You don’t tend to think of Conan as an old school late night host, but he’s been doing it for 23 years now. In those 23 years, he’s had the chance to meet a lot of funny people, but it was clear from last night that Garry Shandling was someone he really enjoyed being around. Conan dedicated his entire monologue to Shandling, the comic, writer, producer and actor who died yesterday at the age of 66. For my generation, Shandling might not have been the most famous or noteworthy comic (his second show ended when I was 10), but if you look around you’ll notice he has influenced a lot of things we love. Have you ever enjoyed a Judd Apatow movie? Well in part you have Shandling to thank for that, who gave Judd his first big break as a writer on ‘The Larry Sanders Show’. There’s a realness to most Apatow comedies that make them different, and a lot has to do with the things he learned from his mentor. Do you enjoy Ricky Gervais, or Michael Scott? The characters and shows created by Gervais were inspired by Shandling’s Larry Sanders, characters that made you cringe and want to look away, but you couldn’t stop watching the train wreck. Those characters show us the sides of ourselves that we may not admit to publicly, but we watch them because deep down we know they’re apart of us too.

-Ryan