RIP Robin Williams

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.

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

i dunno

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.

the WTF interview is instructive on this

RIP feels really appropriate to say for this guy who couldn't stop

just cause i don't think it's come up; his podcast interview with marc maron is really good & insightful & charming.
xp!; yeah

Questlove just now:

http://instagram.com/p/rk_yJXwa0K/

Man. The smallest gesture can mean the world to you. Robin Williams made such an impact on me and didn't even know it. He named checked all of us in the elevator during the 2001 Grammys. I know y'all think I do this false modesty/T Swift "gee shucks" thing to the hilt. But yeah sometimes when you put 20 hour days in you do think it's for naught and that it goes thankless. Grammy time is somewhat of a dark time simply because you just walk around asking yourself is it worth it or not: all the sweat and blood. I just felt like (despite winning grammy the year before) no one really cares all that much for us except for a select few. Especially in that environment I'm which people treat you like minions until they discover what you can do for them...if you're not a strong character you run the risk of letting it get to you. This particular Sunday we were walking backstage and had to ride the elevator to the backstage area and we piled inside when suddenly this voice just said "questlove.....black thought....rahzel....the roots from Philadelphia!!!! That's right you walked on this elevator saying to yourself "ain't no way this old white dude knows my entire history and discography"....we laughed so hard. That NEVER happened to is before. Someone a legend acknowledged us and really knew who we were (his son put him on to us) man it was a small 2 min moment in real life but that meant the world to me at the time. Everytime I saw him afterwards he tried to top his trivia knowledge on all things Roots associated. Simply because he knew that meant everything to me. May his family find peace at this sad time. I will miss Robin Williams. #RIP.

maron just tweeted that he's reposting that WTF.

i think i'll mourn williams in a different way than i do candy. with candy there's a sense that there were types of performances we never got to see - would he have been in those christopher guest mockumentaries? a cable series? with williams, his skills and range were on full display, it's just so sad that his accomplishments and success wasn't enough.

The same year he did voice work for Aladdin, he also voiced this vivisected bat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaTFgY8kZcU

just remembered his bit in the 1999 Oscars doing the "South Park" songs.

Fern Gully is one of those childhood favourites where I realise it's prooobably best I never re-watch.

He was a problematic talent, no doubt. Little random bits of his that stay with me: his cameo in AI, the "undertoad" and "gradual school" from Garp, he and Tracy Ullman competing to be the most manic and Jay Leno caught in the crossfire.

Man the last death that hit me this weird was DFW

Like, people whose outward-facing persona were so different than the demons inhabiting them revealed after the act

Glancing through this thread it seems like he was a part of everybody's childhood no matter the age

I hope he finally found peace

I've already said this elsewhere, but I kinda think the reason that so many of us resented maudlin garbage like Patch Adams so much was that his tendency towards mawkishness in such roles put too fine a point on something that was already there beneath the surface. Regardless of their individual qualities (or lack thereof), films like Popeye, Hook, Toys, Mrs. Doubtfire and The Birdcage, are full of lost children and/or fathers. The melancholy was already there even in some of his lightest entertainments.

Here's that first Tonight Show appearance mentioned above (just scanned the thread, doesn't seem to posted yet).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr1DSLoHni0

https://twitter.com/crushingbort/status/498999523830951936

he obviously didn't 'find peace', merely a cessation of anguish

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.

― Now I Am Become Dracula (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Monday, August 11, 2014 5:00 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah

http://twitter.com/warrenellis/status/498968271853330432

He had a lot of interests I intersected with at so many times

I'm 25 and have never planned or attempted but whether it's Robin Williams or DFW reminding me that I might one day get worse is disquieting selfxp

Man I forgot his uncredited bit in Munchausen! He was great in bit parts like that.

comedians are complicated. he certainly favored darker movie projects of late, eg the Bobcat-directed one and The Angriest Man in Brooklyn.

Munchausen bit exemplifies what i disliked most about him.

btw he was a solid actor in Garp and most of all the PBS Bellow film Seize the Day

also I am in about the sixth row on the back sleeve photo of his Live at the Met LP (1986)

wow :)

POST PICTURE

I probably saw more of his movies in the theater than any other actor, and a lot of them were his bad movies (Toys, Patch Adams, August Rush...the REALLY bad ones) and could never bring myself to hate the guy for it. growing up I watched a lot of Mork & Mindy reruns on Nick At Nite and always looked forward to the Comic Relief telethons.

also not everyone starring in a hit sitcom would bring on his childhood idol as a regular, as he did with Jonathan Winters.

I remain a Death to Smoochy fan, but The Fisher King, the horror.

the second and last time I saw him live was as Estragon

http://www.robin-williams.net/images/plays/godot/image01.jpg

^^^ wish i'd seen that. even tho it's not the one w john goodman as pozzo.

this shook me. rip. i think he's unflashily amazing in the birdcage too; alfred otm abt his character's desperate position. stray phrases from a night at the met blow through me every couple weeks and always have.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IyrqeTDeeQ

Koko was probably all "goddamm, that man was hairy," after he left.

nice remembering deconstructing harry today

DEATH TO SMOOCHY!!!

death to smoochy is great

there was an early special of his where he starts to lose the audience and does this "into the mind of a comedian who's bombing" bit where he's running around inside his own head pulling switches and turning nobs and finally says "ok, we have to do it -- no! we can't do it! -- yes, we must... release, the id!" and he comes crawling out of an invisible box like a horror movie creature. can't find it on youtube.

absolutely grew up on mork reruns.

some of the best fake songs for a movie ever in death to smoochy - "Friends Come in All Sizes," "We'll Get You Off That Smack (Oh Yes We Will)," and my favorite, "My Stepdad's Not Mean (He's Just Adjusting)."

this has really fucked me up.

https://twitter.com/zeldawilliams/status/499045688559165440

I'm honestly bewildered by this, even though everyone knew he was on an emotional rollercoaster. But he always struck me as a generous and compassionate person, and he had me from the second he head-stood the Cunningham sofa in Happy Days.

a true artist who touched our lives <3

This fucked me up, like a sneak-attack. When I first heard, my initial shameful thought was a feeling of "Finally," like the feeling that a depressed person had arrived at his/her inevitable conclusion. On the 99 days that I'm not depressed, suicide seems unconscionable, like a distant memory of a shitty movie, but one that 1 day out of 100, and when I hear about celebs like Williams or Linkous, or people close to me, victims of depression, alcoholism, bipolar disorder, PTSD, all that familiar boulange, there is an aura of inevitability that is really hard to shake. I've been hanging tough, keeping kool in the workplace, but honestly? reading people's Twitter responses destroyed me on a private level. "Call somebody" lol. Support groups, try my medication, etc. Can any of us possibly comprehend what is required of a comedy legend/movie star? where an entire industry is hanging on his vibe, his mood? How dependent his bankability and the income of thousands is on how "on" he could be? I can't possibly comprehend how impossible it must've felt to broach these topics with even his loved ones, let alone his staff, or anybody who would immediately just dismiss any claims toward mental sickness as preposterous, as I'm sure the guy had all the sushi and chocolate he could ask for. Does this make sense? I dunno, any time I've ever tried to say "I feel old/tired/terrible and want to die" the response has consistently been orbiting about the self of the confessor, like "how could you possibly feel this way when you have so much?" How must it have been for Williams? Anyway.

it makes sense

i don't know what to do with myself