In Memoriam: Robin Williams

Let’s do a thought experiment.  Get the ten most brilliant stand-up comedians together and offer a prize of one million dollars for whoever produces the funniest 30 minutes of material, and give them all one year to work on it.  Then, twelve months later, gather them all in front of an audience.  Then, before any of them go on, give Robin Williams 10 seconds notice and a box of stuff from the New York Library Lost and Found.  He would have won hands down; heck, no one would have dared go on after him.

Williams was many things, but he was first and foremost an improvisationist.  Maybe the best ever.  Let’s face it, no one tuned in to Mork and Mindy for the writing.  He then transitioned to film acting, where improvisation skills are usually as useful as a bicycle is to a fish (yes, I realize that’s not original).  In his best roles, he was able to draw on his incredible talent and transcend ordinary material.  In Good Morning Vietnam, Barry Levinson used a long lens on a camera far away from Williams, so he could secretly tape his riffing.  In Aladdin (I think Robin Williams’ best work), he turned the role of The Genie into something beyond Walt Disney’s imagining.

It is no surprise that Williams eventually won an Oscar, as the Academy loved him like its loved no other actor (aside from Jeff Bridges, who got a nomination for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot for Pete's sake).  In 1987 he got his first nomination for Good Morning Vietnam, a film that got no other nominations and is inconceivable without him in the lead.  In 1990 he went against type and played the very quiet role of the doctor opposite Robert deNiro flashier role as a patient in Awakenings, and he copped the Best Actor nomination away from arguably America’s greatest actor.  The next year he took the flashy role of the mental patient opposite Jeff Bridges’ quieter role in The Fisher King, and once again he got the nomination over his celebrated co-star (I think this was Bridges’ best work, yet he got no nomination for Fisher King but one for Rain Man).  It was only a matter of time before he found a role that the Academy could reward him for, and it was for Good Will Hunting.

Of course there were lots of movies his talent couldn't transcend. He couldn't save Club Paradise, Hook, or (shudder) Jack.  But it was never his fault; his timing was always impeccable.  Finding film roles that could incorporate his manic disposition was just too difficult.

When his latest TV series, The Crazy Ones, was cancelled, I didn't weep but I was disappointed.  Sure, the show demonstrated, especially in the outtakes, that Williams had aged, had lost a step comedically. But he was still faster than anyone on the planet with a quip, exuded a warm fuzzy quality that played off well with Sarah Michelle Geller flinty persona, and it had a fine ensemble cast.  Whatever CBS replaces it with will probably be not as good.

The world is a less funny place without Robin Williams in it.  I wonder what Robin Williams would do if he did his own eulogy?  I bet it would be hysterical.