The Garry Effect
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MR. META Shandling in a press photo for his first groundbreaking sitcom, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, which ran on Showtime from 1986 to 1990, and notably broke the fourth wall. now-familiar tropes of showing the studio audience and directly address- ing viewers. And then there’s that winking theme song: “This is the theme to Garry’s show/The theme to Garry’s show/Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song.” Incredibly, the show found a huge audience, powered in part by Shan- dling’s status as a stand-up comic whose nasal delivery, blown-out bouf- fant and sardonic observations (rou- tinely centered on his sexual prowess, or lack thereof) earned him frequent appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and a spot as one of its regular guest hosts. It also turned TELEVISION him into a role model for multiple generations of comedians. “He’s like the Replacements,” says Judd Apatow. The Garry Effect “A rock band that inspired a lot of peo- Judd Apatow’s HBO documentary aims to capture ple to start their own bands.” Garry Shandling’s lifetime of influence—as a Apatow included. For 25 years, the comedian, yes, but also as a human being. At comedy guru counted Shandling— who died of a heart attack in 2016 at more than four hours, it feels too short age 66—as a close friend and mentor. Apatow’s first contact was as a high school student, interviewing Shan- Try To imagine Television comedy works. Fly-on-the-wall camera dling for his school’s radio station. without The Office, Arrested work, acerbic but heartfelt writing Years later, when Apatow was doing Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and borderline-unlikable characters stand-up in Los Angeles, Shandling 30 Rock or Parks and Recreation. If are de rigueur today, but they were asked him to write jokes ahead of you can’t, blame Garry Shandling novel when Shandling built Sanders. hosting the 1991 Grammys. In 1998, and the comedian’s groundbreaking If that show was all he ever did, his Shandling gave Apatow his first job meta-sitcom, The Larry Sanders Show. place in the cultural pantheon would behind the camera, on Larry Sanders, Set behind the scenes of a fictional be secure. But that achievement which led to a career directing tal- late-night talk show and boasting a came two years after the even more ent-launching comedies stellar cast—including Shandling, genre-bending It’s Garry Shandling’s like TV’s Freaks and Jeffrey Tambor, Rip Torn, Janeane Show, which aired on Showtime for Geeks and the filmsThe B Y Garofalo and, in a breakthrough role, four seasons. What looked, at first 40-Year-Old Virgin and Sarah Silverman—the show ran for six glance, like a traditional mid-’80s DANTE A. Trainwreck. seasons on HBO, from 1992 to 1998, sitcom leaned hard into pioneer- CIAMPAGLIA His latest project, The BONNIE SCHIFFMAN/HBO and fundamentally altered the way TV ing self-awareness, including the @daciampaglia Zen Diaries of Garry NEWSWEEK.COM 45 Culture TELEVISION STAND UP GUY Left, Shandling in I like comedy, and I have the ability success. That restlessness kept him this man had given to comedy.” the 1960s, when he was studying electrical engineering at the University to learn. What if I took that ability out of the limelight at times, but it The list of comics and actors of Arizona, before he switched to and applied it to something I liked?” reflected Shandling’s lifelong quest Shandling mentored, guided, aided, marketing; below, with Apatow in 1998. A version of that experience recurs “to figure out who I authentically was.” touched or influenced is remark- throughout Shandling’s career. He His journals became a private forum able, and this is just for starters: wrote three episodes of Sanford and for that journey. “Maybe your comedy besides Apatow, Sacha Baron Cohen, Shandling’s older brother, Barry, Son, at the time the most popular is a natural gift to be given to others Adam McKay, Conan O’Brien, Kevin died of cystic fibrosis in 1960, when show on TV, then quit to try stand-up. with joy to help them through this Nealon, Jon Favreau, Bob Saget, David Garry was 10. The two were as close He ended Shandling’s Show after four impossible life,” Shandling wrote. Duchovny, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, as brothers could be, but Garry’s seasons, despite its wild popularity. “I always felt an obligation