robin william's real father

I found a very funny clip of Jonathan Winters on the old Jack Paar Show (1964) involving a stick. YouTube failed to post the clip here at Boomerville, but you can go there and check it out. Funny stuff. I wish YouTube had a clip of The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters television show. While standing out front of Vineyard last Saturday, Danny Daniels reminisced about Jonathan Winter's old show. I had almost forgotten that old gem. I had picked up a couple of orange and white traffic cones from the sidewalk (left over from First Friday) and exclaimed that I was Madonna's mother (the singer - not the virgin). Danny started talking about Winters. Yep, that's where it started with me.

I remember watching The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters as a kid and started improvising comedy bits with inanimate objects the house. I remember going down in our basement from time to time and mimic the same kind of ad-lib humor that Johnathan would do in his cluttered attic on television.

I remember watching the Wacky World on our old black and white Zenith. I remember being made to do homework while the show was going on - and all I could do was hear the laughter down the hall. I remember not getting to watch Jonathan frustrated mini-me to no end.

The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters wasn't a tight show. You could tell that it had to have a loose format to all Jonathan creative elbow room. I don't know if there ever could be a show that could properly showcase Winter's brilliance. The Jack Paar Show was an excellent venue for Jonathan. He had Paar to throw him a stick and let him run after it. Maybe that's what Jonathan needed all along.

I remember Robin Williams taking on Winters to play the role of his son in Mork & Mindy (back in the early eighties). It didn't really work - but it was nice seeing the two work side by side. I've seen Winters and Williams on stage together several times since. You can tell that they admire each other but seem to step on each other's feet. Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams share the same free flowing comedic ad-lib gene. Robin gives credit to Jonathan for the early influence - for being a mentor of sorts.

This Jack Paar clip from 1964 is a wonderful sampling of Jonathan Winter's brand of spontaneous combustion humor. Great stuff.