I guess it’s a human trait to pretend someone was “a genius” after they die. There must be some sort of psychology behind it that can explain away this phenomenon.
This is particularly true with comedians.
Have you ever read Bill Hicks’ fans write about him on social media? You’d think he was barnstorming the country, filling giant halls with laughter, in between gigs as Head Sage at the World Oracle.
Please. He was a club comedian, working the Hoo Ha Factory, hoping to score a spot on Letterman once in awhile. He was funny, just like lots of other guys at The Funny Bone. Somehow, death made him greater, but I seem to laugh just about the same amount when I watch old clips of him.
Is there something wrong with me?
I guess I’m committing heresy, considering the documentary that’s about to come out.
Yes, I know it’s different strokes for different folks, but you can quantify jokes to some degree. I’m just not seeing the funny with Robin Wiliams. I see the attitude, the comic timing, the rainbow suspenders, the mania, the fast talking, the funny voices, the funny faces… I just don’t hear the jokes.
Williams’ arc is a unique one.
At one point in his life he was hailed as some sort of comedic genius. But that particular tag faded. There was a time when people looked at him with starry eyes and talked about him like he was the King, but then comedians started to complain that he was joke stealer and people started to catch on that his vaunted improv abilities weren’t all that spontaneous. They were preplanned and were done over and over and over again. (This will happen when you do lots of talk shows and you repeat your “ad libs” on WAKE UP DAYTON after you just did them on WAKE UP DES MOINES!)
Here he is on an Improv Show and he’s not particularly standing out as anything extraordinary. In fact he can’t compete with Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie.
I was curious and went to message boards from 2008. Most of the comments are about how unfunny Williams is and that his real talent lies in dramatic acting.
These comments go on and on and on and on. He wasn’t much in fashion, nor beloved as an entertainer.
Williams’ career was in the dumper when he committed suicide. He hadn’t had a box office winner, that he carried, in decades.
But now, in his death?
He’s sorely missed, to the point of causing depression in others, he was a genius and the world is suffering for his absence, he was an absolute delight, a national treasure, yet he wasn’t really working and his movies were making no money because no one was lining up to see them, not as much as they lined up to lay flowers outside his house.
We’re a peculiar lot, us humans.
For the record, I thought Williams had talent, just not as a stand-up. I actually liked him in movies that were panned, like Insomnia and One Hour Photo.
I didn’t dislike the man, I disliked the sycophants around him, which is no fault of his.
In the documentary clip there is a shot of Henry Winkler watching Williams on stage at some club. He’s looking at him like he’s looking at the Lord.
It’s eye roll inducing.
Like I said, that star faded, but it seems to be back in his death.
The best career move Tom Petty ever made was shitting the bed.
I liked some of his movies, like 24-hour Photo, where he played out of type as a kind of perverted old guy, but I was not too fond of his comedy, or him as Mork from Ork.
It’s typical of liberals to worship human beings, but not the Creator. Of course, they have everything back-asswards.
I can’t think of any comedians that I would miss if they were gone. Real people are a lot more fun.
I like Bill Burr.
If he died I would think it sucked and then I’d find something else to be entertained by.
Bill Burr can be pretty fuckin funny. But goddam, is it fuckin necessary to swear twice in every goddam, fucking sentence? That’s my Bill Burr impersonation. He is pretty funny, but jeez.
joe6pak
Dave Chapell.
John Candy was an outstanding comedian, but an ensemble comedian, not stand-up.
He would make me laugh just from looking at him. Some of his skits on the old SCTV show are still hilarious, and very creative. One time, he played Julia Child in a boxing match against another comedian playing Mr. Rogers. It was just crazy-funny.
The movies he was in did not bring out his comedic talents at all. The SCTV program is the best place to see his genius. Probably now on YouTube.
If Bill Burr died I’d pin it on Samantha Bee. Then I would call in Justin Bieber for questioning, just because of the “Bee-Burr” connection. Damn I would have made a great detective!
Robin Williams was unique. At his best early on he was like a one man Marx Brothers. Later he grew into a poignant serious actor, which few funny men ever achieve. He survived drugs, fame, and changing eras.
Comedy is a formula commodity product now, standardized as McDonalds and completely interchangeable. Every hipster club/campus/cable-special comic now is exactly like every other.
Williams was unique.
I liked Andrew Dice Clay (admittedly he’s not for everyone) but I think I peed my pants, once.
Dice is the only stand-up that sold out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row.
The other one I’ll watch, is Jeff Dunham. He’s brilliant!
Sort of off topic…..
For us Q fans – think of the people that have committed suicide recently who were connected. Now keep in mind that there’s more than a hint that the new world order globalists are connected to sex trafficking and pedophelia.
I wonder if Robin Williams or David Caradine were some of the first to go, but haven’t been outed as part of this racket?
They both died from hanging just like Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.
How many more are going to be “clintoncided”?
I think there’s a good chance that it’s all related.
Anyone who’s associated with fame & fortune are suspect to me. How many souls have been sold for the fame & fortune.
Worst of all, it’s not just about pedophelia. I think there’s going to be torture and cannibalism involved at the highest “leadership” levels.
These people could literally be vampires preying on the souls of children.
Sorry, Robin Williams’ face made me think of how he died and I’ve gone off tangent.
