Guess There Was Really Nothing Left To Talk About
So what made Garry Shandling decide to hang it up following six seasons of “The Larry Sanders Show,” which airs its finale tonight?
Shandling is keeping a relatively low profile amid nasty lawsuits between him and former manager Brad Grey, who claims the comedian drove writers away from the talk-show satire with his neurotic, ego-driven behavior.
“As it left (Shandling) standing alone, and he had to do so much more of the work himself, the show got better,” co-star Rip Torn told the Los Angeles Times. “But it took a big toll on him physically and emotionally.”
Co-executive producer Judd Apatow added that the end of the real-life talk-show wars between Jay Leno and David Letterman made “Sanders” less relevant. “If this wasn’t the last season, it would have been incredibly hard to come up with story lines,” he said.
Loose talk
Orson Bean, on talk host Tom Snyder’s pending retirement (in Total TV): “I’m just going to miss the fun I had shooting the bull with a guy and ignoring the fact that there might be a few million people listening. It’s something that doesn’t exist anymore, like when a bush dies in your back yard.”
You might remember him as Dave’s cabin boy
Chris Elliott turns 38 today.
Howard’s head is much bigger than his chest
A man who did a six-year prison stretch for menacing President Gerald Ford and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and once pulled a toy gun on Ronald Reagan has been arrested for making death threats against radio shock jock Howard Stern and his wife. The messages Michael Lance Carvin mailed to Stern included: “How would you feel about a bullet to the brain? With this type of head wound death is usually instantaneous … You may prefer a bullet to the chest. Usually fatal and it would offer me a larger target.”
Yes, and only two innocent lives were lost
In what may mark the beginning of the end of the bickering over O.J. Simpson, talk-show host Geraldo Rivera and Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. appeared on each other’s cable television shows this week. Said Rivera: “The fact that I’m going on his show is kind of like the Treaty of Versailles. The war is over.”
If the shoe doesn’t fit, then don’t wear it
Cochran, by the way, says he was flattered when “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David asked to base the show’s fast-talking lawyer character Jackie Chiles on him. His only complaint, Cochran added, was about the series finale: “I wouldn’t have gone to bed with one of the witnesses.”
But Herc remains the master of his domain
Getting desperate for a “Seinfeld” fix? Nearly two dozen of the show’s regulars and guest stars will provide voices for ABC’s upcoming animated Saturday-morning series “Disney’s Hercules,” including Jason Alexander (George), Wayne Knight (Newman), Jerry Stiller and Estelle Harris (George’s parents) and Patrick Warburton (Puddy).