Garden of Earthly Delights: Andy Kaufman, the Abrasive Genius (part two of two)

The time has definitely arrived for me to offer up the second part of this blog post, given that Kaufman was “in the news” again last week, thanks to another bizarre and pointless “Andy is still among us!” scenario taking place on the Internet.

In the first half of this post I discussed the recent gallery show that contained Andy's personal papers and professional paraphernalia. Among the events that were held to coincide with that show were a number of Kaufman-related video screenings and panels in a series called “Andy Kaufman’s 99 cent tour,” held at the Participant Inc gallery. I was only able to attend two of these events, but I feel that one of them was so special that it needs to be recounted in detail – and then on to more rare clips that are “hiding in plain sight” online....

The difference between this event, which took place on February 19, and the others was that it was hosted and arranged by Hal Willner. I've discussed the incredibly memorable summer shows that Willner has staged here in NYC before (and rhapsodized about his benefit for Tuli Kupferberg here) and his involvement in this particular panel made for quite a memorable evening.

The panel was initially announced to be MTV VP and journalist Bill Flanagan, the talented musician (and vinyl-holic) Lenny Kaye, and Richard Belzer – the last-mentioned dropped out and was replaced by Kembra Pfahlera (and who would *you* rather see?). Also added to the panel were another music critic and Janine Nichols, a former colleague of Willner's from Saturday Night Live.

Willner moderated the panel in a friendly, informal style, playing LPs on a small record player he brought with him – an obvious nod to Andy's original standup act. At the outset Willner showed us albums he assumed Andy would've loved, a hodgepodge of vinyl oddities that he exhibited and then sort of tossed aside. (The one and only jarring thing about Willner as host was that he literally did leave those albums sitting on the floor throughout the show – I had to step over them to use the restroom at the end.)

The first half of the discussion was all about Andy’s personal record collection, samples of which were in the Kaufman show at the Maccarone gallery. It's an odd assortment of singles and LPs, favoring middle-of-the-road singers, of the Fabian-Connie Francis variety – nothing to indicate that Andy lived through the later Sixties (no Beatles, Beach Boys, folkies, acid rock, any of that). One of the two music critics on the panel noted that it “seemed like a record collection with all the good records taken out”; the fact that some family member or friend might’ve lightened the load was put forth at one point. [NOTE: I’ve done several searches but couldn’t turn up the name of the other music journalist; if anyone has it, please put it in the comments field, and I’ll update this entry.]

Lenny Kaye, who wielded a printout of the titles in the collection as he spoke, disagreed, and noted there were a lot of interesting, progressive things in the collection. For instance, a large amount of albums by the African drummer Babatunde Olatunji, who was one of Andy's (non-Elvis) heroes.

Also, a number of Brenda Lee singles, a Soupy Sales (a later one, “Still Soupy After All These Years," signed by Soup to Andy), and this wonderful item, “Peppermint Stick” by Little Isidore and the Inquisitors, which was a famous “dirty record” of its time.

The two critics and Kaye emphasized how Andy's records were like the pop culture references in his act — firmly rooted in the Fifties and seemingly filled with longing for his childhood (they guessed that a number of the LPs were acquired years after they had initially been released).

The discussion then turned to Andy’s act, his links to the Fifties/early Sixties and his constant absorption of TV when young. Pfahler was asked to speak about Andy as a “performance artist,” and she answered quite eloquently that his sincerity was the key. She pointed to the times he sang during his standup act, and noted that he was truly feeling the songs, even though he was “supposed” to be performing them to make people laugh. Willner followed this by playing a snippet of the Slim Whitman tune “Rose Marie,” which Andy famously performed with utter sincerity on the NBC Letterman show — while wearing a turban and a loincloth.

Kaye and the two critics discussed Andy’s integration of music into his act — from the Mighty Mouse theme to his conga numbers to the full-on bizarre moments, like the performance of “Rose Marie.” At this point the two panelists who contributed the most interesting insights were Willner and his predecessor as music coordinator at Saturday Night Live, Janine Nichols (aka Janine Dreyer). 

Nichols offered her recollections of Andy, among them his entrusting her with his beloved portable record player and the records he played on it onstage. She noted that back in the pre-Internet/YouTube days, she would often receive viewer requests for tapes of the Mighty Mouse theme; she would supply tapes if the correspondent was polite enough in their request.

She noted that Andy gave her his records as if they were his children and felt comfortable enough with her to ask if he could do his required pre-show mediation in her office. She agreed, and said that each time that he did SNL, he did indeed disappear inside her office for close to two hours (she also noted that she never barged in on him, so she never saw what he was actually doing). Her (pretty valid) take on Andy’s record collection was that he seemed to have chosen his favorite singers based on how big a pompadour the singer had.

