Customer Reviews

Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Thin in every sense of the word. Don't waste time or cash on this sad excuse for a book. The Larry Sanders Show was top quality - this is the exact opposite.

I can't stress it enough. This book is not funny. The show was one of the funniest ever. I lived for it. The book, on the other hand, is shallow, unsophisticated, and ultimately kind of sad. It reads like a hack comic throwing out lame one-liners. Bring your own rim shot. I couldn't be more shocked. I mean, man, this book stinks.

A real disappointment. I enjoy Garry Shandling's comedy, but this looks like a quickie job to cash in on the end of his show. Short, disjointed chapters with only a laugh or two throughout; a photo section with even fewer laughs. A shame that Shandling didn't really seem to really "work" on this project.

'The Larry Sanders Show' was one of the best written and well made programs on TV. For year after year high quality television was produced by these guys, never once insulting the intelligence of their audience. When I saw there was a book I couldnt wait - I ordered it with great expectation and waited impatiently for it, but what a terrible surprise I got! To Shandling's great shame, this book is the exact opposite of his show - the jokes are obvious, lines are predictable, the whole thing is sophomoric and embarassing to read. Please, if you are a fan of one of the finest TV comedies ever made - do not fall for the temptation of buying, reading, or even glancing at this terrible book.

I've always liked Garry Shandling as a comedian. Perhaps that's why this book is so disappointing. Though you may laugh out loud once or twice, the impression is that he dashed this off in less than a week. Unlike his show, this book IS insulting to our intelligence. Read this book back to back with a brilliant master like Dave Barry and you will immediately see how not funny it is. The premise that he had sex with every beautiful hollywood star, as funny as it may seem, is a sorry pretext for an entire book. Don't waste your hard earned money on this one -- I'm happy I read it in the library.

This is a strange genre - an autobiography of a fictional character. Add to this that the fictional character is Larry Sanders, a paranoid, insecure, and egotistical host of a late night talk show! Fortunately, the large print face, copious white space and 82 pages of pictures contribute to making this a quick read. The humor would be the sad type of laughing at some obnoxious, insensitive bore, except we are saved from feeling bad about this by the fact that the object of the joke is fictional. This is supposed to make laughing at him acceptable. If you can get into the premise there are plenty of funny jokes.

How could this work? What made the Larry Sanders show funny was it's cutting satire in allowing us to see the flip side of Hollywood. This book, as it is designed, could only let us see the phoney side with none of the backstage & behind-the-scenes hilarity that made the show what it was. The result is a puzzling product that will rightfully fade away while the memory of the fantastic show remains fresh.

This is book which will undoubtedly delight regular viewers of "The Larry Sanders Show". Presented as an erstatz autobiography (complete with an identical dust-jacket to the book Larry wrote in an episode of the show) Larry's rambling thoughts read like an extended stand-up show, filled with uproariously funny one-liners and absurd incidents. It is neither an extensive book or a particularly detailed one, though it is loyal to its subject matter and offers plenty of entertainment.

The only thing that really disappoints is the fact that it all seems to be over too soon, with gargantuan text size and a proliferation of full-page photographs. For a book based on a show that was so obsessed with the superficial nature of the television world, perhaps it ultimately reaffirms this point unwittingly, or is perhaps is just a little too clever for its own good.

I thought Larry Sanders "Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host" was just a terrific work. I've read a number of books and neither of them were even close to being as good as this one. Reading Larry's life story was like getting to know him all over again and it was very exciting to learn that Larry has so much in common with the common man. It's so easy to relate to Larry on so many different levels and some that aren't level at all. For instance, Larry reveals that he's slept with a number of different women...

Anyone who fails to grasp the humor in this book, should take a long look in the mirror and ask themselves this question, "Are you looking at me?" That's the thing about Larry Sanders, he can look in the mirror without having to ask that question. In fact, he doesn't even have to look in a mirror to not ask that question. Some people will never understand that and I'll never understand that.

I just hope in this politically correct atmosphere that this book will be taken at face value. In Larry Sanders case, it's worth at least half that amount and I'm proud to stick two thumbs up in approval and delight.

This is not the best of autobiographies. But nevertheless it was a very funny book. The story about how his mother slept with Redd Foxx and Tito Jackson was a hoot. He's no Ernest Hemmingway but if want to read a very funny book buy it.