I can’t imagine anyone else portraying Popeye. I actually loved that panned movie.
The frenetic persona that rocketed Williams to fame came mostly from cocaine.
Tim Hawkins reminds me of Roobin Williams. But Hawkins is quite funny.
When Bill Hicks first came on the scene he had a funny standup routine and he was entertaining for a couple years. After that he became very preachy and pushed his odd social perspective which I found shallow and moronic. His star faded after that.
I never found Robin Williams all that funny, his comedy routines were silly and childish. I agree that he did well in a few movies but while viewing the few I’ve seen I couldn’t get past seeing the goofy comedy clown in his characters. Something akin to type casting.
The first few times I saw Sam Kinisen he had me rolling with laughter. The primal screaming etc. was killer funny and talking about marriage and women was very funny. He was killed on a highway when I think his career was on the downward arc. I guess there’s only so much material before it becomes too redundant.
Comedy is subjective so everyone see it from their own lens.
More puzzling to me, than the cultural beatification of suicided celebrities, is the the mythologizing of the Great Love Story they were living at the time… Really? A person we have never met just made the most final furious/lonely statement and we are supposed to believe s/he was beloved by people whose initial response is to issue a tweet?
Bill Hicks…. never hoid of him. Did he become a celebrity when he died?
This is what’s happening with Anthony Bourdain.
It’s sad he killed himself. But the guy was a jerk.
He was arrogant and a drunk and rude.
He came to Portland, ME once and the owner of the restaurant was so annoyed with him he didn’t even pretend to like him on air.
But now everyone is claiming he was a genius and all the other adjectives they can come up with to say how great he was. UGH.
Just say it’s sad and leave it at that when celebrities die.
As far as Bill Burr, he was funnier before he got married to his liberal wife.
Robin Williams was Johnathan Winters on cocaine …..
Eugene Levy, Martin Short, & Dana Carvey. Oh yeah – – and Judy Tenuta.
I enjoy the stuttering, pathetic antics of Nancy Pelosi.
HR Clinton’s prolonged Rodney Dangerfield impression is pretty good, too.
And she’s getting pretty good at the pratfalls.
DeNiro does a fair acerbic clown, but isn’t as convincing as Schmucky Schumer.
Ah, well … “funny” people, indeed.
izlamo delenda est …
geofraz, did you see “The Fisher King”? That movie was the first time I worried about Patch Adam’s mental health.
I loved Steve Martin back in the day. He did a lot of funny, silly stuff, as well as the Monty Python gang. Their star has faded and I don’t know about their mental health, but those were some good times.
Oh – in a similar vein – I’ve seen commercials for some dreck about Pablo Picasso and how he was a “genius” and an “anarchist” and shit.
Pure, unadulterated, bullshit. He was a socialist painter.
Seems that “some” people have to “en-genius” others in order to properly worship them: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, comedians, actors, playwrights, exceptionally photogenic talking heads, writers, journ-o-lists, &c. You get to the point that “genius” no longer means anything other than “good at” or even “fairly good at.”
While true “genius” is overlooked or misunderstood (by the masses): Einstein, Newton, Fermi, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Oppenheimer, Teller, Shockley, et. al.
izlamo delenda est …
Jerry Lewis. Lenny Bruce. Bill Hicks. Robin Williams. These people have all been anointed “geniuses” by the entertainment establishment. But, were they funny? Jerry Lewis was a clown. Lenny Bruce was the first “social commentator” comedian, but he wasn’t funny. At all. Bill Hicks tried to adopt the “social commentator” title, but I’ve listened to several of his bits and they are just new ageish distortions of reality. Again, not funny. Robin Williams. The first comedy special he did for HBO I enjoyed. I thought those Tourette’s like outbursts were spontaneous. But then, subsequent displays showed that nothing he did was spontaneous, just canned characters he would pull out in the middle of a failing bit. In his acting career, he only had two characters. The hyperactive idiot clown and the subdued, “serious” guy. Watch Good Will Hunting, 24-hr Photo, and Insomnia and tell me those aren’t the same persona. Anyway, humans need their gods since they usually don’t find the real one in their sad existences.
Whoever is presented on the Idiot Box will get a certain percentage of disciples.
Bob & Ray:
two guys who were the real thing, and consistently clever and funny ‘til the end
I recall seeing the “Whose Line” episode with Williams. He totally fucked up the rhythm of that show, because his talent was not really suited to the kind of improvisation they were doing. And he was being upstaged by the two masters — Colin Mochrie and Ryan Styles
So he started stealing the spotlight with his basic Jonathan-Winters-on-meth shtick (Good one Groucho) and every one had to play along with it, because “The King” was performing. And the thing that came thru crystal clear to me was the arrogance and entitlement of the bastard
@Callmelennie June 11, 2018 at 9:53 pm
The “Whose Line” show was so funny. Mochrie and Styles are brilliant to come up with those skits within just a couple of seconds from being told what the situation was.
Truly creative.
@Tim June 11, 2018 at 8:41 am
I call him Pablo Picasshole, because he really was. He abused his sex partners of both sexes. He was a bastard, a terrible person.
Who loves him? Feminists, liberals, and queers. He gets a pass because he was a socialist and atheist artist.