Let’s just get this out front: The Larry Sanders Show is on my shortlist of the greatest TV shows ever made. I’d already been a fan of Garry Shanding from his sly It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, but Larry Sanders was a quantum leap in every direction: the writing, the characters, the acting were all top-notch. People always point to The Sopranos or even Sex and the City as the shows that established HBO as an original programming powerhouse, but it was The Larry Sanders Show that really got the ball rolling.
That said, I have to ask this question: why are they fracking with us by not releasing every episode of every season on DVD? Why only the First Season, and now this (not just the) best-of DVD? Why not everything? I’ve been looking forward to buying every single episode of this show for years, and this is my choice? Bollocks!
Look, what would you think if they pulled every single Rolling Stones album off of the shelf, except for 40 Licks? What would you think if they deleted every Martin Scorcese film from the shelf and replaced them with a DVD set that had only the iconic scenes (focusing on DeNiro, of course) from his films. What would you think if, a few years from now, the only available Hunter S. Thompson book was “The Great Shark Hunt?”
If you really didn’t know what all of the fuss was about in the first place, or if you were just a dabbler, you might find it OK. We’re still talking about individual pieces of art that are as good as anything ever, and the Stones and Thompson compilations both feature singles that never made it onto any albums. But you would miss the context of the Scorcese clips: why “Are you talking to me?” is so powerful in the first place; you’d miss what happened at the end of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” and you’d miss songs like “Rocks Off” and “Stray Cat Blues.”
You’d never really be able to get it. What made others love these people so damn much. And if you were starting to get it, you wouldn’t be able to explore further.
And if were already a fan, you’d never really be able to share the whole story with other people, because best-ofs — even ones that proclaim that they aren’t — inevitably leave out the obscure bits that true fans love, and every true fan loves a different obscure bit. For me, it’s “Rocks Off,” but for Sherilyn, for example, it might be “She Was Hot.”
So while I have not a single doubt that a ton of care and angst went into making Not Just The Best of The Larry Sanders Show, I think that I’m going to pass. I think that they are missing the point: get it all out there right now, and let the audience find it. Not just the immediate audience, but the future Long Tail audience that, as of yet, hasn’t even heard of The Larry Sanders Show.
I know that I’m in the minority here: most of the stories I’ve seen celebrate the incredible awesomeness of what is on the DVD, as well as the extras, and so maybe it will sell well enough to convince HBO and Garry Shandling to release the rest of it. But they shouldn’t need convincing. Not with something this great.
My guess is that with all the clearances involved — possibly music cues or certain guest stars signing off — we are not getting the full-season sets. It sucks, totally.
If it isn’t the above, it’s because the first season didn’t sell as well as anticipated, making it merely a commercial decision. If Season 1 sold well, then it would be a no brainer and every season would be released. There is a reason here and I wish they would just tell us about it.
jim is not alone in being bummed by the lack of full season sets:
Larry Sanders Gets His Due, But Where Is Season Two?
also, I don’t think it has to do with music clearances, as there are musical sequences in most (every?) episode.
Frank,
Thanks for the link. I’d forgotten that there were issues with the quality of the first season DVD.
If I remember correctly, I originally watched the first couple of seasons on a dubbed videocassette, so I’ve never actually seen them in good quality.
But Tim’s right, the lack of actual information about why they are doing what they are doing is maddening.
And counter-productive: if Larry Sanders is to keep its place in the pantheon of all-time great shows, then they need to make it available to prove that claim. These people need to be beat over the head with a copy of The Long Tail.
I’m also waiting for the “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” DVDs.
At the very least there should be some information as to the reasons behind the decision. The fact that you can pick up complete seasons of every piece of rubbish that ever crossed our screens makes in unlikely that this is the result of bad sales of the first series.
Also, there are some thoughts out there that the decision may be one of politics rather than anything else. Remember, the 2 executive producers of the show were Shandling and his lontime manager, Brad Grey. Their relationship broke down disasterously with Shandling suing Grey for millions for fraud. This was settled out of court. Grey is also under the microscope for using a dodgy PI to put the heavy on people that were in his way. Shandling was a witness to a case relating to this.
Brad Grey is now the president of Paramount and no doubt has huge influence in the industry and is a multi multi millionaire.
It could be that Grey as Executive Producer to the show has not consented to the full release of all season’s – maybe out of spite for Shandling… ??
This is just speculation on my part, but there are certainly questions around the (non) release of The Larry Sanders Show that need answering!
As a huge fan of the show I had pre-ordered this DVD set months ago and yet hope that we will see all the episodes released someday.
I hope they don’t seriously believe their own excuse that the 1st season DVDs didn’t sell well enough. That may have been sufficient in 2002 — $40 for 3 discs and almost no extras at a time when TV DVDs were still a unique idea and astronomically priced — of course it didn’t sell well.
But in today’s market, TV DVDs are consumed like water. And if the one episode of the My Big Fat Greek Wedding TV spinoff warranted a DVD release, then seasons 2-6 of a groundbreaking series like Larry Sanders sure as hell does.
actually, the story from a May 17th NY Times article is that Shandling was too exhausted from the end of the show and a long hideous lawsuit with his agent to prepare multiple seasons of DVDs. he wanted to release one compendium set of highlights from six seasons and be done with it.
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30612F734540C7B8EDDA80894DF404482
so it wasn’t a marketing decision, or an HBO decision — it was Mr. Shandling’s decision based on his own limits.