Willner told of working with Andy on musical numbers that never wound up appearing on SNL: an “opera/sword swallowing act” he later did on Letterman (which became the “Rose Marie” bit above) and three obscure Elvis tunes he was supposed to do to go along with the Albert Goldman-bio-inspired sketch in which he played Presley. Returning to the topic of record collections, Willner also spoke at length about the occasions in which Andy “hid out” in his office (he was not the most popular guest by a certain point) and was mesmerized by certain items in Hal's record collection.

There were two items that Willner says Andy made him play over and over again. The first was one of Jerry Lewis' prank phone calls – the one where a man calls the theater asking for Jerry to mention his friend from the stage and gets Jerry, who proceeds to fuck with him for a few minutes. The item below isn't that phone call, but a similar one from the Jer-sanctioned CD “Phoney Phone Calls”:

What was interesting about hearing this in a gallery on Houston St. was that barely anyone in the audience even tittered – Jerry is a hard sell in the art community downtown. The second thing Andy doted on was the famous live recording of Elvis losing his shit while singing “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”

Willner closed the evening by performing himself, doing a bit he saw Andy rehearse in his office, but which Andy never performed on a TV show. Andy loved Wilner’s “CO-STAR” album of Cesar Romero so much that he worked out a ventriloquist act to go with one of the tracks, in which Cesar plays a lothario hitting on a manicurist in a hotel.

Andy acted out the manicurist part (which is unheard on the record – thus the “costar” aspect; the listener was supposed to “act” with the record), while he had a dummy “lip-synch” to the Romero dialogue. Willner used a Knucklehead Smiff dummy (!) with an NYU hoodie on as Romero, while he took Andy's part and played the manicurist.

As with all public events Willner takes part in (usually as a producer-organizer, never to my knowledge as a performer), the panel was indeed a one-of-a-kind event. Ensconced in the front row of the audience were Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. Laurie watched with rapt attention, smiling broadly – I had forgotten that she has her own trove of Kaufman stories (which were recounted in this interview). Lou was asleep throughout most of the evening, but I guess his recent health troubles explain his condition.

Following the show, one video clip was shown: Andy's audition tape for SNL, in which he recited the lyrics of “MacArthur Park” very quickly, two times. Then he did the intro to the Superman TV show in a country bumpkin voice. That latter part is up on YouTube:

As for the newest “Andy isn't dead” hoax, here is the most in-depth article about it. All I can note is that it was verified that Andy did father a child as a teen, and the child in question was female (check it in his Wikipedia entry). And now onto a few of the many rarities that have turned up online....

Among the many super-rare items (read: so rare they must've come from family or close friends) are his first TV appearance and an 8mm horror film made with no budget that includes Andy in a “cameo.” Also there is a pilot called “Stick Around” that he appeared in in 1977, in which he plays a robot version of his Latka character (a few years before he played another robot in the film Heartbeeps).

Perhaps the most interesting clip of a Kaufman bit in “gestation” is this early version of the Tony Clifton character, when Andy simply wore a mustache and wig to play the character.

And yet another 8mm film, this time with Andy in his dressing room acting as his obnoxious alter-ego (in this case without any makeup or wig):

Andy did a LOT of cheesy Seventies TV. Here he is with Cher doing a really awful Garden of Eden sketch where he's Adam and she's the serpent. He was also on the Johnny Cash Xmas special doing his impression of Elvis and singing a nonsense song.  

Here he is doing a weird supermarket prank on a Lisa Hartman special (check out the Borat outtakes, and see if you don't think Sasha Baron is doing a major Andy bit when he asks one clerk “what is this? What is this? What is this?” at the cheese display).

He also appeared as “Dr. Vinnie Boombatz” on a Rodney Dangerfield cable special. Of particular interest, though, is his appearance with the one and only Marty Feldman on The Merv Griffin Show to promote Marty's film “In God We Trust” (which is a major disappointment, considering it stars Marty, Richard Pryor, and Andy!).

On more familiar turf, here he is with co-conspirator Bob Zmuda, fooling around on a kids show called Bananaz in 1979. Zmuda comes on a professor discussing the theory of “psycho- genesis” (in which you're encouraged to stay in the place that you were conceived by your parents). It's a very interesting example of a case where the folks on the show expected Andy to do something weird, as did the studio audience, so it seems like no one was truly deceived here, but it is fun:

Some of the clips that appeared in their entirety at the Participant Inc shows are up online in fragmented form, including this bit of The Slycraft Hour, a 1981 Manhattan access show, in which Andy does a weird Slavic accent, but keeps up his “I’m From Hollywood” bit, and does finally wrestle a woman in the studio:

And onto two clips that show Andy when his health was becoming an issue. First, doing an interview with Tom Cottle (a man with amazing hair). Kaufman stays out of character for the whole time, discussing his childhood, the “TV shows” he did in his bedroom, and the fact that his parents “were worried that I was crazy.”

