I'm interested in finding out how much the show was scripted and how much of the show was improvised.
Alot of the interviews on 'the show' looks spontaneous and the delivery of alot of he backstage footage seems improvised but the wit and great one-liners of the show suggest alot of it must have been scripted.
Does anyone know what kind of writing process the show had?
'Seen one eat a rockin' chair one time.'
In the extras on the new 'Complete Series' DVD set, Garry Lectures At USC and answers a question regarding that, indicating the show wasn't really all that improvised (as it would appear), which surprised me.
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Wait a minute... who am I here?
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Doom is right, it wasn't improvised in the way Curb is supposed to be. it's interesting that when Rob reiner was booked for the talk show, Larry told Artie he wanted to ask him how much of Spinal Tap was improvised.
Rather than improv, I think the thing that set Larry Sanders apart was the naturalistic manner of acting that Shandling demanded. In Scott Thompson's dvd interview, he talks about how Garry kept telling him, "more real, more real." And you can see how the characters play their lines in mostly a very real, low key manner, without the typical sitcom mugging.
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I can picture every move
that a man could make
One thing, in the dvd set there are several extended scenes, deleted scenes, and a couple of gag reels where the actors messed up lines or broke up laughing and had to do a retake. The lines were often a little different from the final aired version. So it seems some leeway to improvise was present.
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I can picture every move
that a man could make