The Nineties in America - Salem Press (2009)

unfazed assistant (Penny Johnson), the show’s talent
booker (Janeane Garofalo), the head writer (Wal-
lace Langham), and Hank’s sexy assistant (Linda
Doucett).
The broadcast networks had offered comedies
about television workplaces, such asThe Mar y Tyler
Moore ShowandMurphy Brown, but without the irrev-
erent edge ofThe Larr y Sanders Show. Guests such as
Carol Burnett and Robin Williams adopted one per-
sona while on the air and another when the camera
was turned off, as the famous dropped their friendly
facades. Sanders even had affairs with such guests as
Sharon Stone, while Alec Baldwin discussed on the
air his relationship with Larry’s former wife and Da-
vid Duchovny seemed to have a crush on the host. In
an era filled with entertainment news programs,The
Larr y Sanders Showmade fun of the carefully con-
trolled images of celebrities by showing behavior
that would horrify their publicists.
The program dealt not only with show business
but also with such topics as homosexuality, racism,
religion, and sexual peccadilloes. While broadcast
network shows had been doing this since the 1970’s,
they usually treated these subjects didactically.
Working under the assumption that 1990’s audi-
ences had a greater awareness of irony,The Larr y
Sanders Showsimply saw issues as a source of provoca-
tive humor.

Impact While earlier HBO seriesDream On(1990-
1996) titillated with nudity and sexual situations,The
Larr y Sanders Showillustrated that the greater free-
doms given premium cable programs could result in
quality equaling or surpassing that of broadcast net-
work shows. Despite modest ratings, it helped pave
the way for such rules-breaking series asSex in the
City,The Sopranos, and, especiallyCurb Your Enthu-
siasm.

Further Reading
Friend, Tad. “Garry Shandling’s Alter Ego Trip.”Es-
quire120, no. 1 (July, 1993): 35-40.
Shandling, Garry, and David Rensin.Confessions of a
Late Night Talk Show Host: The Autobiography of
Larr y Sanders as Told to Garr y Shandling. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1998.
Steinberg, Jacques. “Hey Now: It’s Garry Shand-
ling’s Obsession.”The New York Times, January 28,
2007, p. 1.
Michael Adams

See also Cable television; Comedians; Late night

television;Murphy Brown;Seinfeld;Sex and the City;

Television.

 Las Vegas megaresorts

Definition Lavish, large casino resorts with

spectacular side attractions

Place Clark County, Nevada

As approximately a dozen huge new complexes joined or re-

placed already-famous casino-hotels in the 1990’s, the city’s

image was transformed, shedding the last vestiges of its rep-

utation as a place of gangsters and Hollywood hipsters and

becoming an international tourist destination and major

convention locale. The resulting economic and population

growth exceeded that of most other Sun Belt cities.

After a sixteen-year period in which no new hotel-

casinos were built in Las Vegas, the city’s tourist in-

dustry was in a slump in the late 1980’s. New gam-

bling venues had opened in Atlantic City, New

Jersey, and were on the verge of opening on many

Indian reservations. The downward trends were

soon to be reversed in Las Vegas’s future, however.

Early Megaresorts The reversal was both foreshad-

owed and partly inspired by casino financier Steve

Wynn’s trailblazing Mirage megaresort, which opened

in November, 1989. It was expected to be a failure. Its

cost ($700 million), its over 3,000 hotel rooms, and

its “surround scenes” of tropical foliage, an erupting

volcano, and a giant glass-enclosed tropical fish hab-

itat behind the reservation desk all added up to a

venture that would take one million dollars a day to

operate. One year after its opening, the Mirage was

showing a more than $200 million profit and in-

spired an unprecedented wave of further megare-

sort construction.

Next to open was the medieval castle-like Excali-

bur in June, 1990, a project of the publicity-shy Cir-

cus Circus owner William Bennett. Designed to pull

in visitors with children as well as history buffs,

Excalibur set the stage for a decade-long push of Las

Vegas as a “Disney World-plus” vacation spot for fam-

ilies. Despite its mock jousting tournaments and

pageantry, like other casinos the Excalibur never

lost view of the adult traveler and gambler as its pri-

mary audience.

October of 1993 saw the advent of Treasure Is-

The Nineties in America Las Vegas megaresorts
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