Mocking the Talk Show

The talk show is a mixed bag. There's no bag more mixed. Undoubtedly, some of the most inane blather ever spoken has been spoken on television talk shows, and if you watched a lot of them back to back, it would probably be difficult to avoid the feeling that you were witnessing the decline of human civilization. All of that having been said, some of the most important performances by our greatest entertainers -- especially comedians -- have come to us by way of talk shows. And there have been a few talk show hosts -- Johnny Carson and David Letterman are my picks -- who rank with the great comic artists of all time.

Because so many comedians have relied on talk shows as career launchpads, and because comedians are generally prone to observational analysis, their relationship with the format is special. Sometimes wonderful things happen when comedians take it upon themselves to satirize the talk show, and today we examine a few examples.

Mike Nichols and Elaine May, as we established earlier this week, were one of the greatest comedy teams in history, despite the brevity of their time together -- only five years, before they went their separate ways and enjoyed glorious careers outside the spotlight. In this track from their best record, An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May, they brilliantly send up the talk show -- which, as we can see, hasn't changed much since 1961, when this record was released.

NAME DROPPING


Andy Kaufman was one of the most audacious and original comedians America has ever produced; rest assured that the Comedy Palace will soon be throwing the spotlight on him in depth. For the time being, here is Kaufman's take on the talk show. In this clip from the groundbreaking 1979 special Andy's Funhouse, Kaufman (as awkward talk show host) interrogates Cindy Williams (as awkward guest) in one of the most awkward television confrontations of all time.



A hundred years from now, when other successful comedies of our time are long forgotten, I believe that Seinfeld will stand with Chaplin and the Marx Brothers and The Honeymooners as part of humanity's great gift to itself. In this clip from the show's ninth and final season (1997), Kramer has discovered, in a dumpster, the entire dismantled set from The Merv Griffin Show. Naturally, he recreates the set in his apartment, and:

Seinfeld was brilliant. I'm not sure that any other comic enterprise of the last twenty years even comes close to it. Maybe The Simpsons. But there are a lot of honorable mentions, and I couldn't raise the subject of talk show parody without honorably mentioning The Larry Sanders Show, the flawed but innovative HBO comedy of 1992-1998. In large measure, this program was a talk show; Garry Shandling (as Larry Sanders) actually interviewed real celebrities, playing themselves, taped in front of a studio audience -- in every way, a real talk show. But then there was the other half of The Larry Sanders Show, depicting the backstage drama of late night comedy.

Garry Shandling was always a minor visionary -- Seinfeld itself owes something to It's Garry Shandling's Show -- but until Larry Sanders he was difficult to love. His schtick was vain, smarmy duplicity, and in his role as Sanders, he found the perfect vehicle for this particular gift. He carried the show, but like any good talk show host, he let his guests have the best moments. Much of the fun of The Larry Sanders Show came from watching celebrities satirize their own media images, as in this clip featuring the great Ellen DeGeneres: