The Larry Sanders Show - The Entire First Season

I will keep my review short...This show is absolutely GENIUS. When you are up in heaven and walk into God's living room, this is the show He'll be watching.

I missed the Larry Sanders run since I did not have his specific cable channel but I had caught snippets so this is a great package to see all his first year's shows that features a marvelous cast with the great and under appreciated stand up comic Garry Shandling who in real life filled in for Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, Rip Torn as the "balls to the wall", "get it done" director/producer and Jeffrey Tambor who plays the neurotic, suck up side kick who turns into a self centered demon if and when he has any power. Full of actual real life guest stars that have friendly to combative jousts with the insecure Sanders in front of and behind the camera. A colorful look at Hollywood, the pressures on televison shows that are slaves to ratings and the tenuous egos behind the lens. Since this was on cable, the language and some scenes are adult but that's part of the fun, the gloves are off and you see the characters as they really are, or are portrayed.

The 'Larry Sanders Show', an adult satire and sitcom about a fictional TV tonight show is a gem. There are no belly laughs but lots of wry humour. The boxed set has excellent video reproduction values and, as an extra, an interview with Gary himself looking back on the show. This series is the classic television of our era and will be studied by future generations of audiovisual cultural historians. Beat them to it. Watch and enjoy today.

Great TV show! 13 episodes isn't enough. Give me more!
DVD extras are given short shrift, here. There is a mock interview that is informative in some respects. Shandling mentions how the first episode produced was the last episode aired that season. Watching it as the last episode in the dvd set, it *feels* like a first episode.

All the episodes together make more sense to me when viewed in production sequence. Dunno why the makers of the dvd didn't lay it out that way. A dvd release isn't the same animal as a TV broadcast season that had an eye on ratings.

Here's the Season One production sequence, if you want it.
The broadcast sequence numbers lead each listing.

The Larry Sanders Show - Season 1
Production Code Sequence

13. The Hey Now Episode - Production Code: 101
6. The Flirt Episode - Production Code: 102
11. The Warmth Episode - Production Code: 103
1. What Have You Done for Me Lately? - Production Code: 104
2. The Promise - Production Code: 105
3. The Spider Episode - Production Code: 106
8. Out of the Loop - Production Code: 107
10. Party - Production Code: 108
4. Guest Host - Production Code: 109
12. A Brush with the Elbow of Greatness - Production Code: 110
5. The New Producer - Production Code: 111
7. Hank's Contract - Production Code: 112
9. Talk Show - Production Code: 113

What can I say? If you've ever seen The Larry Sanders Show, you know what you're getting into. If your only doubt was whether it took a while to find its feet, don't worry - it didn't. The very first episode is the classic What Have You Done For Me Lately? featuring Larry's discomfort doing live commercials. Other stand-outs include The New Producer and The Hey Now Episode - where Hank falls asleep during the show.

If you've never seen the show, this is an extremely black satire on US talk-shows. Each episode has two separate components, the talk-show part (filmed before a live studio audience) which is completely believable as a late-night talk show à la Letterman or Leno, and the back-stage set of the show complete with bitching, back-biting, some of the most ferocious language you'll hear on TV, and a whole host of celebrities queuing up to play extremely twiseted versions of thelselves. Some guest stars in this series are Robin Williams, George Foreman, Billy Crystal and Bob Saget.

If you read down as far as here, you're obviously interested, so do yourself a favour and buy this. You won't regret it.