RIP Robin Williams

He was very funny stepping out of character during a commercial break on Larry Sanders (after doing manic stuff for a few minutes--I just wasn't a fan of that side of him): "Hey, it's a business, get used to it--blow me."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG1YlnrQAnM

he had a helluva of a nineties run: from Mrs Doubtfire through 2000 the guy was a huge box office star.

I have mixed feelings about him overall - obviously talented, could be funny and moving on occasion (when the material suited him), but there was always this straining desperation about him, and a lot of his stuff was crap (90s blockbusters as noted). He's been a fixture since my childhood (Mork, Garp, standup comedy benefits); I feel like I always wanted to like him more than I actually did, his trying-too-hard-ness often seemed to get in the way.

xp

Don't like Aladdin. Especially now, it feels like it inspired/anticipated much of the Shrek-style obnoxiousness that came to dominate too much animation in recent years. For years, it has been my personal policy to ask anyone who claims to like the film if they've seen the 1940 The Thief of Bagdad.

I have mixed feelings about him overall - obviously talented, could be funny and moving on occasion (when the material suited him), but there was always this straining desperation about him, and a lot of his stuff was crap (90s blockbusters as noted). He's been a fixture since my childhood (Mork, Garp, standup comedy benefits); I feel like I always wanted to like him more than I actually did, his trying-too-hard-ness often seemed to get in the way.

yeah that mawkish note he couldn't resist hitting. He was the textbook example of comedians who think they need Serious Roles

last 3 posts are where I'm at with this guy

didn't like a lot of his work but always dug the guy rip

suicide is devastating and i hope he rests in peace and that his family makes it through this okay. i have very mixed feelings about robin williams -- if it were just about him as a performer, that'd be one thing, but in his stand-up days he stole so many jokes from comedians that they didn't even want to go on stage if they knew he was in the building. that's stealing from the livelihoods of other creative professionals even when you could just fucking HIRE a joke writer = not cool.

i will chalk it up to mental illness.

Just occurred to me: was he the only box office star who didn't mind supporting roles and cameos? I'm thinking of his awesome bit in Dead Again as this foulmouthed doctor.

his missteps were all borne from very good intentions.

well said. he seemed like a wonderful man.

xpost

Bill Murray did quite a few of these too, but yeah, its rare.

RIP - I musta saw Moscow on the Hudson at least 4 times in the theaters - it may have been the movie that put me on the road to loving film. Fisher King is sublime, and his raunchy stand up was in a class of its own. So sad he's not around to get the laugh out of us anymore.

I don't think of Bill Murray as big box office by the mid and late nineties though. Williams just couldn't stop working.

i wanna watch that one episode of louie where they are together in the strip club

That dinner scene in The Birdcage is a masterpiece of sustained comedy ("And a man's wealth is measured by the size of his cock. Excuse me.").

Only dramatic roles I dug of his were Good Will Hunting and Fisher King, but yeah, he struck me as fairly one-note (that one note being a pensive soft-spoken "ohh"). Haven't heard his standup in ages, but I remember finding it hilarious at the time. I also remember it being refreshingly and shockingly (for the time) anti-Reagan/conservative.

shit. RIP

Williams just couldn't stop working.

Kinda like Updike, maybe.

He was the textbook example of comedians who think they need Serious Roles

i have to disagree with this. dude was a classically trained actor, not just somebody who came up through the chuckle-huts and then got pretentious. he had a mawkish side, also had a "i need to be working constantly" side, and between the two there's a lot of dross. but i don't think you get to like Moscow On The Hudson AND look at him as someone who didn't accept his station.

Mum took me to see Popeye when it came out in the theaters, so I was maybe 4 or 5 (underwater octopus scene scared the CRAP out of me). I loved Mork & Mindy from the moment I was old enough to talk, I think. I put this on FB but there's something about the sound of his voice, just hearing him talking is like hearing my childhood. And when he can make me laugh as an adult, it's like revisiting that place. I think that's why I liked his Teddy Roosevelt, corny as it was. It just felt good that he could make me laugh still.

I've always resented The Birdcage for reasons that were not at all the fault of the film: watching a film teeming with flamingly gay caricatures with your parents and the hetero best friend who you were nursing a huge secret crush on was not the most comfortable way for a closeted 15-year-old to spend an evening. I should give it another shot.

i've avoided the birdcage but mostly cuz i hate the visual style of later mike nichols movies

i have to disagree with this. dude was a classically trained actor, not just somebody who came up through the chuckle-huts and then got pretentious. he had a mawkish side, also had a "i need to be working constantly" side, and between the two there's a lot of dross. but i don't think you get to like Moscow On The Hudson AND look at him as someone who didn't accept his station.

well, I meant "Hollywood's idea of a serious role." I know Olivier starred in a few Jacks of his own.

RIP King of the Moon

honestly for the last 20 years i'd rather see him in a "dramatic" role than one that's distinctly "comic".

