In Which We Are Proto Liz Lemons

You Can Have A Town, Why Don't You Take It

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Proto-Liz Lemon Selma Diamond wrote for Groucho Marx, Ms. Tallulah Bankhead, and Your Show Of Shows. Some of her peers didn't take her seriously on account of her gender and diminutive size. We have no idea what that's like.

A ravishing beauty in her youth, Ms. Bankhead was well known for being a totally awesome slut who fucked everybody.

Carl Reiner based his (proto-Curb Your Enthusiasm) sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show on his experiences working as a writer on Your Show Of Shows. Selma Diamond was reputedly the inspiration for the indelible character of Sally Rogers, as portrayed by Rose Marie.

Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) and Sally Rogers (Rose Marie) were writers working for The Alan Brady Show, and Carl Reiner played Alan Brady. Brady was based on Reiner's former boss at Your Show Of Shows, Sid Caesar. Rob's wife was Laura Petrie, played by then unknown Mary Tyler Moore.

Later, when Mary starred on the groundbreaking Mary Tyler Moore Show, her single woman character was originally a divorcée, but the suits at the network feared viewers might think that Mary had divorced Rob Petrie. It became a broken engagement instead, her ex-fiance Bill played by Angus Duncan.

Test audiences for MTM's pilot HATED the Rhoda character. She was seen as too "pushy", too "loud", too "Jewish", and worst of all "mean to Mary". Apparently the writers got around it by having Phyllis complain about Rhoda, and her daughter Bess defending her.

Layout of Mary Richards' Apartment

One thing I really love about TV is how you can accumulate so much breadth of knowledge about characters. It approximates knowing a person in real life. It's more like serialized novels than movies.

Valerie Harper, not even a little bit Jewish in real life. She's a Catholic from Oregon! Nevertheless, she is Golda Meir.

The MTM Show was ended while the ratings were still high, because the staff didn't want to risk diluting the quality with further seasons.

This is a great formula that more shows should follow. I think Arrested Development was great, but by the end of the third season I didn't see where else it could go. I think it finished at the right time.

As much as I would have loved a second season of Freaks And Geeks or My So Called Life, I think that having one perfect season is preferable to say, six or seven progressively more mediocre ones. On the other hand, some shows get better with age. Friends didn't hit its stride until very late, and I like the weirder seasons of Seinfeld.

Head Betches In Charge: Rhoda, Mary, & Phyllis

I'm a big fan of the British system, where shows will do only a few series and then copious specials. It stops people from flogging dead horses (there are a finite number of dramatic situations in any environment) and creates demand for their next projects.

It also allows room for comedy that is more ridiculous and absurd, and for characters that have no real depth or redemptive qualities. I can't believe they produce such awesomely weird things like Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and Nighty Night over there and it airs on BBC Two or Channel Four.

I didn't realize until now that Dick Lemon (father of Liz) was (legendary screenwriter) Buck Henry! It's not a Lemon party without Old Dick!

LOU: Divorced?
MARY: No.
LOU: Never married!
MARY: No.
LOU: Why?
MARY: Why?
LOU: Do you type?
MARY: Mr. Grant, there's no simple answer to that question!
LOU: Yes there is! How 'bout 'no I can't type' or 'yes I can'?
MARY: There's no simple answer to why a person isn't married.
LOU: How many reasons can there be?
MARY: 65.
LOU: Words per minute. My typing question!!
MARY: Yes.
LOU: Look miss! Would you try answering the questions as I ask them?

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here.

"A Man Needs A Woman or A Man To Be A Man" - Bill Callahan (mp3)

"Night" - Bill Callahan (mp3)

"Day" - Bill Callahan (mp3)

In Which We Look Back On The Larry Sanders Show

We Did It All For Larry

by ELEANOR MORROW

Garry Shandling would have been the perfect host of late night talk show, but instead he gave us The Larry Sanders Show, 89 brilliant episodes about being backstage at one. It was the first multi-camera sitcom that took advantage of the form, and probably the best ever done. They could run it on HBO today, promote it like a new show, and it would feel like one except for the noticeable lack of cell phones.

Garry Shandling has a puffy, round face like a blowfish, and a gee whiz surface personality. You don't expect a blowfish to have charisma, but Larry had it, and a Jewish sex appeal, and a likeability that would have made him the perfect person to come home to every night. Fortunately, he was a better sitcom star.

Unlike Larry David and Woody Allen, Sanders doesn't hate himself. He loves himself more than anything, except for perhaps his show. Bill Carter's classic recounting of the war over The Tonight Show proved how lonely and depraved such people were to try and do comedy day after day. You can't do comedy in this fashion, to offer something fresh and new is impossible.

This format is the epitome of The Show Must Go On. Larry is a trooper. He may not do his show live, but he does it live on tape.

Airing on HBO from 1992-1998, Larry took the backstage showbiz cliche and perfected it until it was startlingly original. No show had ever had such a perfect ensemble cast, but Larry was the bulbous center. He was the name on the show, the man who has to go out there every night and brave the elements.

