Critic Reviews

The beauty part of The Larry Sanders Show is its subtlety—a kind of sophistication and knowing wickedness that compliments its knowing audience.

The Larry Sanders Show is all tension, cynicism, profound shallowness, and naughty-boy bonding — it's just the way you imagine life behind a big-time TV talk show to be, except infinitely funnier.

After you watch a Larry Sanders show, the rest of television seems like it's on Prozac — smooth and edgeless, where Sanders is prickly and nervous.

If you think Garry Shandling must be running out of ways to deconstruct show business, you're wrong. This will probably prove the most fearless half hour of comedy all year.

Larry Sanders has always contained an undercurrent of tragedy in its portrait of a pathetically insecure man whose work is his life, and whose life is one long, uncomfortable commercial break. Fearlessly, Shandling and his cowriters are pushing Larry to the edge.

Shandling's laid-back comic style dovetails with the dry writing, creating a series that's the clear victor in the talk show wars.

As Larry, Shandling raises banality into an art form; he is consistently hilarious whether blissfully watching his own videos or reacting to a bad review.

Subtle, sophisticated, witty, cutting and right on target. [14 Aug 1992]

Scathing but hilarious, the series finds its richest material in spoofing showbiz pretentiousness. ... [Shandling] has brought something new to the sitcom format: a devastating commentary on the medium itself. [15 Aug 1992]

They'd better set up a separate category for HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show" when Emmy time comes around. [13 Aug 1992]