Staying Fit
Where to Watch: HBO
Premiere: March 26, 8 p.m. ET, on demand starting March 27
Stars: Jim Carrey, Jay Leno, Garry Shandling, Sarah Silverman
Garry Shandling, who died at 66 in 2016, revolutionized comedy twice, with the subversive anti-sitcom It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and the backstage talk-show satire The Larry Sanders Show, which legitimized HBO, paving the way for The Sopranos and Game of Thrones. Now HBO repays the favor with a two-part documentary, The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling (March 26-27), drawn from his amazingly smart diaries, classic footage and interviews with comics. His protégé Judd Apatow, 50, who directed and produced the film, tells AARP about the founding father of modern comedy.
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Shandling was the grownup who launched today’s top talents, from you to Conan O'Brien to Jon Favreau (Iron Man). But what can we learn from his life?
He had a very natural human story that most people go through: You have certain wounds in childhood and overcome them, you try to succeed, then you start aging and you have to figure out what your life meant. And Garry decided that what was important was to give back and to try to be closer to people, and laugh and forgive. He didn't want to chase success anymore; he decided to give it back to other people.
He comments on his own life in his amazing diaries, full of brilliant jokes but also serious thoughts about life that we should all be thinking about.
A lot of his diary is about accepting where he was at: “Grow old gracefully, learn to become a mentor gracefully. Learn to let go. This is all a dream. Don’t take it so seriously.”
But boy, did he take it seriously. He got famous overnight in maybe the greatest Tonight Show guest comic debut in history. His gag about his girlfriend moving in with another guy was great: “So I dumped her. Because that’s where I draw the line.”