HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (April 4, 2011) — I’ve never subscribed to HBO. There may have been a month here and there when it was provided to my family, by mistake, or as part of some promotion. Invariably, when our cable monolith attempted to charge us, we balked. The movie-watching we missed as a result of this cultural diminishment we didn’t see as relevant. However, each time I told Spectrum to go fuck itself, I did think twice about acess to all those episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Larry Sanders Show.

Last year, from some Bangkok street vendor, I procured the first four seasons of Curb for a ridiculously small sum. The entertainment was good. I had seen the odd 30-minute installment here and there. But ultimately I had trouble watching them en masse. After 5-6 episodes, not even a full season, I found myself worn out by the sameness of each plot: No, Larry. No, don’t do that. Oh geez…

By contrast, IFC started rebroadcasting The Larry Sanders Show in January and, with a deft flick of my DVR settings, I have proceeded to record each and every episode, in order, from the very beginning of the show’s run in 1992. It’s hard to keep up. My family rolls its eyes when they glimpse the list of recorded shows and spy this vintage Sea of Larry.

I’ll temper my ultimate, unbridled enthusiasm by saying the first two seasons of Larry Sanders were only slightly better than average — and something of a letdown when contrasted with the glowing tributes this series routinely garners from television cognoscenti. These episodes didn’t suffer from a sameness, a la Curb, but I did find myself wondering why I am supposed to care about any of the main characters who are unfailingly funny, but rather shitty.

Well, I can report that by Season 4, the show officially hit its stride. It’s not just easy for me to sit down and watch 2-3 episodes in a sitting; I make time for it. I recently watched the fictitious talk show’s 8th anniversary special. It struck me that a number of things have come together, revealing the show’s genius and explaining all the accolades I’d read and listened to over the years.

Larry Sanders Casting? Top Shelf

First and foremost, the cast has turned over a bit. In the fourth season, a glut of young comic talent — well, they were young in the ‘90s, when the show first aired on HBO — has been assembled and appears regularly. Phil the head writer and Larry’s assistant Beverly have been joined by:

Janeane Garafolo, who plays Paula the alt-obsessed talent booker. In one recent episode, she’s obliged to appear on the show. Though ambivalent about the exercise, her character takes heart that it might be seen by members of Pavement;

Sarah Silverman, who has just come aboard as the new writer;

Scott Thompson, of Kids in the Hall fame, who has taken over as sidekick Hank Kingsley’s personal assistant, replacing the shapely but boring Darlene; and

Bob Odenkirk, alum of both Mr. Show and The Ben Stiller Show, who “guests” recurringly as Larry’s prick agent.

These characters — along with Garry Shandling’s Larry Sanders, Jeffrey Tambor’s Hank Kingsley, and Rip Torn’s Artie the Producer — form the killer, comic core of the show. As an ensemble, this small group of lead actors is superb. Kingsley is one of the more hilariously detestable characters ever created for television. Tambor deftly renders a vain, callow, needy/greedy, ultimately obtuse douche who, as we learned in a recent episode involving a sex tape he made, happens to be hung like War Admiral. Shandling and Torn are priceless. It just works.

However, superb casting isn’t the half of what truly makes the show. That honor goes to the constant stream of real-life celebrities who guest on the show — The Larry Sanders Show, this fictional talk show — where they parody themselves, show business, and their particular shows/films with startling honesty, irony and crudity. Four seasons in, many of these folks have appeared often enough, or been pilloried by other cast members frequently enough, that they come off as minor characters in their own right.

Hospital Drama Bitch Slap

The 8th anniversary episode drove home, for me, much of this gloriously meta smorgasbord. The fictitious show writers have concocted an on-air sketch whereby guests Noah Wylie (from the ‘90s hit hospital series ER) and Mandy Patinkin (from its contemporaneously rival hospital drama Chicago Hope) are to participate in a mock shit-slinging match, on camera, right there on the couch. The goal: sending up a contrived rivalry between the two shows and their respective casts. When they are briefed on all this in the Green Room, backstage, Patinkin refuses and proceeds to shit all over ER for “real” — calling it a superficial day camp for beautiful actors and actresses. What’s a put-on — in this show within a show, this green room within a green room — and what’s not, is difficult to parse. It’s also a scream.

Meanwhile, another guest, CBS sportscaster Pat O’Brien, is across the green room trying to watch the show on a monitor and keeps yelling, “Would you two shut the fuck up?!” Another guest, Rosie O’Donnell sashays about complaining that her limo never arrived, a fact that obliged her to drive herself to the taping and park her own car.

These cameos are part of the show’s meta-bolism. KD Lang is a guest, too, and apparently she’s a neighbor of Hank’s in Malibu. They hate each other because squirrels living in a tree on her property are dropping acorn shells into Hank’s pool — and he recently responded by downing the entire overhanging branch with a chainsaw. The neighbors bump into each other backstage, getting coffee, and she dresses him down, salty as can be, adding that she wishes he’d stop vacuuming his pool in the nude. The casual profanity combined with the audience’s knowledge of Lang’s bisexuality (real), not to mention Hank’s giant schlong (?), prove hysterical.

Linking all these disparate bits in a mere 30 minutes of narrative is the fact that Larry is so keyed up for the anniversary show, he forgets his ritualistic pre-air whiz. So he keeps trying to slip out for a pee between guests, or when Lang is performing, only to be foiled each time. During one break, he runs into Fred Corcoran, legendary producer of The Tonight Show and the model for Rip Torn’s character. Larry tries to pull away (cuz he really HAS to go) but Corcoran offers, offhandedly, that “Johnny says hello.” Larry’s supreme vanity trumps any urethral discomfort, preventing him from leaving. “Johnny says hello? Really? Does he watch the show? If you could arrange a lunch sometime…”

Bladder still bursting, he is called back go the desk. 20 seconds, Larry!

There’s only one Farrah

Another piss-attempt is scotched right at the bathroom door when Farrah Fawcett shows up. She’s the one who apparently hit Rosie’s car in the parking lot and is trying to find her. She’s quite flirty with Larry. This doesn’t help when husband Ryan O’Neal emerges from the bathroom. He’s still angry with Larry for bumping him from an earlier show (the actual subplot of an earlier episode).

This is just the sort of meta-celeb character history that continually loops through the series. In this same anniversary episode, George Segal stands around in a tux shamelessly hoping to fill in, in case a some guest no-shows. The whole Ryan/Farrah vignette takes all of 45 seconds. You gotta love the fact that these two A Listers would agree to show up, if only to send themselves up, for less than a minute of face time on The Larry Sanders Show. Even so, it takes long enough to foil Larry’s desperate plan to drain The Main Vein.

15 seconds, Larry!

For fans of the show, none of this is news. Indeed, it’s more than a decade late. However, I’m telling you, it’s all very well done. For  those who’ve been similarly remiss, I heartily recommend a DVD purchase or perhaps the IFC/DVR route. Another sanguinary aspect? The show takes place in the 90s, when some of us were still young (my wife Sharon still is), when O.J. was still on trial, ER still ruled the Thursday time slot, Boris Yeltsin jokes remained current, and Farrah still walked the Earth. It’s also an entertaining window on the Clinton Era. With Season 4 behind me — wherein Larry also slept with Ellen Degeneres and fends off the sexual advances of the X-Files’ David Duchovny — I’ve got a feeling the best may yet be to come.