September 10, 1986 - May 25, 1990
Showtime Situation Comedy - 72 Episodes
Cast:
| Garry Shandling: | Garry Shandling |
| Mrs. Shandling: | Barbara Cason |
| Nancy Bancroft: | Molly Cheek |
| Pete Schumaker: | Michael Tucci |
| Jackie Schumaker: | Bernadette Birkett |
| Grant Schumaker: | Scott Nemes |
| Leonard Smith: | Paul Willson |
| Ian: | Ian Buchanan |
| Phoebe Bass: | Jessica Harper |
In the 1970s and 1980s television saw an increasing
number of shows that mocked TV's own conventions--
Saturday Night Live, Fernwood 2-Night, Late Night with
David Letterman, Max Headroom, and Moonlighting, among
others. One of the most innovative was this slice-of-life
comedy that was so unconventional it was reportedly
rejected by all three major commercial TV networks.
The focus, more or less, was the fictionalized personal life
of Garry Shandling, who played a fictional version of
himself, an offbeat comic, a friendly, rather neurotic young
single coping not too successfully with the outside world.
His main problems were his general insecurity, his limited
success with women, and a tendency to have things fall
apart around him. Most of the action took place in a set that
was a replica of Garry's real-life living room. His platonic
friend Nancy, his mother, his married best friend Pete, and
Pete's intellectual young son Grant came by to help Garry
deal with his problems. Leonard was the nosy neighbor.
What made It's Garry Shandling's Show so different was its
point of view. Garry knew he was on television. As George
Burns had done three decades before, he opened each show
talking directly to the audience and, as the story progressed,
regularly paused to make observations to the camera. Not
only did Garry know, but so did all the others in the cast, and
stories were written to take advantage of the awareness.
It's Garry Shandling's Show received rave reviews from critics
bored with standard TV fare upon its debut on the Showtime
cable network in the fall of 1986. In early 1988, in an effort to
bolster its Sunday night lineup, the new FOX network secured
the rights to air reruns of the Showtime episodes and aired
them less than one month after they aired on Showtime.
Click HERE to download theme song.
(Theme song provided by Todd Fuller's Sitcoms Online.)
Click HERE to purchase TV books and videos!
Episode Guide
From EpGuides.com
It's Garry Shandling's Show
From TV.com
Garry Shandling
From Wikipedia
It's Garry Shandling's Show Message Board
From Todd Fuller's Sitcoms Online
These links were last tested April 2025.
Check out this classic TV Guide cover...
