Larry Sanders' Awkward Farewell

The New York Times has posted an extensive piece on Garry Shandling, including details of an upcoming box set called Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show, which will contain 24 episodes pulled from all six seasons of the seminal HBO series. While it's disappointing and messy to see the first season DVD followed up by a hits collection instead of further complete releases, fans can be partially consoled by Shandling's intense involvement in tricking out the four-disc collection, namely with a series of hand-held interviews with many of the show's stars and guests, including Jeffrey Tambor, Rip Torn, Jerry Seinfeld, Alec Baldwin, Jon Stewart, David Duchovny, Carol Burnett, Sharon Stone, and Tom Petty. But don't expect a lot of dull trips down memory lane... Instead, Shandling uses the tool as a peace offering for many of the actors, since he's withdrawn from social life since the end of the show and feels he owes an apology to the folks he's been ignoring. Many are former close friends he's meeting, on camera, for the first time in years, and the footage sounds strange and fascinating, from a semi-vindictive boxing match with Baldwin, to an awkward conversation with his violently estranged fiancée Linda Doucett.

There's also a new documentary on the set, which brings the total feature count to eight hours.

The Sanders Show, which followed the behind-the-scenes foibles of a late-night talk show of the same name, paved the way for single-camera, laugh-track-free comedies, and practically invented the "meta" style later seen in Curb Your Enthusiasm and Extras, allowing actors to play blown-up versions of their public image. It also launched Tambor and writer/producer Judd Apatow to new levels of notoriety.