THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 22, 1994 TAG: 9406220031
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
DATELINE: 940622 LENGTH: Medium
Larry Sanders has been holed up in a Montana fishing shack for the last three months, consuming vast quantities of Snapple, feeding whippoorwills out of the palm of his hand and regretting the day he gave up his talk show because the head of the network made him mad.
{REST} ``I've never been so miserable in my life,'' Sanders tells his producer, Artie, who's come to Montana to shake Sanders out of his funk. Artie is played marvelously by character actor Rip Torn, who tells Sanders with a straight face, ``You're a talk-show animal. . . half man, half desk.''
In the past, Sanders has survived a divorce, heart attack, endless days of angst and now a new affront. He has to apologize to the world for using prescription drugs or the network won't give him back his show.
``No flipping,'' Sanders tells his audience at the end of his monologue.
Who would think of flipping?
``The Larry Sanders Show'' is worth the 10-plus bucks a month it costs to hook up HBO. It is a razor-sharp parody of all the talk shows ever created. ``The Larry Sanders Show'' has given the 64-year-old Torn something he has never had before in a long and distinguished career on the stage and in films: fame and a considerable fortune.
He is one of several character actors - Carroll O'Connor, William Conrad and William Dysart come to mind - who has been elevated to stardom by a TV series. ``Before this, I've always been `Rip.' Now when people meet me, they call me `Artie,' '' Torn said when our paths crossed in Hollywood recently.
Also returning for another season on HBO at 10 tonight is a sitcom which is almost as good as ``The Larry Sanders Show.'' It's the adventures of Martin Tupper and his friends and family on ``Dream On.'' First up is Part 1 of a two-part episode in which Tupper gets involved in a a kidnapping.
Later in the season, in an episode called ``Steinway to Heaven,'' Renee Taylor makes another noisy guest appearance as Tupper's mother.
I laughed out loud watching the preview tape.
Same story with an episode of ``The Larry Sanders Show'' scheduled to be on HBO next Wednesday. In that one, a waitress from Montana named Mary Beth Nagler arrives where Sanders' show is taped in Hollywood to announce, ``I'm having Larry's baby.''
As in the past, the dialogue on ``The Larry Sanders Show'' has the bite of an alligator with plenty of references to people, places and things that everyone is talking about from Conan O'Brien (``who knows how long his show will stay on the air?'') to Warren Beatty. You can't get pregnant just from saying hello to somebody, Sanders tells Artie.
``Unless that somebody is Warren Beatty.''
Torn, a CableAce winner, is enjoying this late-in-life success immensely.
When asked why red-hot fame has been so late coming to him, Torn answers, ``Every time I've gone to a party or crucial meeting in Hollywood in the past, I've blurted out things I shouldn't have, and didn't work for another three years. There is a saying in Hollywood that you can't get anywhere in the business unless you know someone. My trouble was that I couldn't get anywhere in the business because I knew everyone.''
When Shandling and Torn got into their audition, it took place with stacks of scripts on Shandling's desk. But the two ignored the printed words and mostly improvised. ``His audition blew me away,'' said Shandling. ``Rip is one of the best actors there is.''
by CNB