On the Set with Garry Shandling

DATE May 7, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Garry Shandling, comedian, on being a guest and guest
host on "The Tonight Show," doing "Larry Sanders" and "It's Garry
Shandling's Show"
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, TV critic for the New York Daily
News, sitting in for Terry Gross.

Our guest today, Garry Shandling, has a new DVD box set. It's called "Not
Just the Best of `The Larry Sanders Show,'" and it's called that for a reason.
While it includes about two dozen shows from Shandling's groundbreaking HBO
comedy series, in which he played the fictional host of a late night network
talk show, it also includes what amounts to an entirely new series, a new type
of talk show in which Garry just hangs out with people and talks and talks.

Garry Shandling has been approaching TV from his own unique viewpoint for a
long time. His first TV series, "It's Garry Shandling's Show," prefigured the
reality TV phenomenon by having Garry pretend to live his life while followed
by a camera crew. Then he gave up a shot at being a real late night TV talk
show host, inheriting Johnny Carson's chair on "The Tonight Show," to play on
on TV on "Larry Sanders." And with Rip Torn as his producer Artie, Shandling's
Larry brilliantly deconstructed both the reality and history of TV talk shows.

(Soundbite of "The Larry Sanders Show")

Mr. RIP TORN: (As Artie) Come on. It was great, Larry.

Mr. GARY SHANDLING: (As Larry Sanders) We killed $75,000 worth of spiders,
Artie.

Mr. TORN: (As Artie) But we got $100,000 worth of laughs.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Larry Sanders) Oh, please.

Mr. TORN: (As Artie) Well, look at it this way. You finally got a chance to
do a sketch with the great Carol Burnett.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Larry Sanders) It wasn't a sketch. It was a massive
spastic...(word censured by station)...

Mr. TORN: (As Artie) To-ma-to, tom-ah-to. It was broad physical comedy. It
made the Ed Ames tomahawk throw look like a big piece of...(word censored by
station)...

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Larry Sanders) Eh.

Really?

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: I love that scene because it presumes the audience knows all about
Ed Ames throwing that tomahawk and hitting the crotch of the drawn cowboy
target on live TV on "The Tonight Show." Shandling is fascinated with things
that can happen in the moment, even when they go wrong, and that's the appeal
of the extras on his new DVD box set. His idea is that when you let cameras
run without edits, you eventually catch something real--and he's right. We
interviewed him before the whole thing with Alec Baldwin's angry answering
machine message to his daughter made headlines. But when Baldwin and
Shandling are sparring at a boxing gym as cameras roll, their between-rounds
discussion captures something quite revealing in retrospect.

(Soundbite of video)

Mr. ALEC BALDWIN: Since my divorce, I'm not very secure about my
masculinity.

Mr. SHANDLING: Did it--did she...

Mr. BALDWIN: But that's my DVD package and my "Best of"...

Mr. SHANDLING: I'll come on your DVD and talk about your marriage.

Mr. BALDWIN: There you go.

Mr. SHANDLING: No.

Mr. BALDWIN: I'll come over and talk about your ex-relationships.

Mr. SHANDLING: But those relationships are most likely to do--cause some
doubt...

Mr. BALDWIN: Yeah.

Mr. SHANDLING: ...as opposed to anything else, right?

Mr. BALDWIN: Yeah.

Mr. SHANDLING: Triggers all those buttons.

Mr. BALDWIN: Let's talk about my divorce for like about another 10 or 15
seconds, then let's box.

Unidentified Voice: Yeah, that's good timing.

Mr. SHANDLING: I'd rather--if we go in that area again, I'd rather we talk
about...

Mr. BALDWIN: Let's put my ex-wife's divorce lawyer on speaker phone and
let's rumble.

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: I spoke to Garry a few weeks ago and asked why he spent so much
time and effort on the extras on his box set.

Mr. SHANDLING: The fact is, I couldn't do this DVD if there wasn't something
new on it. It folds back into the idea that the show itself was new...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: ...and sort of ahead of its time, in a way. Would you agree
with that? Or let's say not ahead of its time...

BIANCULLI: I have no problem saying `ahead of its time.'

Mr. SHANDLING: OK. And I'm usually late. So it was quite an
accomplishment.

BIANCULLI: Well, let's...

Mr. SHANDLING: So, may I say...

BIANCULLI: Yes.

