RIP Garry Shandling

hedonist said:

It was a comfortable friendship where if he came over I didn’t feel like I had to entertain him, and it was the same way back.

Sweetness - that's how it should be.

Big fan of both gentlemen.

Thanks for posting that.

So sorry to hear the news about Garry Shandling. He was an inspiration and dear, sweet, guy. We met in 1982 when I first moved out to LA to persue doing stand-up full time. Garry helped me get some key bookings in and around LA (the hardest gigs to get) and he was also nice enough to watch my act and gave me some sound advice about performing. He used to invite me to his house to write on afternoons prior to doing shows at the Comedy Store where we both worked. I remember listening to Donald Fagan's "the Nightfly" up at Garry's house, I was usually drawing something for my act in my black hard bound notebook and he would constantly be writing jokes on a legal pad and running lines through out the afternoon. By the end of the day, when it was time for me to go, he would have consistently written three really funny lines, amazing -- my hit rate wasn't nearly as good. He also introduced me to Brad Grey, who became my first manager and to a bunch of great comics like Dave Coulier, Bruce Baum, and Bill Kirkenbauer, who also became my friends when I didn't have that many. I later moved back to Minneapolis, but we stayed in touch and would get together when he came to town for shows. Little known fact, prior to making MST3K, I built a bunch of robots out of found objects and sold them in a store called "Props" in Minneapolis. One of the robots, a blue one, I saved for Garry as a "thank you" -- which I delivered to him the next time I went to LA. A few months later, I was surprised and honored to see Garry had made the robot one of the decorations in his TV house for "It's Garry Shandling's Show".