The Good

This is a great, innovative show that has been an inspiration for many shows that followed.

The Bad

Some of the features are put on this DVD in a way that could be seen as confusing.

Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show features 23 episodes from this faux talk show that inspired such present day favorites as Arrested Development and The Office. Gary Shandling plays Larry Sanders, a talk show host who seems to have an undue amount of calamities befall him. His sidekick Hank Kingsley is played by Jeffrey Tambor. Hank always seems to be trying to get out from under Gary's shadow but he never does anything that really gets him into that position. Rip Torn plays Artie, Larry's producer and the man who often deals with people in ways that Larry can't. Admidst this are a steady stream of solid supporting players, but as anybody who has watched this show will tell you, these guys are the core of this show.

Some of the episodes that make up this set are "The Spiders Episode" which sees Larry pulled greatly out of his comfort zone as he tries to outdo Carol Burnett with some tarantulas. "Hanks Night In the Sun" is a hilarious episode that sees Larry laid up sick so Hank has to take over the show. As expected, nothing really goes Hank's way. "Adolf Hankler" gives us John Stewart filling in for Larry only Stewart has problems with a skit he insists on doing about Adolf Hitler. Lastly, "Flip Parts I & II" gives us Larry getting ready for his final show. Filled with a legion of name actors, Larry seems to go out exactly how he came in.

Features

Audio Commentary Tracks

Four episodes in this set have commentary tracks. They are "What Have You Done For Me Lately?," "Hank's Night In The Sun," "Putting the 'Gay' Back In Litigation" and "Flip Parts I & II." I listened to the commentary for the "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" episode. This featured Shandling and show writer Peter Tolan. This track began with video footage of Shandling and Tolan sitting down to discuss this show. They frankly admit up front that they don't remember much. So they spend a good portion of this track making fun of the episode, making fun of the actors in the episode, but also manage to pull out some production anecdotes here and there. When I get more time, I look forward to going and being able to watch some of the commentary's on the aforementioned episodes.

Interviews

Interviews are aplenty on this release but rather than list them all out I will list who is on some of them. We get Jeremy Piven, Sarah Silverman, Bob Odenkirk and others as they recount doing this show. They talk about their characters, the material, working with Gary Shandling and the rest of the cast, but more than anything else, it seems like these guys knew how special it was to do this show. Sometimes I thought Jeremy Piven tried to be a little too comical, but for the most part these people realize that they are here to talk about The Larry Sanders Show and as such we see them being very reverential.

Deleted Scenes

Personal Visits

This DVD seems like a true Gary Shandling creation. I have never seen such featurettes that do what these do here. These Personal Visits are a great example because there are a bunch of them on here with the likes of Jon Stewart, Alec Baldwin, Ellen DeGeneres, Jerry Seinfeld, Tom Petty, etc... These aren't quick stops either. For example, lets look at when Shandling visits with Alec Baldwin. These two talk as they are both lacing up to have a sparring session in a boxing ring. Nothing has really been set up and one might think that these guys always do this. They talk about working on the show together, but more than anything they really seem to pound one another (as much as celebrities can) at the 18th Street Gym where this has been shot. Definitely check these things out.

Feature Length Documentary

Broken up into three parts we begin with the familiar face of Greg Kinnear talking about this show. Going all the way back to beginning, we find out how The Larry Sanders Show was one of the building blocks to help HBO programming get recognized. Ricky Gervais is seen talking about how this show inspired The Office, and how in many ways it showed the future of where comedic television could go. We find out about Garry Shandling's life, how he got recognized on Johnny Carson, and then the inner-workings of The Larry Sanders Show are broken down. Amidst a bevy of original content specific to this DVD (8 hours of extras to be exact), this Feature Length Documentary manages to loom very large.

Video

1.33:1 - Full Screen. These shows didn't look as good as I remember them. In fact, they seemed really dark for some reason. The blacks and blues seem to have spread out on to the rest of the picture and things seemed almost muddy. There was almost nothing about the images here that stood out. They weren't concentrated, strong and clean like I have come to expect from so many release. I was also surprised because this is yet another show from Sony that seems like it got distorted in some way by the compression process. You know you're in trouble when the Special Features look better than the the main content on the discs.

Audio

Dolby Digital. Language - English (Dolby Surround). Subtitled in Spanish. Close Captioned. The audio on this show was good but, as I recall, there really hasn't ever needed to be anything that special about it. Not employing a laugh track could seem like a big gamble because if this show didn't work how would they know? Sony seems to have done a decent enough job leveling these DVDs but I guess I wish the presentation of the episodes themselves was better.

Package

Larry Sanders sits against a white background with his face in his hand as he holds a of picture himself with Jeffrey Tambor and Rip Torn. The back cover continues to utilize this white background, but it gives us another shot of Torn, Shandling and Tambor. It doesn't even list out what this show is about. They merely go into all the supplemental content and list the celebrities that appear in it. The four discs are housed in two slim cases, each featuring a different shot of Gary Shandling. The back of each case gives us episode listings, descriptions and where to find the requisite extra features. All in all, this set is a lot of fun in every facet.

Final Word

"Hey now!"

Anybody who has watched The Larry Sanders Show knows how good it is. What I find is that when we're asked to explain why it's so good, we often can't come up with reasons that are as sufficient as we'd like them to be. So I am going to try, as best I can, to delve into that a little bit.

For fans of uncomfortable pauses, shows that don't have laugh tracks (or a studio audience), and deadpan delivery, than Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show is for you. While I certainly see Curb Your Enthusiasm as a distant cousin to this show, I really believe that Larry David is on a playing field all his own. I feel the exact same way about Gary Shandling here. He is one of those blessed folks who elicits laughter where there shouldn't be any. So many laughs are generated by the expressions on his face, that since we can't hear him saying funny things we might find it hard to put into words why this show is so funny? In addition to this, Jeffrey Tambor and Rip Torn seem to have the same comic vibe that Shandling does, yet each represents a different side of the Larry Sanders persona.

While I wondered why they only released Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show, and not an entire Second Season, this is a fine starter set for the newly initiated.

The Larry Sanders Show was released .