'I hate people just like me': Fascinating 'Larry Sanders Show' DVD box set includes boxing, lunching and the dredging up of old wounds

April 15, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN

Alec Baldwin enters a boxing ring, then trades punches with Garry Shandling, who asks about Baldwin's divorce from Kim Basinger.

"Let's talk about my divorce for, like, another 10 or 15 seconds, and then let's box," Baldwin says. "Just put my ex-wife's divorce lawyer on speaker phone, and let's rumble."

This is a playful match between old friends, offered as a bonus scene in the new DVD box set "Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show." The men also talk craft, and Baldwin admits his intense acting style mirrors his boxing.

"I say, 'I'm gonna kick your f---in' ass,' if that's what the scene requires. I'm gonna win," Baldwin says, and who would doubt him?

"Best of" offers only 23 of the 89 episodes that ran from 1992 to 1998. Shandling makes up for this slight by producing the most fascinating box set I've ever seen. There's an extra eight hours of incredible new material in it -- and not just the usual commentaries, outtakes and documentary.

Shandling opens old relationship wounds and reconnects with show friends by boxing Baldwin; playing basketball with David Duchovny; eating brunch with ex-girlfriend Sharon Stone; interviewing an actress/lover who sued him for $1 million, and hanging out at Tom Petty's smoky house.

In the most riveting interview, Shandling and Jerry Seinfeld joke around. And Seinfeld suggests both men ended their shows because they were beaten down by working constantly on scripts and dealing with Hollywood players.

"These shows that we had -- if we didn't kill them, they would kill us, and it's not a fair fight. You can subdue it for a long period of time," Seinfeld says. "But you know it's only getting stronger, and you're only getting weaker."

Like "Seinfeld," Shandling's "Larry Sanders Show" was one of TV's truest top-tier masterpieces. A backstage look at a late-night talk show starring Shandling, Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor, "Larry" dug into brutal, funny truths about people caught in Hollywood lights.

"Best of" revisits actors, writers and directors "Larry" helped catapult into bigger careers, from Jon Stewart to Sarah Silverman, Janeane Garofalo and Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe on "24").

"Larry" writer Judd Apatow made his directorial debut there, then went on to direct, co-produce and co-write "The 40 Year Old Virgin," "Talladega Nights" and "Anchorman," as well as TV's "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared."

But most of the DVD unflinchingly focuses on actors' struggles. Garofalo regrets drinking too much. She thought back then, "Do I want to really work on my acting craft? Or would I like to go out and get drunk and try and make out with somebody? Hmm. Hmm.' "

Shandling sits with Linda Doucett. She sued him for firing her as a "Larry" co-star after they broke up in real life. In retrospect, she regrets complaining about getting only a few lines of dialogue a week.

"I just wanted a baby, and he gave me a job," she says, then exclaims: "I can't believe I don't see you for years, and we have this personal discussion in front of a camera!"

She cries. She puts a hand on his knee. End of interview.

Cast and crew insist "Larry" was so good because Shandling demanded they seek realness first, comedy second. He made writers put introductory dramatic tension of a plot on the first page of every script.

And he stretched a tiny budget. Set pieces were designed to survive a year. They lasted six. The crew shot 17 pages of script a day. (Now, "NCIS" shoots perhaps the most pages per day, at around 11.)

The main cameraman glided around on Rollerblades. Directors didn't yell "cut" between takes. In an outtake, you see a first take go awry; cast and crew sprint across two rooms to begin again immediately.

Sarah Silverman says other shows stole from "Larry," but poorly.

"They were stealing the concept of a behind-the-scenes kind of show," she says. "That's not what made the show great. The show was great because of the process. They should have all stolen the process."

The process gave Shandling ulcers, culminating with a lawsuit (settled) against his manager and co-producer Brad Grey. In a startling moment, Silverman appears to almost weep recalling his stress.

"Everybody needs somebody to take care of you," she says. "There wasn't anyone saying, 'You can't ask him to do that, that's too much.' He had to be the one" to make final decisions regarding writing, directing, acting and producing.

"He'd turn to me after every take [and say], 'I hate myself,' " director Todd Holland says.

Shandling recalls his mantra was, "I hate people just like me."

In fact, Apatow confronts Shandling for nine minutes about axing one of his jokes..

But they all created great episodes together. In "The Mr. Sharon Stone Show," Larry and Stone date but break up Hollywood-style: They make their assistants call each other.

"Are you OK?" Larry's assistant asks him afterward.

"Yeah," Larry says. "I just hate confrontation."

A decade later, Sandling, 57, and Stone, 49, reminisce about their love affairs on and off screen while viewing a love scene from "Larry."

"I don't think either one of us thought we were attractive, or smart, or funny, or good," she says. "And you look at that, and we're probably our most attractive, most funny and most charming we ever, ever were."

She tears up and strokes him. Shandling smiles, as if in sweet pain, staring at the chaotic, rewarding roles behind him.

delfman@suntimes.com