This Forgotten Masterpiece Reshaped TV Comedy

gamerant.com:

Lists of the best TV comedies ever made are bound to include mentions of shows like The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Arrested Development. The single-camera shooting style, sly self-awareness, and cringe-based comedic sensibility of all these iconic shows can be traced back to one key influence: The Larry Sanders Show. This sadly forgotten series marked a watershed moment in the history of the sitcom. The Larry Sanders Show had the same impact on situation comedies that Monty Python’s Flying Circus had on sketch shows.

In the early 1990s, the multi-camera sitcom reigned supreme. Shows like Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, and Everybody Loves Raymond dominated the ratings with their three-walled sets and live studio audiences. When it premiered in 1992, The Larry Sanders Show went against the grain – not only because it had no laughter track and was shot on handheld cameras, but because it had a flawed protagonist. With all his foibles, insecurities, and regular humiliations, Larry Sanders was a precursor to every fallible comedy character from Larry David to David Brent.

Larry David's Original Curb Your Enthusiasm Ending Would've Been Perfect

The Larry Sanders Show was conceived when Garry Shandling was offered his own late-night talk show. Instead of taking the deal, Shandling created a self-aware sitcom about a version of himself who did take the deal. Larry is a late-night host who puts on a smile and schmoozes with celebrities on one side of the curtain, but is an anxious wreck with a messy personal life on the other side of the curtain. The series satirizes the dark side of showbusiness. Entertaining people professionally requires a special combination of anxiety, neediness, self-effacing wit, and uncontrollable