to talk Sarah Silverman, Jim Carrey. parents prevented him from seeing He gave up a chance to host numer- about Garry [later in his life], because “Having the guy who I considered Barry before his death or attending ous late-night talk shows, including he wasn’t working as much and I the greatest comedian in the world the funeral. “I’m sure it led to all sorts possibly The Tonight Show, to make knew that he was the reason why say ‘You can do it’ was immensely of sensitivities,” Apatow says. “That Larry Sanders, which he ended after we had all succeeded,” Apatow says. inspiring,” Cohen says in the film. relationship was so important to him its sixth season—again, despite its “I wanted to remind people of all “This guy just wanted to make people and seemed defining, but it was some- feel better and make people their best. thing he didn’t share with people. As a He was like this comic angel. When result, he always felt mysterious.” you were in the shit, he would appear, The trauma of Barry’s death haunts and he was there to go, ‘You’ve got the Shandling throughout the film, but it talent to make this right.’” also provides a moment of catharsis. Apatow says Shandling was always Near the end of the documentary, open to reading scripts, watching Apatow shares a letter, addressed to cuts of films and pitching ideas on Barry, found in one of Shandling’s how to make them better. In the doc- notebooks. He wrote it later in his life, umentary, he shares that Shandling but no one had read it before Apatow. suggested a different ending to The Shandling, is a magisterial, two-part, “I just started crying really hard,” he 40-Year-Old Virgin. He argued that HEY, NOW! four-hour-plus tribute premiering says. “I felt his grief and how he car- Clockwise from left: the sex Steve Carell’s middle-aged March 26 and 27 on HBO. Framed ried it for so long. It made me happy Shandling in an early virgin has should be better than around the aphorisms, koans and that he had worked through it to the season of The Larry everyone else’s because he’s in love. Sanders Show; with self-criticism that Shandling, a point where he could express himself Sanders co-stars That led, eventually, to the unforget- practicing Buddhist, kept in nearly so clearly about how much he loved Jeffrey Tambor, table “Age of Aquarius” sequence. 40 years’ worth of notebooks, the his brother and what the loss meant seated left, and Rip “He was so warm and so support- Torn; with his mother, film gives the comedian “the Eagles throughout his life.” Muriel, in Tucson, ive,” Silverman says in the film. “The treatment,” Apatow says, referring to By confronting Shandling’s deep where he grew up. Garry Effect is, I think, beyond what the three-hour History of the Eagles. well of private pain, the film provides any of us really imagine.” “That’s my favorite kind of documen- emotional scaffolding for many of Shandling’s George Bailey–like tary. When someone tells me the the decisions Shandling made. For impact on the world around him Grateful Dead documentary is six example, the man who “reinvented drives The Zen Diaries. “As the hours, I’m the first person cheering.” television two times,” as Apatow puts decades pass, I realized that, on He does right by the format. The it, was almost an electrical engineer. some level, I was like a son to Garry Zen Diaries accounts for the full But at 19, after taking 21 units of math and that he was proud of me and he scope of Shandling’s life and career— and a course in atomic physics, some- was trying to help me,” Apatow says. from growing up in Tucson, Arizona, “He’s like the thing changed. “One day I walked out “And he was doing that for others as to the memorial service organized Replacements—a rock of the lab,” Shandling says in the doc- well. He was a brother or father fig- after his sudden death—fairly, com- band that inspired umentary, “and I couldn’t walk back ure to a bunch of people. All of us prehensively and with verve. It’s also in. I thought, I can’t do this the rest felt like it was a real blessing in our revelatory in ways that will likely lots of people to start of my life. I sat down and I actually lives that we had that relationship stop superfans short. their own bands.” thought, What am I going to do? Well, LTD/ALAMY COLLECTION MOVIESTORE WIRE/ALAMY; FALLON/ZUMA OF HBO; BERNARD V. COURTESY WATSON/HBO; OF HBO; LARRY COURTESY LEFT: FROM with him.” 46 NEWSWEEK.COM APRIL 0 6, 20 18 NEWSWEEK.COM 47.