The first thing you hear in “The Larry Sanders Show” is Hank Kingsley (Jeffrey Tambor), the sidekick to the late-night host Larry Sanders (Garry Shandling), preparing the members of the studio audience of the show within the show. The host, he tells them, needs their help — their applause, their affirmation. “The better you are,” he says, “the better Larry is.”

We don’t see the crowd, yet we’ve just been introduced to the most important relationship in the show. Mr. Shandling, who created this HBO comedy — it ran from 1992 to 1998 — with Dennis Klein and who died on Thursday at 66, didn’t just produce a template for the modern sitcom. He created a love story — the story of the selfish, intense and generative love of an artist for his audience.

And Larry Sanders — well, he was not what you would call a conventionally lovable guy. He was passive-aggressive, preferring to delegate his battles to his producer, Artie (Rip Torn). He was not terrific at relationships (ask his ex-lover Roseanne), nor was he the world’s greatest boss. He was vain and insecure. He was self-centered, self-loving and self-hating all at once.

But he was deeply human in his flaws, the greatest of which was his bottomless need. He needed to connect, he needed affirmation, he needed to please. His signature line, “No flipping!” — mimicking an itchy finger on a remote — was the entertainer’s creed: Don’t leave me!