the usually guarded comedians. How Shandling selected the 23 episodes to bundle here is not adequately established. Suffice it to say, it whets the appetite for the remaining 66.

by Rob. Walton