Many fans of “The Larry Sanders Show” are hacked off that creator Garry Shandling, who has been awfully pokey in getting his show to the DVD marketplace (only the first season is available in total), opted to release a four-disk set entitled “Not Just the Best of ‘The Larry Sanders Show’” with 23 episodes from throughout the series’ run. In lieu of more episodes, it includes scads of interviews with cast members and guest-stars, many conducted by Shandling himself, which gives the package an unusually pensive, jittery tone for a comedy boxed set.

Shandling, of course, is legendary for transforming his neuroses into comic gold. But what’s at work in these interviews is more probing, more personal and largely not intended to be funny. Shandling is still trying to make sense of what became of himself while working on the show.

During the run of the series, Shandling experienced spectacular fallings-out with his former fiancée (and co-star) Linda Doucett, who turned around and sued him for sexual harassment, and his longtime manager Brad Grey (now chairman of Paramount Pictures), whom Shandling sued for duping him out of scads of cash.

I interviewed Shandling during the fourth season of the show, after Doucett had departed amidst turmoil. As always, he was a funny and perceptive guy, but was wary. “Are you going to make fun of me?” he asked. “I can go with that and I’d respect you if you did.” Later, even though the review was proceeding perfectly well, he suggested putting the kibosh on it and trying again at a later time. “I’m just feeling,” he said, searching for the right word: “unsure.”

Some of the bonus material is indeed fascinating in its depiction of Shandling’s efforts to make amends or explain himself to his collaborators. (''I wanted to objectively see the realities of that time,” he told the New York Times in January. “What was I like? What were my relationships like, with the actors and writers? What did they feel?'') There’s a particularly uncomfortable reunion with Doucett, who observes, “People want more. But even if they don’t get what they want, they still get what you gave them,” followed by a title card, scrawled in Shandling’s own hand, reading, “We all do the best we can.”

But much of it feels fairly indulgent and protracted (Shandling, seeking a warts-and-all vibe, didn’t do enough editing on the interviews). He chats while shooting hoops with David Duchovny and sparring in a boxing ring with Alec Baldwin (bad timing that this DVD collection comes out the same week as Baldwin’s phone-mail diatribe). He discusses, in a surprisingly disappointingly desultory fashion, the process of creating the show with co-stars Jeffrey Tambor and Rip Torn. In a section entitled “The journey continues,” Garry chats with a Buddhist monk for a couple of minutes.

There’s an unnecessarily extended chat with Jerry Seinfeld, in which much time is devoted to Seinfeld angsting over a missing jacket (no, seriously). While Seinfeld emerges as fairly dismissive of show business, he does seem to provide Shandling’s thesis for him: “TV wins in the end. You can kill your TV show or it can kill you.”

In a phone conversation with Jon Stewart (who, at the end of the series, wrested the show from Larry’s hands), Stewart tries to absolve Shandling of his guilt. “What should I do next?” Shandling asks; Stewart replies, “Two words: Lighten up.”

No kidding. I’d recommend Shandling re-watch Preston Sturges’ movie “Sullivan’s Travels.” In it, a comedy filmmaker aspires to create a film of penetrating social importance – or, at least, didactic pretensions (it would be called “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, a title poached much later by the Coen brothers for their George Clooney musical comedy). Instead, watching a comedy with an appreciative audience, he comes to realize what a service getting people to laugh really is. Perhaps someday Shandling can feel good about the laughs he gave his fans.