back when a SAT DISH meant something in the neighbourhood.

I love the Larry Sanders show. Have watched it many times. I guess Artie is probably my favorite character. My favorite scene is towards the end of The 14th Floor (Season 3, Episode 14) when Artie gets drunk during lunch and confronts Larry about not apologizing on air to the network. The look on Larry's face when Artie tells him, if he doesn't apologize, he, Artie, will get fired. You can see on Larry's face how it finally sinks in that it's not just about him. (And it's a hilarious episode, like when they bring out the kid to pretend he's the network executive, wearing the same type of suit.). Larry then does the apology on air. Anyone else remember this scene, or have another favorite Artie moment?

Can't help but think of he parallels. Larry was tired of all the network bullshit and pulled the plug. Stephen's network gets bought out by a nut ( the Australian beer nut episode) and they make up lies to cancel the show. The Ellisons aren't Australian but they are nuts.

Is Stephen gonna have a song sung to him to close out the night? Hopefully it will be a woman because as Bruno Kirby said after he got bumped, "a man singin' to another man? How fuckin' sick is that?"

I just hope Stephen takes a page outta the show and torches CBS on the way out. No need to apologize like Hank had to do either.

Anyone know if Garry and Stephen had any dealings with each other? I was so hoping Colbert would revive Colbert Report for the last gasp of trumps final burn down of the country.

I just got done bingeing on all the seasons again, now that I own them on Fandango, after doing so about 16 years ago when I had Netflix.  And I have a few questions.

Hippie Hair

Any idea why they pulled the 'Hippie Hair' Larry in Nehru jacket from the 'live' show intro in season 4 or 5?  Here's the original, but this snippet is pulled from later season intros.

https://youtu.be/ZGF5HWM_bRk?si=p35ceSL4zR4r5XZj&t=58

Last Night's Audience

During the monologue Larry frequently references how bad the previous night's audience was.  It's done so often I was curious if it was a reference/inside joke or something, as I wouldn't think a host would normally be negative that frequently toward their guests, past or present.

Jon Stewart - Creative Consultant

I see him listed as 'Creative Consultant' in the later seasons, and I'm wondering what in Stewart's career at that point got him that gig?  Where Shandling et al needed him as a 'creative consultant'.  He wasn't yet hosting the Daily Show, where his prominence really took off.

Had to share Wikipedia's 🌎 global list of: Revolving Restaurants!

Link

Fun for the whole family!

I was legitimately looking up a historical restaurant in my city earlier, because it was one of these top-of-a-local-skyscraper restaurants and known for an incredible panoramic view. Before my time. I always vaguely had the impression that it rotated, but I was wrong. Maybe it was just people talking about the 360° view that confused me.

Anyway, be sure to BOOKMARK THIS 🚨 for future queries about revolving restaurants! As usual, Hank got short shrift and there is no mention of the Look Around Cafe (nor the Look Round). One detail that did stick with me is that the height of the popularity of this feature was 1960s to 1980s. Aw Hank. 🍽️

I'm a self employed educator who mostly does training workshops for private companies.

I'm also a television and comedy fan and I pull a lot of relevant ideas and informations and scenarios from those areas, including The Larry Sanders Show.

I'm working on a series about Artie as a manager and how he embodies and practices a lot of leadership principles that I think are admirable, effective, and needed today.

I'm talking things like his insistence on professionalism, his development of the next generation of leaders (the way he brings Paula up as a producer, mentors people like Doreen 1:1 behind the scenes even though they dont report to him, tailoring his methods situationally, etc.

I attached an example of a wonderful Artie exchange with Larry. When I first heard this dialogue, I was like "'Oh wow, that's what it sounds like in my head when I try to do positive self talk."

And in some ways, I could argue strongly that both Artie and Larry are correct in their statements here.

Artie is philosophically "right" but Larry is also "right" because he knows he doesn't share Hank's ability to like himself (at least not yet) and therefore he is indeed "fucked" (at least for now).

Thought fans on this sub might appreciate an occasional post as I identify and start noodling around with this concept. Thanks!

