What was the deal with how Artie related to the guests on the show? Was he being sincere in what he said to them or was he just being a supreme suck-up?

Are you talking about how he would always calm them down with fruit plates and stuff like that? He wasn't above babying the insecure celebrities if that's what it took to calm them down so they could appear as scheduled on the show.

Ultimately someone who would get frustrated with dealing with the weird quirks of the celebrities wouldn't have his job (and there are episodes that demonstrate that) and handling them with kid gloves makes much more sense than alienating them and driving them to the competition.

Have you been watching it on Netflix too?

Just massaging their egos. Once they were out of sight and earshot his true feelings would typically come out.

If you haven't figured that out for yourself, I'm afraid you're going to miss a lot of the satire and humor of this show.

Now you wash your mouth out ....

"I swear I killed her in the war."

I always though the sucking up and babying he did to guest paled in comparison to him keeping Larry happy

Best show ever... Im going to open my complete series set soon and relive it

Thnaks for the thinly veiled insult to my being a retard. I hope your mother dies from agonizing nerve cancer and it takes her 15 years to die, every day of which is spent in agonizing unbeareable pain, and no painkillers will work for her.

As a college grad and someone who has spent more hours then I care to mention being bored to tears by so called "hipster comics" like Garafalo and Cross I know more then you ever will about what does and does not constitute satire and humor.

No I'm talking about how he would go on set during commericals and suck up to them and "stroke them."

MOD NOTE:

Dick Van Dork as a new member you should be reminded that such personal attacks are against forum rules. If you take issue with what someone says, you can object politely or report their post, but such a response is wholly unnecessary. Further posts such as these could result in a suspension of posting privileges. Please watch your tone. Thanks.

D-V-D, may I suggest a visit to:

http://www.angermanagementgroups.com/

You obviously know nothing about Hollywood.

My mother just called to tell me she's got nerve cancer.

I just finished up watching the series on DVD from the Shout! boxset. I missed it when it originally aired back in the 90's. Very funny series. Really enjoyed Artie aka Rip Torn's lines. Given this show and that Shandling was Carson's guest host, it's surprising to me that he never got his own talk show for real. Some of the funniest moments were when they had Dana Carvey impersonating Larry in front of him. The stream of celebrity cameos that appeared on that show throughout the 5 seasons was pretty impressive. I will definitely get around to re-watching it again. I haven't yet watched the bonus disc and am hoping that it's pretty packed with behind the scenes material over and above what was included on the discs with the episodes.

It's a classic series and should be loved by most anyone that watched Seinfeld. So many later shows ripped off the Larry Sanders show, it's a shame it languishes in obscurity since it didn't air on broadcast television.

And is not available on any stream sites (Netflix, Hulu, etc.). Wasn't it on HBO originally? If so, then why no HBO-GO option?

It looks like its on Crackle.

HBO seems to have forgotten that they had shows on before The Sopranos.

It seems that HBO doesn't own the home video rights to many of their oldest programs.

Poor Dick Van Dork didn't last very long.