The world of comedy took a big hit Thursday when legendary comedian Garry Shandling passed away at the age of 66 from a heart attack. Conan O’Brien and Seth Meyers both took time out of their late night talk shows to pay their respects to the late comedian.
"It's a little unusual today,” O'Brien started off his monologue for “Conan.” “I'm going to be very honest with you. It's a strange day, today. Several hours ago, before this taping, I heard—and a lot of us heard—the terrible news that comedian Garry Shandling had died. I have to tell you, this is a devastating shock to me and to just about everybody I know.”
For O’Brien’s tribute, the host shared some personal memories with his audience. In his monologue, he spoke about how Shandling helped him recover after he lost the hosting gig over at “The Tonight Show” to Jay Leno. O’Brien revealed that his wife had taken him to Hawaii after the entire ordeal and wound up staying at the same hotel as the late comedian.
“This was a week I was supposed to spend with my wife and kids — I spent the entire week with Garry Shandling,” O’Brien said. “I’ll tell you something: I was at a real low point. He counseled me, he cheered me up, he told me jokes, he talked to me about philosophy and how there are bigger things in the world and how I was going to be fine. We had an incredible afternoon where we took this really long walk. We climbed over lava formations, we went into a cave, we went to this far part of the island. We saw a little stretch of sand and we lay down on it as the sun started to go down. We’re watching the sun go down, and I turned to Garry and said, ‘This is the most romantic moment of my life, and it’s with you.’ He was an incredibly generous person.”
While O’Brien told a personal story about Shandling, Meyers focused on the comedy career, particularly the impact his show “The Larry Sanders Show” had on him.
"Garry Shandling was a legendary comedian. I never had the chance to get to know him, but I've heard he was a great guy,” Meyers said. “I just want to say a few things about him. He did ‘The Larry Sanders Show,’ which was completely groundbreaking and changed the way I thought about TV and I think a lot of people thought about TV. And it was a show about a character—a fictional character—who hosted a talk show, a talk show like this. Growing up, watching [Johnny] Carson, [David] Letterman and Conan, those are all people who made me want to host a talk show. Watching ‘The Larry Sanders Show’ made me think, 'Oh, I don't want to host a talk show. I think that looks like a very scary place to work.'"