I wouldn't post every Larry Sanders actor's birthday I see online, never done a birthday post actually, but that being said, I saw this online at r/the1980s, and wanted to share because she's lovely. She was notably an NBC leading lady in the '90s, in an ensemble of four SISTERS, but did not achieve household-name status like some NBC contemporaries did.

Of note to Larry Sanders fans:

* Julianne was the one that Larry reached out to at the end of the Sharon Stone episode (at the elevator), in hopes that he could reestablish his manhood by being a bigger celebrity than she.

* Also, the great John Ritter appeared in two memorable episodes of Larry Sanders. In one, he has an exchange with Gene Siskel off-camera about his film 🎬 SKIN DEEP (1989). I did not realize that Julianne was one of his co-stars. Actually one of the movie posters features Ritter with seven different women, yowza! I'm prioritizing this in my Must-See list. ⭐

Note: No relation to the Papa Phillips family (John, Michelle, Mackenzie, Chynna, Bijou, etc.).

Sometimes when I feel screwed by something I quote this with a russian accent and it puts a smile on my face 😂

Is the shout factory set significantly different from the Mill Creek one in terms of quality? Just found a mint used copy for very cheap and ordered because the cheap one is very unsatisfactory to me. Even if it isn’t significantly different, I know the bonus features will be worth it. I’ve heard some good things about them.

Great episode. Again the show was prescient in the artists they booked for the show. Rock Hall of Fame class of 2026. That episode had it all. Jon Stewart hosting and Hank getting his street cred lined up, and Melanie , from the Network, hearing "motherfucker and pussy" during the sound check from the clan.

And YES, RRHOF as an instutution?..... as corrupt and pandering as you can find. Nothing more cringe than senior citizen rap artists.

I've only recently finished binging this show for the first time. Took me about three weeks to finish the whole thing.

Initially I didn't know what to make of it. I was constantly asking myself what the right words to describe it were. Rough around the edges, to be sure. A little experimental maybe - it seemed to be missing a bit of structure generally speaking. Confusing at times. But while all of these things seemed factually true to me, it never felt like they captured the essence of this show.

As I was watching, especially at the beginning but even towards the end, I was sure I wouldn't ever watch this show again. But it was so weird to me that the moment it ended, I found myself missing it instantly. And I think that's when it clicked to me that the defining quality of this show is genuineness. Everything in it feels very real, and this imbues it with a sense of immersiveness that feels a bit strange for a sitcom.

In the wake of it I found myself reading a lot about Gary Shandling the person. The more I learned about him, the more it made sense that a guy like that made a show like that. I really can't wait to watch Judd Apatow's documentary about him.

If MOD could get the POLL working , could be interesting to get a APRIL MADNESS bracket going to give fans to the chance come up with the No. 1 episode .

Couldn’t have been HBO right? Because they always bleeped the guests whenever they sweared.

It seemed to me like he was a bit of an outsider.

Obviously, his show rarely got any Emmy love. Instead of doing a real talk show like his peers, he did a parody of one, and exposed some of showbusiness's bad habits in a way no other show had ever done.

When he died, I was shocked. He died way too soon. And his tributes were remarkably short and matter-of-fact, compared to other well-known comedians who died within the last 15 or so years, who had much bigger fanfare and media attention.

I know he had a lot of friends, and even got a cartoon voice role and a role in a Marvel flick. So it's not like he was unknown. And yet, TLSS is the only thing people really have to remember him by. It's both a tribute to Garry, and a low-blow, the fact that Tina Fey and Seth Rogen got more attention for rebooting the fake talk show format when they did, with such...minimal effort in comparison. I'm pretty sure he also ushered in a lot of the mockumentary craze of the 2000s. He created brilliant art at a time when hardly anyone understood what he was going for. But eventually they got it. And...we don't really remember him enough.

Garry was ahead of his time for sure, and had a zen-like quality to his worldview, and a cynical yet avuncular wit to his comedy. He's one of the few celebrities I actually miss.

Went through all 90 episodes over the past couple of months - my second full chronological run through the series, about 8 or 9 years after my first.

Unfortunately, pretty much nobody I know has seen this show, probably because it ended before my 1st birthday. So, my thinking is that I may as well write my thoughts out on this subreddit, partly because I'm hoping others will share their agreement or disagreement with what I say (and I'm sure some of my takes will be controversial if anyone actually reads them), but mostly just because I want to write them out somewhere.