Mr. SHANDLING: ...without forcing myself in, I could not believe--and I am
proud that people like Alec Baldwin, Sharon Stone, Jon Stewart, Seinfeld were
willing to--of course they've worked with me. They've all been on the show or
something. And the trust that they had, because I certainly went at them with
nothing. I mean, I didn't even--I didn't have any intentions, so by the time
I was with Alec Baldwin in the boxing room, which happened because I called
him up and I said, `I'm making this DVD, Alec, and it's just--I'm just
shooting people with, you know, nothing prepared.' And he said, `Well, come
on. We both know something's got to be prepared or it's going to be bad.' He
didn't use the word `bad' but I don't know what the limitations are here.

BIANCULLI: We'll find out, probably.

Mr. SHANDLING: OK. So I said to him, I said, `Well, OK, something will be
prepared, but it's just shooting us talking, because I--you know, the way we
are and it just runs and I'm not going to interrupt it.' And he just said,
`Well, look,' you know, `where do you want to do it?' And I said, `Well, I
happen to be standing right now in my boxing gym.' And he said, `Oh, I used to
box.' I said, You want to do it here?' And I had no intention of that. It's
just that I let things happen. I let things happen creatively. I let the
moment. And he met me at the boxing gym and we ended up getting in the ring
and moving around and before I knew it, I said to him--because he's such a big
strong guy, I said, `Is there anything that threatens your masculinity?' I was
really interested, because in boxing it's a very tough, tough game and I
can't--unless you've really been in the ring with somebody throwing punches at
you, it's hard to explain...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: And he said, `When my wife and I got divorced, my masculinity
was threatened,' and I said, `Ah!' So like, he said--and then he interrupted
me and said, `Well, let's talk about my wife on my DVD.'

BIANCULLI: Yeah.

Mr. SHANDLING: And then he came at me with the gloves, and there's several
moments like that that make you realize that everyone is just a person.

BIANCULLI: Well, you also got him to say, right there, you asked if he had
some sort of a fear of losing because you sensed that that was what motivated
him to be so aggressive...

Mr. SHANDLING: Right.

BIANCULLI: ...and so people get an idea of what I'm talking about, I want to
play that clip where you get to that moment, where you ask him.

Mr. SHANDLING: I think what it was, he was getting ready--he was throwing
one big punch all the time, and he said, `I'm a one punch guy.'

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: And you can go from there.

(Soundbite of video)

Mr. SHANDLING: So do you think that fear is what drives you sometimes--and
I'm not kidding--in a scene? Because you bring a lot of power to a scene. Do
you also go into a scene and go, `I'm going to win this'?

Mr. BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

Mr. SHANDLING: I'll be damned.

Mr. BALDWIN: I go into the scene and I say, `I'm going to kick your...(word
censored by station)...ass.'

Mr. SHANDLING: See. So that's what your power is.

Mr. BALDWIN: If that's what the scene requires.

Mr. SHANDLING: That's what your essence is.

Mr. BALDWIN: I'm going to win.

Mr. SHANDLING: And mine is more dancing around.

Mr. BALDWIN: I'm going to win. We're going to get down to it now...

Mr. SHANDLING: Right.

Mr. BALDWIN: ...or we're going to get down to it later. We going to get
down to it on page one or we're going to go down to page five, but I am going
to win. I just go in there and...

(Soundbite of boxing glove punching)

Mr. SHANDLING: There's vulnerability in that, though, isn't there?

Mr. BALDWIN: A little.

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: So what I found fascinating about seeing this as part of the extra
material is by watching Alec Baldwin all season on "30 Rock"...

Mr. SHANDLING: Mm-hmm.

BIANCULLI: And you see that, from the very beginning, he came into that show
with that very approach, that big hard punch `I'm going to win the scene,' and
he's been celebrated by everybody for doing just that.

Mr. SHANDLING: You're really a perceptive fellow. The fact is Alec Baldwin,
right before that, he was throwing some big left hooks and he said he does it
because--and I realized--I said--he said, `I've got to throw that big left
hook because I'm afraid for the fight to go on. Then I could get hurt. So I
want to get it over with.'

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: And that's when I said, `Well, that's what your acting is
about,' because you see, in "Larry Sanders"--and how these all tie
together--what I'm about is getting somebody's essence, their core self and
seeing what that struggle and those conflicts are in a very real way. So I've
got to get to the bottom of the person.

BIANCULLI: But is...

Mr. SHANDLING: His acting--boxing is a metaphor for how you are in life. I
find myself, my boxing style is kind of--I keep moving, I stick and job. I
jab and move and, you know, I have fast hands and I have no good rhythm, so I
use that to my advantage because the other guy can't find the rhythm. And
then you realize, `Oh my god. It's just like my comedy, which is you can't
quite tell what the next thing's going to be...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: ...`in that next moment.' You don't see what's coming. This
guy brings his core issue to his work, which is what makes him brilliant,
which is, `I am coming in to win fast,' so that drives him in a scene. And no
matter what crosses him in that scene, he is trying to get it over with fast,
and that gives him that power. And what he admits in that boxing ring is it's
because he's scared.

