‘Sanders’ Episodes Mirror Real Life
There’s TV, there’s real life, and there’s “The Larry Sanders Show,” where the lines between get awfully blurry.
One of the story lines for the comedy series’ fifth-season premiere tonight at 10 on HBO offers a perfect example:
The fictional network that carries the fictional late-night talk show of the fictional Larry Sanders appears to be grooming Jon Stewart to replace him. Star and executive producer Garry Shandling plays Sanders, but Stewart appears as himself.
And the plot is a direct echo of recent TV-industry rumblings, denied by all parties, that CBS and David Letterman are grooming Stewart to replace Tom Snyder as host of the Letterman-owned “Late, Late Show.”
Shandling said that the echoes are no accident: “I looked at Jon Stewart’s deal with Worldwide Pants (Letterman’s company),” he said, “and I thought it was very realistic that Larry would feel threatened by him, because I think he’s really a contemporary kind of viable candidate to be a talk-show host.”
Another episode, still being edited, may be hurried onto the air to take advantage of even more recent events, Shandling said.
“We just did an episode with Ellen DeGeneres where Larry is hopeful that she will come on the talk show and talk about her sexual controversy. And he ends up going to dinner with Ellen, and then,” Shandling said coyly, “he ends up doing something else with Ellen. I’m going to try to move it up in the schedule, make it the third or fourth episode, at the very end of November or early in December.”
Other story lines on tap:
Larry’s friendship with David Duchovny becomes strained when Larry senses that his pal has a crush on him. Shandling said Duchovny suggested the story while the two were playing basketball.
Larry gets involved in a highly publicized romance with a high-profile TV or movie actress (Shandling won’t say whom).
A female comedy writer raises hell when Larry’s sexist head writer, Phil (played by Wallace Langham), won’t submit her jokes to Larry.
Larry and guest Ben Stiller get into a screaming match backstage when Stiller learns that Larry got him removed from People magazine’s sexiest-people list so Larry could get on it.
One booking Shandling hasn’t managed to pull off yet is the Big Enchilada. “I’d really like to have Johnny Carson on before I finish this series, whenever that is,” Shandling said.
“You know what I’ve been watching and really loving, and I get almost emotional about it? The Carson reruns on the Family Channel.
“You realize how truly great Johnny Carson is and how great that show was, because Johnny never forced anything. He’s just such a natural.”
“Larry Sanders” is taking advantage of other veteran talent this season, including Don Rickles, Tom Poston and Tim Conway, Shandling said.
“I am just a fan of funny people. People shouldn’t forget how funny these men really are in the context of our contemporary comedians,” Shandling said. “These guys deserve to be recognized. I wouldn’t hesitate, if I was creating television, to put any of these men in a television show. Because it’s like a talented athlete; you just need to put them in the right place and build around them.”