RIP Garry Shandling

I know this has been mentioned in another thread, but thought it deserved it's own.  Here's a nice tribute from Conan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMsVfEqLFiI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cWbkWTYwTw

He was great.

One thing though. Many of the comments refer to him as a pioneer in breaking down the "fourth wall" and talking to the viewer. Shandling was great and set the stage for may things but on that he was no pioneer. George Burns broke from the (fictionalized version of his life) show and addressed the audience in the 1950's in Burns and Allan (one of the all time great TV comedy shows).

bramzzoinks said:

One thing though. Many of the comments refer to him as a pioneer in breaking down the "fourth wall" and talking to the viewer. Shandling was great and set the stage for may things but on that he was no pioneer. George Burns broke from the (fictionalized version of his life) show and addressed the audience in the 1950's in Burns and Allan (one of the all time great TV comedy shows).

That's true. Even "Green Acres" used to throw some fourth-wall breaking jokes in with Eva Gabor remarking on the credits and things like that.Not to take anything away from Garry Shandling, who was brilliant and innovative in his own way. He just wasn't the first to address the home audience. 

Perhaps my favorite line of that type on "It's Garry Shandling's Show" was when he lamented, "We're just unlucky. On other shows, crazy, funny things always seem to happen on the day they're taping. For us, it's just the opposite. This week, Nancy got her foot caught in a bowling ball...(runs through a couple of other standard wacky sitcom stunts), but now on the day we're taping, nothing's going on."

And that, right there in a nutshell, is why I think Conan is awesome.

RIP, Garry with two "r"s.  You'll be missed.

I loved The Larry Sanders Show. I think it was Jeffrey Tambor's first starring role and he's gone on to do great work. Rip Torn was hysterical and his characater really took great shots at show-biz pretension. And Jeremy Piven. And Jeanine Garafolo. 

Anybody know the cause of death?

-s.

I think they said heart attack.  On Comedians in Cars Drinking Coffee - he did mention to Jerry the following:

"I had a hyper-parathyroid gland that was undiagnosed because the symptoms mirror the exact same symptoms that an older Jewish man would have… You know, lethargic; you get puffy, you get heavy… You kind of realize you want a divorce even though you're not married."