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: It isn't because he's confident that he can win. That
wouldn't be interesting to watch. What's interesting to watch is a guy who is
going to do anything to win.

BIANCULLI: So explain the irony to me about getting up to the point where you
are guest hosting "The Tonight Show" and then leaving that rather than
inheriting that in order to play a talk show host on your own show; and then
when it comes out with these new DVDs, going back and interviewing people and
re-inventing the talk show host interviewing form.

Mr. SHANDLING: Here's what's different about these--I call them visits, you
see--because if you try to describe them as interviews, any way you cut it,
you're going to--it doesn't describe it. Why they're different is because
they're actually scenes out of life where people are behaving. And what you
get on a talk show, or what we're doing, to a large degree, is we're talking
because first of all we can't see each other...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: ...which is too bad because that changes the energy. So
we're talking but we not creating a scene and what happens is in these things
a scene is allowed to be created. That's what fascinates me. So it's kind of
a cross between talk show and...

BIANCULLI: And some...

Mr. SHANDLING: Rodeo. Rodeo.

BIANCULLI: Now, was there any point when you were still guest hosting "The
Tonight Show" when you had made the decision that you weren't going to take it
and you started using it as research for the show you did want to do?

Mr. SHANDLING: I remember, I was looking at the footage of Larry walking
through the curtain the first time to go down the hallway--which was modeled
after "The Tonight Show," that design of the backstage is modeled basically
after "The Tonight Show." I did no research from being on the show because I'd
done it enough...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: ...so I didn't stay on and do any more for research, but I
did do the following research because I'm thorough--and you know I started as
a writer.

BIANCULLI: On "Sanford and Son"...

Mr. SHANDLING: I'd written a lot--I know.

BIANCULLI: ...which I do want to ask you about.

Mr. SHANDLING: You may. So as a writer, I did my work very thoroughly in
that I went and spoke to Peter LaSally, who is the producer of "The Tonight
Show," and he...

BIANCULLI: One of the nicest men I've ever met in Hollywood.

Mr. SHANDLING: Well, you know, we had our launch party for the DVD just the
other night. Peter came to that, and he's now on the Craig Ferguson--I can't
keep the titles straight of the actual shows anymore. It's either "The Late,
Late, Late Show Later Than"...

BIANCULLI: It's "The Late Show"...

Mr. SHANDLING: Later than it used to be.

BIANCULLI: "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson."

Mr. SHANDLING: Yeah. Someone's got to do a show that's called "I Can't
Believe the TV Is Still On." I just made that up. Let's pitch that.

BIANCULLI: It's actually very good.

Garry Shandling in an interview recorded late last month. More after a break.
This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: (Network audio difficulties)...Garry Shandling, whose new box set,
"Not Just the Best of `Larry Sanders Show,'" has been released on DVD. One of
the extras on that set is a portion of Shandling's very first stand-up
appearance on "The Tonight Show" back when Johnny Carson was host.

(Soundbite of "The Tonight Show")

Mr. JOHNNY CARSON: ...did the Comedy Store and at the Comedy Magic Club in
Hermosa Beach, California. As I said, this is his first time, so make him
feel welcome. Would you welcome Garry Shandling?

Unidentified Voice: Garry!

(Soundbite of music and applause)

Mr. SHANDLING: Thank you. Thank you. Wow, that's very nice. I'm so
excited to be here. I had a great day. I went to the bank earlier today
and...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. SHANDLING: Have you gotten your free pen yet? These are free.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. SHANDLING: You just yank these things, and they pop right out and...

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: Well, you know, there's never going to be anybody as important to
comics as Carson was. That platform just is never going to exist ever again,
and I'm wondering what your own favorite personal moment was as a performer on
"The Tonight Show," as a guest and then as a host, what you treasure the most.

Mr. SHANDLING: Well, look, my first "Tonight Show" was just one of those
things. Some combination of--I mean this seriously--a cosmic meant-to-be
coming together of circumstance because I actually tell people who say, `I'm
thinking of doing stand-up comedy,' I go, `You don't do stand-up comedy unless
it's your calling because it's not worth it.' It is so difficult, you work.
So I did my work, but...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: It's in the hands of the gods. You walk out there to do your
first "Tonight Show." Is the audience going to be hot? Are you going to be on
fire? It's like an athlete, are you going to have your moves at a peak? And
you know, I work in the moment. So if it starts to ignite, then I start to
ignite. And it just took off. It was just a set that took off. And when I
was done, I remember hearing Johnny say--well, first of all he thanked the
talent booker on the air, which is just..

