Yes Garry, Your Hair Is Fine.

It keeping with the grand tradition of Joe and me giving each other's gifts early, I managed to get enough knocked down off the price of the Shout! Factory complete box set of It's Garry Shandling's Show, although it's quite worth the scratch no matter what some might say. All four seasons of the first regular programming on the then inchoate Showtime cable network in 1986, which was later picked up by the then equally not-quite-a-network-yet Fox, back when Married.. With Children and The Simpsons were still its flagship programs. I only caught it on Fox, not having Showtime back around that period, and have always loved Shandling to pieces. But there really wasn't anything that I can recall that compared to the relatively groundbreaking format for this particular brand of situation comedy. Garry's life is lived as a man who is aware that he's on a sitcom, breaking the fourth wall to address the live audience and TV viewers, voicing his inner dialogue to us as if we were the people inside his head. When Garry's best friend answers the phone in Garry's house "It's Garry Shandling's Show," it keeps us aware at all times that these are people who are not only living their lives in front of a camera but know it as well. I had never seen anything quite like it at the time, although it has been done many instances since. And there was always a special walk-on celebrity each week -- Carl Reiner, Gilda Radner, Tom Petty -- all ringing Garry's doorbell for one surreal reason or another. And of course, Garry's hair, Garry's primary concern at all times and always the star of the show.

The set contains bloopers and audio commentaries for nearly every episode, plus a lot of other cool bells and whistles. Though I think what I miss most of all was the equally self-aware theme song, featured in the clip above. Still one of my favorite theme songs of all time. And damn if I didn't sing aloud to myself it the entire day at work yesterday.

Okay, so I was as excited to get this as Joe was. I ain't gonna lie.