• People often say that this show never had a bad episode, and was perfect from start-to-finish. I might agree with the first statement, but definitely don't think the second statement is true. Season 1 in particular is MILES below the rest of the series. I actually went back and rewatched a few S1 episodes after the finale to see if my feelings changed at all but no, the show was actually quite rough around the edges early on. Main reasons I can articulate are:

1. The pacing is really awkward at first. If you look at HBO Max/Amazon Prime, you can see that S1 has the longest average runtime by FAR with more than half the episodes going 25+ minutes. I've read interviews where cast members said Garry often cut out a LOT of scenes after filming (there's a crazy Rip Torn story directly related to this), which makes me believe he quickly realized that shorter episodes resulted in snappier comedy.
2. A lot of character's personalities clearly hadn't been fully realized yet. In fact, the only character that feels fully formed out the gate is Hank.
3. There's too much screentime dedicated to showing the fake talk show early on. I'm unsure whether the show was meant to be hacky in-universe or not - I choose to believe it was, but self-awareness doesn't change the fact that these are almost universally the worst parts of every episode.
4. All the stuff with Jeannie is a comedic black hole. I don't blame Megan Gallagher for this, I think she did the best she could with the scripts she received. And her return episode in S4 is actually GREAT, possibly one of my favorites that season and a clear demonstration of how much the show had improved by that point.

• S2 is a pretty huge jump in quality that fixes pretty much every issue with S1 I just listed, but compared to S3-S6 I still think it's somewhat inconsistent and has far less laughs overall. There are some all-timers for sure (The Grand Opening, Hankerciser 200, Off Camera) but it wasn't until S3 that I found myself laughing at every episode at least once. The show was always at least watchable, but I can't say it was consistently funny until the end of this season, though once you get to Hank's Wedding the remainder of the series is banger-after-banger.

• I can't tell if I'm supposed to root for Larry or pray for his downfall, but I found him to be deeply unlikeable most of the time. Hank is obviously meant to be unlikeable, but Tambor adds a huge amount of pathos to the character with his performance. Pretty much every time Hank acts like an asshole, you can feel the insecurity and self-loathing driving his behavior which almost makes you sympathize with him. Whenever Larry's at his worst though, he just comes across as a whiny, cowardly bitch and it often feels like the millionaire king shitting on the poors who serve him, so to speak.

• Mary Lou and Brian were WAY better utilized than Paula and Darlene. I like Janeane Garofalo's comedy and she was great here whenever they gave her enough to do, but most of the time she didn't get enough lines or screentime to leave much of an impact.

• The show has aged incredibly well for the most part, but the stuff that aged poorly aged REALLY poorly. There's quite a bit of casual racism and sexism that, while never enough to outright lessen my enjoyment, definitely comes across as extremely jarring today, and moments like everybody watching Hank's sex tape that Phil stole (note: I said that it's never enough to outright lessen my enjoyment - this is literally my favorite episode but definitely feels a lot more fucked up from a modern perspective), Larry banging an 18 year old intern, and Larry banging literally every female main character stick out like a sore thumb. Making this a bit more complex is that there are moments where the writers seem to be critiquing those mindsets, and those have aged great! For example, there's a fuckton of lame Asian jokes that make me roll my eyes (speaking as an Asian myself), but one of the funniest bits in the whole series comes from S4E10 (Conflict of Interest) when the network execs are telling Larry that his recurring bit featuring the Chinese restaurant owner is offensive and suggest that he stop airing it, ending with:

And if I don't?

Well, then you'll have a lot of screaming Japs picketing outside the studio.

Screaming Asian-Americans.

• Top 10 episodes: Hank's Sex Tape #1, then in no order Adolf Hankler, Hank's Night In The Sun, My Name Is Asher Kingsley, Make A Wish, The Grand Opening, Beverly and the Prop Job, Arthur After Hours, Next Stop Bottom, Where is the Love (one last hot take for the road: I don't understand why the finale is often considered one of the best or even THE best episode. I enjoyed it but I would put it below most of S4, S5 and S6)