BIANCULLI: Wow.

Mr. SHANDLING: ...shocking. He actually turns and he said, `Thank you,
Jim,' which was just--to Jim McCawley, who saw me at the Comedy Store and then
he just said into the camera, `You're going to hear a lot about that guy.' And
I don't know that anything has topped that in terms of being a comedian. And
while that's about ego, there's something much more about it. There's
something about the fact that it was just meant to be, and you could feel it
in the room. There was a place where the audience broke into applause and
Johnny fell off his chair and, you know, I'm not that funny. I'm not that
funny. So it was a special night. I mean, I have my moments, but...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: Boy, it was packed with emotion. And I think that's what I'm
about. I felt emotional about it. I was backstage, and I was just--goal of
mine, and I was really sort of lost after that because I really was just
aiming to do "The Tonight Show." And I always wanted to guest host "The
Tonight Show," and this is really important, what I'm going to tell you.

BIANCULLI: Why?

Mr. SHANDLING: I don't know. And I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. I grew
up in Tucson, Arizona. I don't come from any show business background. I
didn't study theater. I wasn't a performer. I'm a shy guy, writer. That's
how I came to LA and wrote "Sanford and Son," which we'll talk about in a
second, and then what happen is I started to do stand-up and I guess I watched
"The Tonight Show"--and what's weird is I said to my agent at the time, I'd
done my first "Tonight Show." It went well, as I said...

BIANCULLI: As a guest.

Mr. SHANDLING: As a guest.

BIANCULLI: OK.

Mr. SHANDLING: So I saw to my agent, `Is there any--you know, any shot that
I could guest host?' And she said, `Get that out of your mind. Just get that
out of your mind. That's never going to happen' Because Letterman was the
last person, which was probably two or three years prior to that.

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: And they're not going to have any new guests hosts, so just
don't think about it. It's not in the cards. It just isn't going to--it's
not possible. I do not like anybody putting limits on what anybody wants to
do in their life. I would never say `never' to anyone. These are really
important issues to me as a human being and, creatively, if someone said, you
know, `I'm thinking of doing this or that,' I'd say, `Man, you've got to go
for that. It sounds like that's what you want to do.' But she said, `Just get
it out of your head.' And about two months later the phone rang and they said,
`Albert Brooks just canceled. He was supposed to guest host "The Tonight
Show" tomorrow night.' And--I'm getting chills as I tell you this because it
was just the weirdest moment--and they said, `But Albert Brooks has canceled
and they want you to do it.' I had--I can't remember the last time I had a
reaction where I froze, I was panicked...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: I was not believing the words I heard because I had gotten it
out--I don't know if I'd gotten it out of my mind. Because I think those
things are just meant to be, in a way, and I thought, `I've got'--I mean, my
hands were shaking, because I said yes, and I'd probably guested five times at
that point. I'd guested five times and I went to one appearance I went to the
couch and made Johnny really laugh because Carrie Fisher was on before me and
she was talking about her parents, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: ...and when I came on I sat down and said, `Maybe you know my
parents, Irv and Muriel Shandling.' And Johnny knew that that was funny on two
levels...

BIANCULLI: Yeah.

Mr. SHANDLING: You know. And I get this call, and I'm thinking to
myself--and I notice that my hands are shaking and my palms are sweaty--but I
say to myself, `OK, be nervous now, and then get to the work.' And so the
first time I guest hosted, it just went fantastically. And I had to go back
and look at the tapes. I don't look at my old stuff. I could do 100 jokes
now, but the fact is, I don't look at my old stuff, and there--I did for this
DVD, I had to look at me hosting "The Tonight Show" and spooked me when I saw
how comfortable I was for the first time because I'd never hosted anything. I
wasn't a TV performer. It's just natural for me, I guess.

BIANCULLI: Garry Shandling, recorded late last month. We'll hear more from
Garry in the second half of the show. I'm David Bianculli and this is FRESH
AIR.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. Let's get back to my
interview with Garry Shandling, who has spent that last few years revisiting
old friends as part of the extras on his new "Larry Sanders Show" box set.

Let me ask you just a couple of early career questions. I have to know what
it was like as a white guy writing on "Sanford and Son."

