A '90s HBO Sitcom Got Roger Ebert's Stamp Of Approval

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In a 1992 essay titled "Reflections after 25 years at the movies," Roger Ebert estimated that, over the previous quarter of the century, he had watched somewhere around 10,000 movies and reviewed 6,000 of them. That's 400 films per year, and it's all the more impressive because, as the chief film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, he was obligated to sit through a load of dreck. Across his career, he apparently walked out of very few movies, among them "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," "The Statue," "Caligula" and, oddly, the Oscar-winning Italian war dramedy "Mediterraneo."

This screening regimen didn't leave a lot of room for leisure, non-movie viewing, and he was hyper-selective with what he watched in his downtime. Ebert broke into journalism as a sportswriter, so it's not a surprise that kept tabs on the world of athletics (though his Windy City sparring partner, Gene Siskel, was by far the bigger Chicago Bulls fan). He also watched late-night talk shows, which makes sense because he and Siskel were frequent guests on "The Tonight Show" and both of David Letterman's late night shows (where they were once pitted against each other in a free-throw shooting competition).

As for episodic television series, Ebert was quite stingy. We know from passages in his reviews that he was acquainted with many of the medium's classics (like the breath of comedic fresh air that is "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "All in the Family," and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"), but when Entertainment Weekly interviewed him in 1996, there was only one series that he deemed worthy of his time. And, of course, it was creator/star Garry Shandling and co-creator Dennis Klein's 1990s HBO sitcom "The Larry Sanders Show."

HBO

When "The Larry Sanders Show" premiered on HBO in the late summer of August 1992, the television world was abuzz over the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to Jay Leno assuming "The Tonight Show" throne vacated by Johnny Carson. David Letterman had lobbied hard for the gig, and was Carson's choice to succeed him, but the network went with the milquetoast Leno instead.

The whole imbroglio exposed many casual late-night fans to the vanity and insecurity of their favorite hosts, so Garry Shandling, whose comedic personality leaned heavily on his own vanity and insecurity, teamed with Dennis Klein to craft a show that was part satire and part confessional. The result was one of the greatest television series of all time, a single-camera workplace sitcom that gave us such classic characters as Sanders' approval-seeking, perpetually humiliated sidekick Hank Kingsley (Jeffrey Tambor) and order-keeping producer Artie (Rip Torn). It was also delightfully, unapologetically profane and helped to launch the writing-directing career of Judd Apatow.

"The Larry Sanders Show" was never a hugely popular series, but it was beloved by television critics and industry insiders, who knew the production turmoil was rarely exaggerated. This was likely what appealed to Roger Ebert, who, along with Gene Siskel (also a fan), was no stranger to late-night intrigue. If you've never watched the show, the entire run is currently available on HBO Max, and I'm wildly jealous that you'll get to watch it all for the first time.