No Flipping: Remembering Garry Shandling

Garry Shandling, a deadpan comic’s comic who found his great fame playing a fake talk show host with real insecurities, died on Thursday. He was 66.

Mr. Shandling started in show business in the 1970s as a sitcom writer but soon transitioned into stand-up. He was one of the many comics of his generation to get his start at the Comedy Store, the storied Los Angeles club that also served as an incubator for David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld and many others.

From the beginning, his act presented him as a nervous bundle of anxieties trying to get by in a world fraught with social and emotional pitfalls. In the early 1980s he began performing regularly on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” “Late Night With David Letterman” and elsewhere

His performances on “The Tonight Show” led Carson to invite him to be a guest host, , creating a precursor of sorts to “The Larry Sanders Show” a decade later. Mr. Shandling was a regular “Tonight Show” guest host until the late ’80s, when he began focusing on his own shows

His first, “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” which debuted on Showtime in 1986, displayed what would become a trademark meta-approach to television. The quirkily subversive series, which also ran briefly on Fox, poked fun at sitcom conventions and frequently had its characters break the fourth wall to address the audience. Even the theme song, which began “This is the theme to Garry’s show,” made fun of itself.

Mr. Shandling’s most notable work was “The Larry Sanders Show,” a late-night talk show parody that presented its host as an insecure egomaniac buttressed by Hank, an oafish second banana portrayed by Jeffrey Tambor, and Artie, the no-nonsense producer played by Rip Torn. Guest stars played generally more obnoxious versions of themselves, a formula followed on later behind-the-scenes showbiz series like “30 Rock” and “Extras.” A critical favorite, “The Larry Sanders Show” ran on HBO from 1992 to 1998 and received more than 50 Emmy nominations, winning three awards.

Mr. Shandling maintained a lower profile in recent years, occasionally acting in movies like “Dr. Dolittle,” “Town & Country” and “Iron Man 2.” Earlier this year he appeared in Jerry Seinfeld’s web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” to reminisce about his comedy and television career.