Mr. SHANDLING: That show was written by Saul Turteltaub and Bernie
Orenstein, and how I got a spec script to them through a very nice writer
named Ted Bergmann who said, `I think you're talented. Write a spec "Sanford'
and I'll get it to them.' And I wrote a script and, you know, it's a miracle
to get anything through, and they like it and called me in and said, `Pitch
some ideas.' I said, `Well, Fred and Ah Chew open up a Chinese restaurant.
And it really works out until the health department closes it down.' And they
said, `You're on,' and that was my first one. And they said something to me
that I....

BIANCULLI: See, I was going to say, `That's ridiculous,' because it takes
them out of the junkyard so they can't do that. But there you go.

Mr. SHANDLING: Yeah, they opened it in Fred's house. They put 12 tables or
something like that...

BIANCULLI: Oh, I remember! Oh my. You wrote that?

Mr. SHANDLING: Uh-huh.

BIANCULLI: You wrote that?

Mr. SHANDLING: Yeah. Because Ah Chew was a good cook, and so Fred said,
`You know, I know what we should do. We should open a Chinese restaurant.' It
was going real good--I don't remember how it ended. I remember the health
department coming in and saying, `You're not zoned for this,' but I don't
remember the beats of the story.

And then they said, `Pitch another one' and I ended up writing three that they
shot in one season, and I didn't have an agent at the time. I had just moved
from Tucson. I didn't know anybody when I moved to LA. So someone said, `You
should call this agent. Here's the name of a good agent.' I call this agent
up and he goes, `So what have you written?' like he couldn't be less
interested. And I said, `Well, I've written three "Sanford and Son"s
and'--David, I had also, while I was doing that, walked across the hallway to
"Welcome Back, Kotter," and I walked in--I did--I walked in, I had no agent
and I said, `I'm writing on "Sanford and Son." Here's a spec "Welcome Back,
Kotter" script,' and I had written half a script that was really funny. And
they called me and said, `We love this. We want you to write a "Welcome Back,
Kotter."' So now I call this agent and said, `I've written'--he says, `What
have you written?' with complete disinterest.

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: And I said, `Well, "Three Sanford and Sons" and a "Welcome,
Back, Kottter."' He said, `Did you get them submitted?'

BIANCULLI: Oh.

Mr. SHANDLING: I said, `No, they shot them.' Now there's five beats of dead
silence. And he says, `Are you telling me that you've written three "Sanford
and Sons" and a "Welcome Back, Kotter" that were bought and shot?' I said,
`Yeah.' He said, `Can you be here at noon?'

BIANCULLI: It should have been a tip-off.

Mr. SHANDLING: And it turned out he--Norman...(unintelligible)...was a great
agent. And I got there at noon and he had appointments already set up for me
to meet other television people and, you know, I had a budding career as a
television writer. But in the middle of some pitch session for "Three's
Company," a voice in my head said, `You just don't want to be doing this the
rest of your life.'

And I started to do stand-up because I stunk. I didn't know anything. And I
was so self-conscious, I thought, `Ah, this is a good way to find out who I
am,' because I'd been meditating back then and everything and had this other
search, other path going the whole time which was about self-realization and
awareness and Zen Buddhism and I had a, you know, a study going on, a
spiritual study going on. David, I would go out camping every week--I guess I
just don't appear to be this way--I would go out every week--because LA is so
weird and show business is so weird, and I would take my dog...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: ...and go camping and I would meditate. And people would
make fun of it if I told them, because now, of course, you can see a Buddha in
a store window in Beverly Hills, so it's at least not as weird. It's a little
more accepted. This was 25 years ago. And I stopped telling people that I
was going off camping to meditate, and I think my dog stopped telling other
dogs because I think they stared at the dog. `You just sit there? You don't
chase anything? He doesn't throw you a ball? You just sit there?'

BIANCULLI: Garry Shandling, speaking late last month. More after a break.
This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

(Soundbite of theme song from "It's Garry Shandling's Show")

Unidentified Singer: (Singing)
This is the theme to Garry's show
The theme to Garry's show
Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song
I'm almost halfway finished
How do you like it so far?
How do you like the theme to Garry's show?

This is the theme to Garry's show
The opening theme to Garry's show
This is the music that you hear
As you watch the credits
We're almost to the part
Of where I start to whistle
Then we'll watch "It's Garry Shandling's Show"

(Soundbite of whistling)

Singer: (Singing)
This is the theme to Garry Shandling's show

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: That was just what it said it was, the theme to Garry Shandling's
show. It's the sort of self-aware, fourth-wall playfulness that made that
Showtime sitcom so fresh and new. While, at the same time, harking all the
way back to the beginnings of network TV when George Burns broke that fourth
wall and spoke directly to the audience on "The George Burns and Gracie Allen
Show." On "It's Garry Shandling's Show," all the people in Garry's life were
very aware of television and often aware that they were on it. Here's a clip,
which begins with Garry getting a visit from a nosy neighbor, played by Paul
Wilson, and ends with Garry looking straight into the camera and talking to
viewers at home.

