RIP Robin Williams

[thatguy]

He always seemed a sad clown.

--tg

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Inconceivable.

[cranefly]

A sizable chunk of the world just vanished.

[The Queen]

You guys probably know that for many years, I worked at the Academy Awards, managing a team of court reporters and scopists who took down the winner interviews and posted the text at oscars.org and distributed the transcripts to the media. The very first interview we ever did was Robin Williams, when he won for Good Will Hunting. I had anticipated he might win and knowing how hard it would be for the reporter to take his rapid-fire delivery down, I had her practice to his concerts. Every time she tried, she would throw up her hands after a few seconds, laughing hysterically, saying, "I can't, I can't! Please, God don't let him win." When he won, she was sweating bullets. In he walks, and he sees all the press standing there with numbered paddles (they would hold them up to indicate they had a question and the Academy rep would call out the number of the person allowed to ask a question). Robin looks out at all those numbers and said, "What is this, an auction?" then went into a 500-word-per-minute auctioneer impression. The reporter started pounding away at her writer with this look of horror on her face, which stayed there for about 10 minutes. But she got every syllable, and didn't laugh once.

[Drunk Monk]

I was looking for T appropriate TV. The episode I watched didn't really hold up tho.

[thatguy]

Maybe his first appearances on Happy Days?

Can't imagine they'd hold up either...

--tg

[thatguy]

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--tg

[El Dingo]

Not sure if DM ever saw me, but my Freshman year of high school I worshipped Robin Williams. I wore rainbow suspenders with buttons and pins a la Mork, listened to his album endlessly and tried to talk like him all of the time.

Once when I lived in San Francisco I was on a blanket behind him at a "Comedy in the Park" festival. He was there with his family and I chose not to bug him with an autograph request because I respected his desire to be out without being bothered.

His death saddened me almost as much as John Belushi. The difference being Belushi was 33 and Williams was 63.

Two flawed masterpieces stand out as my favorite of his films; "What Dreams May Come" and "The Fisher King". "What Dreams may Come" has an awkward script but is visually one of the most stunning films I've seen. The fact that it deals with death, depression and suicide is now sadly ironic. "The Fisher King" is about showing the world one face, while hiding the real one. Again ironic.

I will miss his presence.

[Drunk Monk]

...I always thought it was Ronald McDonald.

Mind blown...