That dinner scene in The Birdcage is a masterpiece of sustained comedy ("And a man's wealth is measured by the size of his cock. Excuse me.").

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, August 11, 2014 7:43 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That scene is amazing. They're all great. Agador Spartacus! Also, "it looks like they're playing leap frog!".

FUCK THE SOUP

Of all the things Williams worked in, I think it's his Louie episode I'm going to watch tonight.

i'd really forgotten how much i liked him being around. hadn't seen him in anything since one hour photo which i thought was pretty decent.

I remember in 2002 when One Hour Photo and Insomnia came out it already felt like Williams time had past and he needed comebacks when, like, Patch Adams was only four years earlier.

*Williams' time had passed rather

I was fine with his family films like Mrs. Doubtfire and Jumanji. Didn't like him in films for grown-ups, especially his 2000s serial killer run.

I remember being weirded out when I found out he was a big fan of first-person shooter games at the same time I was
http://www.theninhotline.net/meatpers/img/e3.jpg

man...like everybody here it seems, I was conflicted about him - like, deeply talented dude, but also sort of incapable of checking himself at the door, no matter the role - though I thought he really worked hard at that in One Hour Photo. the first guy along with Steve Martin of whose ascent I was aware; in my sixth grade class, recaps of the most recent Mork & Mindy episode were de rigeur and the teacher would sometimes talk about the "deeper" ones - he really thought it was great, worthwhile television, but at the same time, it was just a TV show - watching dude go on to be Mr. Box Office was, like, I remember seeing this guy as a brand new thing, now he's everywhere.

while it's true that a lot of his schtick seemed to spring from some depths it's pretty shocking to me that he got so low -- though I know nothing about his personal life. it is always really troubling to me when somebody who has all the success in the world ends up too deep in the hole to climb back up, anyway. scary to me. hope his family finds some way to cope.

https://twitter.com/sesamestreet/status/498975277331267585

and don't forget "Homicide"

I remember being weirded out when I found out he was a big fan of first-person shooter games at the same time I was
http://www.theninhotline.net/meatpers/img/e3.jpg

God you can just picture him playing one too

^

on MSNBC Chris Hayes just played his first "Tonight" show appearance and mentioned that sense in which the guy wasn't totally sure how far he was going to go in the act of improvising

xps that sesame st pic almost made me cry at a drive through fuck you the internet

the thing i thought of instantly was the first thing i ever saw him in -- as the frog prince in an episode of shelley duvall's 'faerie tale theatre.'

A half dozen of his films were on constant rotation in my childhood. Could never feel any great antipathy to even his worst material due to that + the fact that his missteps were all borne from very good intentions.

― Merdeyeux, Monday, August 11, 2014 6:25 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i probably listened to the good morning vietnam soundtrack like 100000 times as a kid

Mork & Mindy was a beacon of fun in the 3 channel era in the UK. This was a time when the only people I knew who had colour tv's were putting 50p's into a slot meter to rent them and most domestic tv entertainment seemed to be aimed at our shitty parents. It was beautiful at the time.

man...like everybody here it seems, I was conflicted about him - like, deeply talented dude, but also sort of incapable of checking himself at the door, no matter the role

This is the problem I have with him in everything where he's bad, but on the other hand when he did manage to check himself, I think he was capable of conveying tremendous feeling, alongside or through the comedy. He let himself down when he coasted on his own brand or his shtick - "hey, it's Robin Williams, here he is! Laugh now!" type roles, a la A.I., where all you can see is Robin Williams doing Robin Williams. But... we're actually halfway through watching The Birdcage, and while there's a lot about it that really bothers me, Williams is excellent. So much restraint and dignity and anger and nostalgia and love to his character. I was really bowled over by it to be honest, he feels like such a complete, real person, which makes the funny parts funnier. That's real skill there, both for a comedian and an actor.

RIP.

My wife is not taking this well, as I imagine is the case for everyone with depression or bipolar.

the frog prince in an episode of shelley duvall's 'faerie tale theatre.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57kw6I_ULDM

that's what I love about The Birdcage role: on paper it's an, ahem, straight role but the guy is practically coming apart trying to keep the life he's spent decades building from unraveling

jeez, RIP

I had that thing younger folks must have with Bob Saget, where I knew him from TV when I was 8-9 and then heard his raunchy stand-up a year or two later.

― the one where, as balls alludes (Eazy), Monday, August 11, 2014 4:14 PM

yep this is me as well, I remember hearing to "Reality, What A Concept" over at a friends house, whoa!

should also be noted: one of the few stars who seemed totally cool with gay costars (remember Harvey Fierstein) and material.

somehow this doesn't feel like other celebrity deaths. reminds me of when john candy died -- i remember feeling not just sad, but that this was somehow wrong, a rupture in the universe, like hearing that one of the muppets had just died or something.

pic.twitter.com/me6uYzmtQF

— SNL Hosts Introducing the Musical Guest (@snlhostsintro) October 13, 2022

Why was he never on STar Trek