(Soundbite of "It's Garry Shandling's Show")

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) Hey, Leonard.

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) Hi ya, Gar.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) How's it going?

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) Fine.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) Great.

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) Hey, listen. Word on the street is that the head
of the network's coming over for dinner.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) That's correct.

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) Good episode. What goes wrong?

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) What do you mean? What goes wrong?
Nothing's going to go wrong.

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) Come on, Gar.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) Nothing's going to go wrong.

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) It's a--it's a classic setup, Gar. Remember when
Alan Brady came over to the Petries and Laura overcooked the turkey and all
hell broke loose?

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) Leonard...

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) And Gar, you know, that wasn't even his first
visit.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) Leonard, that was--this is the real
world.

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) Yeah.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) We'll be fine, all right?

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) Mind you, Gar. Mrs. Rayburn wasn't exactly
Beaver's boss. She was only his principal, but I think the metaphor still
applies. When she came over to the Cleavers', and Wally embarrassed him by
staying in his pajamas all during dinner.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) Well, this is going to come as a big
shock to you, but Wally's not going to be here tomorrow. I don't think any of
the Cleavers are, so thanks, really. And I got to go. I've got to keep
cleaning and get ready.

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) OK. Have it your way, Gar, but that's the word on
the street.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) OK, see you.

Mr. WILSON: (As Leonard) And I can't wait.

Mr. SHANDLING: (As Garry Shandling) OK. Oh, brother.

Look, I know that TV and I haven't gone through this before, but we'll fine.
Sure, I'm a little nervous.

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: I'm wondering if there's any special insight into how you got so
interested with "It's Garry Shandling Show," the Showtime series that predated
HBO's "Larry Sanders" about a sitcom that would break the fourth wall? Was it
going all the way back to George Burns? Was it Woody Allen? Who was it that
intrigued you to try that?

Mr. SHANDLING: I'm going to--the story is this. Michael Nesmith, who was
one of the...

BIANCULLI: One of the Monkees and one of the--television...

Mr. SHANDLING: ...founders--one of the Monkees.

BIANCULLI: You're talking...

Mr. SHANDLING: They're...

BIANCULLI: Oh, `Television Parts.' You worked in `Television Parts.'

Mr. SHANDLING: He did this series on--I don't remember what network--that he
took...

BIANCULLI: NBC.

Mr. SHANDLING: ...ahead of his time, he took--music videos were just
starting--and he said, `Why not do comic videos where you take a comedian and
let them start talking, and then show the story like a video does?'

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: And I did two of those kind of videos that I wrote for him
because I got the concept, and that involved me talking directly to the
camera, which I was mostly influenced through Woody Allen in "Annie Hall," the
way he stopped and turned to talk to the camera when he was in line at the
movie theater. So I wasn't so up on George Burns and Jack Benny. It is
before my--I think that's even before my youth. I didn't watch those. So I
didn't see those.

But--here's the important part of that connection--so these videos worked out
so well that I thought, this gives me an idea of a way to do a series that is
completely different, where you talk to the camera and even include the
audience in the story and get advice. And I saw the whole thing. And NBC was
interested in me doing a series. And I went in and I talked to them about
this idea where I talked to the camera, David.

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: I said, `And I talked to the camera just as like they're my
friend and I go, `Can you believe this,' or whatever I say. They said, `Well,
we like the whole story'--it was a simple thing of me being a comedian and
having a platonic girlfriend and just matters that go on in regular life but
talking to the camera as well. `We're just uncomfortable with you talking to
the camera,' they said at NBC, `because people watch sitcoms because they want
to feel like they're looking in, and so we don't'--I said, `Well, using that
theory, your newscasters should be talking to each other and we should just
feel like we're looking in.' And they froze on the idea that it's different.

Then they said--here's the thing you brought up. Then they said, `Now, would
you have to be a comedian because no one, you know, understands show business
and what does a comedian go through,' and I said, `Wow.' I said, `George
Burns--in the history of TV--George Burns, Jack Benny, played themselves.
They were comedians, they were in show business'...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. SHANDLING: I said, `I don't mean to counter your argument'...

BIANCULLI: `But I'm countering your argument.' Yeah.