What we learned along the way was that he had to survive a constant barrage of backstage elements, too: producers jostling over how to handle him, office assistants who need to be appreciated and loved, network suits that wanted to replace him with someone younger and less Jewish, writers who needed his approval and their jokes on the air. Oh to be Larry!

Above all, there was the sex. Near his happy home (it once belonged to Johnny) Shandling has a strange sex life. The sexual politics of The Larry Sanders Show were those of the early 1990s, when this weird Victorianism that was floating back into American culture began to take root. For now, the guests of The Larry Sanders Show loved to have sex with anyone and everyone, but they didn't feel that great about it afterwards.

Between these encounters, the behind-the-scenes was generally fraught with envy and hatred. The Larry Sanders Show is supposed to be a satire, but it was also just as good doing real life.

In one episode, Larry got Ellen DeGeneres on the show, slept with her before the interview, tried to get her to admit her character on Ellen was gay on the air, and got ambushed by Ellen on the show for his trouble, and yelled at by his lesbian fuck-buddy afterwards. It simply doesn't pay to try to draw ratings.

Underneath his persona, Larry loved being in the business, but he didn't like being in the business. He was more comfortable with his ego being the biggest in the room.

Larry was constantly buttressed by two polar opposite figures. The first is his producer Artie, played by Rip Torn in the finest comic performance since Basil Fawlty.

This was the role of Torn's life, and you can see the cheeky fun he has playing someone who will do anything for the show, and anything for Larry, even though he may not completely like it. As a result, Artie spent most of his days lying to his friend, and keeping other people off Larry's back.

Jeffrey Tambor immortalized the role of Larry's sidekick Hank Kingsley, doing Leaving Las Vegas but as a comedy bit and stringing it over six marvelous seasons. Hank is the saddest loser in the history of American television, and Tambor gave himself over to the role of bald-headed insecure prick. These three elements would have been enough for a fantastic sitcom, but the rest of the cast was just as good.

Janeane Garofalo played the crass booker Paula before giving way to Mary Lynn Rajskub's more understated performance. Garofalo never found a better role. Wallace Langham and Jeremy Piven were Larry's writers, before Larry fired Piven for banging Hayden Panettiere. Sarah Silverman also made several amazing appearances as a writer on the show.

Penny Johnson was Larry's assistant, a strong black woman in a time when network television tended to avoid them, and Linda Doucett (later Shandling's girlfriend) was Hank's bosomy, hilarious assistant. Bob Odenkirk was Larry's agent, among many young comedians who burst onto the national stage with a small part in play in Larry's sad little life.

Larry's wives were also fascinating. I preferred Larry's more dickish first wife, Francine, but his second wife Jeannie had her moments too.

Utterly obsessed with himself, Larry has a hard time dealing with a woman as an equal since he is the only man and the only woman in his life.

Underneath that surly veneer was a comedian who just wanted to be liked. The Larry Sanders Show was funny people before Funny People; shit, Judd Apatow did his best writing for this HBO gem. Every comedian has something inside them that needs more approval, now, faster. When you have to watch yourself every single night, it's a bear. Larry does it though; otherwise, he can't appreciate what other people see in him.

Eleanor Morrow is the senior contributor to This Recording. She tumbls right here for your pleasure.

You can download the first season of The Larry Sanders Show here.

"In Inner Air" - Ateleia (mp3)

"Threaded" - Ateleia (mp3)

"Nightly" - Ateleia (mp3)

Ateleia myspace

In Which I Don't Read The Internet, I Just Maintain It For A Fee

The Week In Review

It was a fairly interminable June, and July is already slipping out of my grasp. I tried to rent a vacation home for myself, but the one above wasn't available, and in these times, it's good to have a cliff nearby.

As I was walking across the Williamsburg Bridge yesterday I saw two people painting the opposite view of Brooklyn and New York. This is no time for art, I whispered to them, and left a white business card with the address of my website.

• Andrew Zornoza got the whole summer reading jaunt started.
• Anjelica Huston granted a rare interview.
• Alex reviewed Your Friends & Neighbors.

Williamsburg is a fairly arbitrary collection of pheromones. Everyone seems afraid of each other and wont to burst into tears at a given moment. This is what you want to get away from. We tried to think of some places for you to go:

• Meredith detailed the problem with dating in Los Angeles.
• Nick described his appearances in Chicago.
• Alex's admiration of the depressed lesbian known as Kristen Stewart took center-stage.

My plan is to have a light series of people reviewing cities who have never in fact been to those cities. The purpose of this is to get the conversation started, and keep it going, until I submit my next review of a Neil LaBute movie no one's ever seen.

• Joan Didion and Woody Allen got together in one article.
• Boy Meets World taught Owen pretty much everything he could ask for.
• Alex assumed we didn't know about these summer reading bks.

You can find the TR twitter here, and the TR tumblr here.

"Santa, Bring My Baby Back To Me (Peel session)" - Belle and Sebastian (mp3)

"If You Find Yourself Caught in Love (Peel session)" - Belle and Sebastian (mp3)

"Photo Jenny (Peel session)" - Belle and Sebastian (mp3)