By Tom Godfrey on April 16, 2013

April 12, 2013

I was saddened by the passing yesterday of Jonathan Winters.  There may have been someone else out there like him, but he’s the first him I know of (maybe Bert Lahr, but he was hard to watch).  I remember his 1972-1974 TV show “The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters” and it was like watching a comedic tornado every week, and I mean that in the best way.  I also remember him – and the rest of the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful cast — in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”, which is a movie I watch at least once a year and is impossible to dislike.  If you’re not familiar with it, go to imdb and check out the cast and cameos.  Then watch it.

 When I first saw Robin Williams on “Happy Days” as Mork from Ork, it was immediately obvious he was inspired by Jonathan Winters (it was equally obvious he inspired Jim Carrey), although I always saw him as a shadow of Winters, despite his greater success.  I didn’t care for “Mork & Mindy” but I liked that Jonathan Winters was on it.   I remember watching an interview with Winters in the 80’s and felt bad when he talked about how he was depressed and contemplated suicide.  He sure hid it well but, in retrospect, it was clearly the reason he was so explosively comedic.

The last movie I saw him in was in 2000’s “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,”* which is the movie that required Robert DeNiro (he was a producer on the film) to shave the sides of his head at a time when he appeared on the Oscars to present.  The movie isn’t great but is definitely in the spirit of Jay Ward’s (and Bill Scott’s) brilliant satirical 1959-64 series and was a treat because Winters appeared as three characters.  The series was similar in tone to “Married with Children” in that nobody was shooting for Emmys, it was all about making us laugh and it worked.  Good cameos in the movie, including Carl Reiner as a movie exec.  June Foray, a staple for Warner Brothers, MGM and Disney cartoons in the 40’s, 50’s 60’s, was the original voice of Natasha and Rocky and, forty years later, voiced both characters in the film version.  Her passing is one I’m bracing myself for.  I’m watching “Rocky and Bullwinkle” now in honor of Winters’ passing.   R.I.P Jonathan Winters.  Thanks for daring us to not laugh at you.   And I mean that in the best way.

         Dan

*Randy Quaid, who plays an FBI honcho in “The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle”, while being more notorious for being Clark Griswold’s cousin in the ‘Vacation” movies and, in real life with his wife, skipping out on huge hotel bills with and running to Canada to get away from Hollywood, has had a fascinating career.  He was in two great Peter Bogdanovich movies, “The Last Picture Show” (1973) and “Paper Moon” (1973) and got a Best Supporting Oscar nomination in 1973’s “The Last Detail” opposite Jack Nicholson as the AWOL sailor who was the center of the story.  He was a “Saturday Night Live” cast member in 1985-6.  He was great in “Brokeback Mountain” as the antagonistic boss of the two leads but took away from that performance by suing the movie’s producers because he felt he was misled to believe it was a small movie and not the big money maker and Oscar winner it became.  Not sure what happened in that suit.

Dan

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