Mr. SHANDLING: And I did actually write some script where they said, `Could
you do it by talking to your dog instead of the camera?' And I guess I wasn't
strident enough to say `No.' So I wrote a script where I actually did talk to
a dog, and then Showtime said, `We want you to do anything you want.' And
that's the key to getting to me.

And I went and did it at Showtime where they were hands off, as was HBO. I
mean, I don't mind--I like input. I like help and input and all that. But if
you've got a core idea, go. Go, go, go, go.

BIANCULLI: Well, Garry Shandling, thank you very much for talking the time to
be on FRESH AIR. It was fun talking to you.

Mr. SHANDLING: Thank you.

BIANCULLI: Garry Shandling, interviewed a few weeks ago. "Not Just the Best
of `The Larry Sanders Show,'" featuring dozens of episodes and all those
extras is now out on DVD.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Ken Tucker on Patti Smith's album of covers, "Twelve"
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

Since she began her recording career in the 1970s, Patti Smith has proven to
be a fan of cover versions of some of her favorite songs, such as Van
Morrison's "Gloria." She's just released an album consisting entirely of other
people's songs, a dozen covers, called "Twelve."

Rock critic Ken Tucker speculates on what has drawn Smith to record versions
of songs by acts ranging from The Doors to Nirvana to The Rolling Stones.

(Soundbite of "Gimme Shelter")

Ms. PATTI SMITH: (singing) Oh, a storm is threatening
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh, yeah, I'm going to fade away
War, children, it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away...

(End of soundbite)

Mr. KEN TUCKER: That's Patti Smith, covering The Rolling Stones' "Gimme
Shelter," which certainly takes some nerve. And her band, assisted by Tom
Verlaine on slide guitar, really does justice and then some to the song's
primal power. What makes this album, "Twelve," such an artistic success is
that Smith approaches every song, no matter how familiar, with a blissful--or
willful--disregard, for the ways pop culture may have turned any of her chosen
songs into a classic or a cliche. She's unfettered by notions of kitsch or
irony, which makes one of the more surprising choices here, the 1985 Tears for
Fears song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" surprisingly listenable.

(Soundbite of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World")

Ms. SMITH: (Singing) Welcome to your life
There's no turning back
Even while we sleep
We will find you
Acting on your best behavior
Turn your back on Mother Nature
Everybody wants to rule the world

It's my own design...

(End of soundbite)

Mr. TUCKER: On that song, Patti Smith hones in on the lyric, teasing out the
purity of its sentiment. She brings the prettiest version of her singing to a
pop song that I never thought I wanted to hear again. Smith breaks down your
defenses with sheer earnestness. The album's most triumphant example of this
is her interpretation of Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" a song so
intricate and unique that it would seem to defy a fresh restatement, yet Patti
Smith pulls it off.

(Soundbite of "Are You Experienced?"

Ms. SMITH: (Singing) If you can just get your mind together
Then come on across to me
We'll hold hands and then we'll watch the sun rise
From the bottom of the sea
Are you experienced?
Have you ever been experienced?
Well, I have...

(End of soundbite)

Mr. TUCKER: Most of the time on this album, Patti Smith is working out songs
with her long time band, especially guitarist Lenny Kaye. They leap around
decades, from the Beatles' "Within You Without You," to a 1970s Bob Dylan song
"Changing of the Guards" to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." On that last
one, she also pulls in a bunch of friends, including the playwright Sam
Shepard, who plays banjo. Together they turn Kurt Cobain's early '90s anthem
into a piece of folk blues. The result is another unlikely triumph of
sharp-eared sincerity over mere familiarity.

(Soundbite of "Smells Like Teen Spirit")

Ms. SMITH: (Singing) Load up on guns, bring your friends
It's fun to lose and to pretend
She's overboard, myself assured
I know, I know a dirty word
Hello, hello, hello, hello,
Hello, hello, hello

With the lights out
It's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido

Yeah

(End of soundbite)

Mr. TUCKER: I think it's great that Patti Smith, who over the years has been
accused of not singing well, and who also was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll
Hall of Fame just this past year, shrugs off every criticism and accolade.
She just pursues a life in art, whether it's writing songs, writing poetry,
or, in the case of this album, demonstrating how an artist can combine a fan's
sensibility. She gives vocalists younger or more technically accomplished
than her a lesson in how to interpret popular music in unexpected, visceral
ways.

BIANCULLI: Ken Tucker is editor at large at Entertainment Weekly. He
reviewed a new album of covers by Patti Smith called "Twelve."

