Homage To Garry Shandling

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How to recognize a real comedic genius?

 

can you recognize the mindset - the approach - in his work?

 

if the approach is to SHRIEK out at you and push itself - much like an unwelcomed guest - that is NOT genius

 

there is something far more subtle at play involving character development

 

a brilliant comic - even today - creates a distinct character that through nuance and repetition is becomes clearer and defined

 

Jack Benny - for instance - did not begin defining himself as a miser who remained perennially 39. He started as a violinist. Became a fairly soft-spoken monologuist. His years being an opening act for the Marx Brothers taught Benny how to stand up for himself and make his persona distinct.

 

Groucho Marx started as a boy singer - through trial and error and happenstance his acid sharp tongue developed. In the 50s people WANTED to be on You Bet Your Life to be "insulted" by Groucho.

 

Harpo Marx portrayed a "Patsy Branigan" character and talked. Lou Sheen - his uncle and of the famous Vaudevillian team of Gallagher and Sheen - wrote an act for his nephews. Harpo noted, "I only have 1 line!" Uncle Lou looked - so it was so - wrote that single line out and said, You will work in pantomime" Harpo felt "Hell! Chico and Groucho adlib. I will adlib too!" But the reviews were all in agreement. The brillian pantomime was "destroyed" every time Harpo spoke. As a result of the harsh criticisms, Harpo decided to follow his uncle's advice.

 

W C Fields was a juggler. His mutterings - when he would drop a cigar box - turned out more humorous than his uniquely skilled juggling was impressive. (And as a juggler Fields really had no equal.) The mutterings increased - intentionally. You could not say "Goddamit!" then - hence "Godfrey Daniel!"

 

 

By the time Garry Shandling made his earliest appearances on Johnny Carson, Shandling already had years in the comedy clubs. His "schtick" was that he was stunningly self-aware. His would regularly ask the audience, "How is my hair?"

 

Shandling's comedic genius rest in the development of this overwhelming self-awareness to the point of neurosis.

 

And so enters the landmark show - It's Garry Shandling's Show. Note the title. It isn't THE Garry Shandling Show. Borrowing liberally from the show-within-a-show aspects in Burns and Allen and The Jack Benny Program - Shandling goes beyond the acknowledgment of we are doing a program. His very life was a show. The audience lived in his living room. When going on a trip, Shandling would jump into a golf cart and ride to the next set ON CAM. The law of the performer to not acknowledge the 4th wall was dismissed entirely. There was no 4th wall. That it was all a show - not real - was the inside joke between Garry and the audience. A neighbor on the series only came on regularly because he knew Garry's "life" is on TV and he wanted to be on tv too. When Gilda Radner appeared she regularly would wink at the camera and overtly play to it. ("Gilda - are you winking at the audience again?") Take a listen to the theme to It's Garry Shandling's Show. In a way it isn't really a "legit" theme song. It is a theme song because Garry needed a theme song and well - It's Garry Shandling's Show.

 

 

After this brilliant sendup(?) of a sitcom, Shandling adds to his persona of a too deeply self-aware paranoid neurotic to Larry Sanders - talkshow host. When we think of any show as giving the "behind the scenes" view of a show - THIS is where the concept originates really and is so thoroughly realized. And again - while the 4th wall is back in this series - we still are informed that nothing is real really. Witness Jim Carey's appearance towards the end of The Larry Sanders Show's run when - like Johnny Carson - Larry has decided to retire.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLTPOevieKs

 

Dramatic acting is easy. Morrie Ruskin wrote the Marx Brothers' Broadway show "Animal Crackers" with George Kauffman. Ruskin gave his sister the script to read just before she saw the show. She stated, "If I hadn't read the script I would have sworn they were making everything up!" THAT is how superb an actor a brilliant comic is. They understand the secret ingredient - TIMING. And only an audience - a live audience - can teach you that. This is why when a comic lends himself to some genuine acting the performance - with its nuance and believability often stands up above and beyond that of a "serious" actor.

 

Shandling was a superior actor. But that goes along with any truly brilliant comic.

 

If you feel your life is - in fact - a reality show or you ask, desperately, "How's my hair?" understand that you are doing homage to Garry Shandling.

 

Mr Shandling died today at the age of 66.

 

Mr Shandling - there are special blessings that belong only to those who make us smile and laugh. Tonight, know that they are all due you.