RIP Garry Shandling

RIP Garry Shandling, 1949-2016

I grew up with Garry Shandling on TV—weird, enigmatic even—dry, sure—watching him when I was too young to get what he was doing. But he stuck out more than others to me when I’d watch Carson late at night with my grandmother. And then watching It’s Garry Shandling’s Show on Fox sometimes, with my parents: it was like Newhart (and Bob Newhart’s stuff in general)—I didn’t quite get it (yet), but I wanted to get it. It wasn’t dumb—and when it was dumb, it was dumb in a smart way.

And then came The Larry Sanders Show. I was, what, 13? 12? HBO wasn’t really HBO yet—sure, it had The Kids in the Hall, Tales from the Crypt, *ahem* Real Sex, and the largely forgotten Dream On—but it’s hard to imagine contemporary laugh-trackless-meta shows without The Larry Sanders Show.

Saying The Larry Sanders Show was ahead of its time is an understatement. Sure, it had its progenitors (Albert Brooks’s Real Life comes to mind—hell, The Muppet Show too)—but The Larry Sanders Show somehow synthesized its parts as both a show about a show, but also, like, a show. The late-night show on The Larry Sanders Show (uh, The Larry Sanders Show) was very very funny.

The writers’ room segments (and all the showbiz backstage stuff) were/are hilarious too; The Larry Sanders Show is the obvious progenitor of not just 30 Rock, but any number of dry, deadpan shows that purport to look behind the scenes (Veep comes quickly to mind, as do Curb Your Enthusiasm and Arrested Development).

The Larry Sanders Show was so overloaded with talent that I’m not going to bother listing all the names. Suffice to say that the show was basically a starting point, or at least an early stomping ground, for a large number of Gen X comedians and actors. Shandling was great at letting other people be funny, even as his character Sanders expressed deep anxieties over being replaced by the younger, hipper Jon Stewart. In a sense, Shandling was a Boomer bridge between a style of comedy he had grown up with and been influenced by, like Johnny Carson’s reserved irony, and the new (but not new) irony of Generation X.

And while Shandling let the Gen Xers have their time on his show, perhaps the funniest stuff on the show came from its more senior cast members. God bless, Artie; God bless Hank.

Garry Shandling was fucking funny and I’ll miss the guy. I follow(ed?) him on Twitter and he was tweeting just a few days ago. I think his legacy and influence on contemporary television can’t be underappreciated.