Coming up, Maureen Corrigan on author Nathan Englander. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Moreen Corrigan on the novel "The Ministry of Special
Cases by Nathan Englander
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

It's been eight years since Nathan Englander's award-winning short story
collection "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges" was published. Since then,
he's been working on a novel. Book critic Maureen Corrigan has a review.

Ms. MAUREEN CORRIGAN: When Nathan Englander's short story collection "For
the Relief of Unbearable Urges" was published to near-universal critical
acclaim, he was compared to Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kafka, Gogol, the usual
fabulous lineup. Now Englander's first novel has just come out. It's called
"The Ministry of Special Cases," and in praise of it, I want to throw a
low-brow comparison into the mix: Jack Finney's classic tale of terror, "The
Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Most people know it from the 1956 movie of
the same name, or the Donald Sutherland 1970s remake. As cheesy as Finney's
writing style could be--he also wrote the New York City time travel novel
"Time and Again"--he had a knack for writing fantasy fiction that also engaged
politics as well as enduring human anxieties and yearnings. At the time the
first movie version came out, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was read as an
expression of red scare paranoia. But it keeps being remade. A fourth movie
version is due out this year because, through the sci-fi forum, Finney
captured the horror of watching a person you love change, become alien.

Englander might or might not appreciate the comparison to Finney but he's
working the same crazy quilt turf. "The Ministry of Special Cases" is fantasy
fiction whose all-too-real political subject is Argentina's dirty war of the
1970s, as well as the timeless horror of standing by helpless as a loved one
is taken--whether by disease, accident, or in this case, the sadistic
machinations of a military junta.

We readers know we're not on the firm ground of literary realism from the
first page of this novel, when we meet our hero, the portentously named
Kaddish hard at work at his clandestine job--that is, chiseling away the names
of the dead on tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires. The year is
1976 and Kaddish has been hired by respectable members of that city's Jewish
community to obliterate criminal family history, specifically the names of
parents and grandparents on tombstones planted in the part of the cemetery
reserved for gangsters, pimps, whores. No one in these nervous political
times wants to get in trouble for being related to the wrong person, or as
Kaddish cheerfully explains to his wife, "with the new regime, the shame
industry is about to bloom."

Kaddish may be happy to make a buck off political turmoil, but his wife
Lillian is jumpy. To protect her family she spends much of her secret savings
installing a steel front door to their apartment. Wouldn't you know it? All
Lillian's fortifications against approaching disaster come to naught. When
Kaddish hears someone knocking at the door one night, he distractedly opens
it. The secret police step right in and take away the couple's 19-year-old
son, a surly college student nicknamed Pato.

The rest of "The Ministry of Special Cases" reads like a series of ingenious
riffs on the same situation. Two people, Kaddish and Lillian, banging their
heads against a wall, desperately trying to navigate the bureaucracy to find
their disappeared son.

Englander's brilliance rests not so much in plotting but in images, phrases,
scenes, moods that acrobatically somersault into their opposite. Think of
that vault-like apartment door, undone from the inside. In an absurdist set
piece, Kaddish barters with a plastic surgeon. He agrees to obliterate the
surgeon's shady father's name from his tombstone if the surgeon will give him
and Lillian nose jobs. They both boast massive honkers. Englander plays the
recurring nose job subplot for all its zaniness. Lillian's nose keeps getting
botched. When she wants it to be smooth, it comes out corrugated. When she
wants it restored to its original massive proportions, it comes out
pert--except that in, a swift darkening of the tone, Englander makes us
realize that Lillian wants her original big nose back because it's the same
nose that her missing son sports. Like those tombstone names Kaddish erases,
Lillian's familial connection to Pato has been ground down.

A haunting parable about political and metaphysical instability, "The Ministry
of Special Cases" is the kind of unruly book that can give you the giggles and
the chills simultaneously. Similar to the hero's waking nightmare in Finney's
thriller, Englander's Argentinean Jews wake up one day to find that their
whole country has turned into a pod.

BIANCULLI: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University. She
reviewed Nathan Englander's first novel, "The Ministry of Special Cases."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Newscast: Alvin Baptiste, clarinetist, dies at age 74
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

Alvin Baptiste, the New Orleans clarinetist and music teacher, who played with
Ray Charles and whose students included Branford Marsalis, died yesterday of a
heart attack in his hometown. He was 74.

Baptiste died hours before he was to appear on stage at the New Orleans Jazz
and Heritage Festival with Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. in a concert
program titled "Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Baptiste and Bob French." The
record label Marsalis Music released a CD saluting Baptiste last month. We'll
close with a song from that recording.

For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

(Soundbite of song)
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