It's a quite touching piece, where he's really serious; he even offers a fully serious discussion of his love of pro-wrestling, including his attempt to resurrect “the Buddy Rogers atmosphere.”

 It's one of three times I've seen what you might call “the real Andy” on film or tape (the other two being the backstage interview at the end of the “real Andy Kaufman” film by Seth Schultz, and a Tonight Show segment on which he's interviewed by a seemingly snarky Steve Martin, who's guest-hosting for Carson and asks Andy if his main goal is to make the audience feel embarrassed).

Andy coughs a little during that interview, as he does in his last TV appearance, where he's dressed in the Foreign Man outfit, but serves primarily as a host for music-videos and in-studio live appearances. The show was a pilot for a series called “The Top,” and if you need a time-reference, I'll simply note that Andy touts Cyndi Lauper as an up-and-coming talent:

Those last two clips would be very sad notes to go out on, so I will leave you with this delightful song from a Midnight Special appearance. Introduced by K.C. (of the “Sunshine Band”). This kinda sums up Andy's weirdness in one little package (except the audience is digging it).

Howard Kaylan: the Funhouse interview

I'm sure I heard the music of the Turtles all throughout my childhood on AM (and the burgeoning FM “oldies”) radio, but my first conscious memory of Howard Kaylan was in 1975, when he and Mark Volman, then and forever billed as “Flo and Eddie,” guested on an episode of the PBS series Soundstage hosted by Martin Mull. It was called “60 Minutes to Kill.”

I was blown away entirely by that show (at a very young age) and have been a big Flo and Eddie fan (as well as a major devotee of Mull's comedy) ever since. Thus I was quite pleased to recently have the opportunity, on the evening of Howard's signing of his thoroughly entertaining, anecdote-filled, new autobiography Shell Shocked at the Morrison Hotel gallery in Soho, NYC, to speak with Howard for a full 90 minutes (it was actually close to two hours, but the cameras were only on for 100 minutes, so why split hairs?).

It was a delight to find out that he's as funny and articulate offstage as he is on. The man has a LOT of stories to tell, and tell them he does in Shell Shocked (that sports a cover illustration by Cal Schenkel). I take particular pleasure, though, in the moments where I got him to tell tales that are not included in the book. For instance, the two items below, a wonderful account of time spent (on plenty of acid) with a young Warren Zevon, and Howard's account of his meeting with his TV hero Soupy Sales and their subsequent friendship (which involved plenty of laughter and, yes, the occasional partaking of certain “substances”).

Thus, I offer a preview of my interview with Mr. Kaylan. First his story about Zevon, and the “gift” that the Turtles gave to Warren:

And a nice chunk of our talk, wholly devoted to the subject of the one and only Soupy!!!

A preview of the Funhouse interview with Cal Schenkel

I am continually busy with Funhouse activity of one kind or another, but one of the greatest joys is hanging out with people whose work I've enjoyed for years. In this instance, a signing by Howard Kaylan (more on him in a minute) of his new autobio Shell Shocked at the Morrison Hotel gallery in Soho, NYC, afforded me the opportunity to speak with Cal Schenkel, the artist who is best known for his mind-altering album cover art for Frank Zappa and others.

This interview will appear on the show in a few weeks, but I wanted to provide a preview of sorts with this clip, where Mr. Schenkel discusses one of his best-remembered creations, the cover for the Mothers of Invention album “Uncle Meat”:

He contained multitudes: Deceased Artiste Jonathan Winters (Part 2 of 2)

[Please read part one first. Exploring a blog is like watching time move backward very, very slowly....] I was surprised at how little “primo” Jonathan was on YouTube (aside from the few Paar clips). But this clip from an unlikely source, the Dean Martin roast for Pallie Frank, actually perfectly highlights what Jonathan did best. These roasts were “canned” events where the panelists read scripted jokes; the only two people who were “allowed” to ad-lib were Don Rickles (who is another force of nature, but a very different type of standup) and Jonathan.

I’m not sure how many of the panelists were even present for Jon’s performance, since it has been revealed by both Rickles and Bob Newhart that the roasts were shot in “pieces” (for instance, Orson Welles would come in and do several “poems” and reaction shots for a bunch of the shows at once). What matters here is the directions that Jonthan takes, and the fact that he is genuinely killing Dean and Frank (sure, Dean laughed at just about anything on his show — including the dreaded Foster Brooks — but here he looks like he's really amused).

As noted, the crop of Winters' clips on YouTube is very disappointing, in that it contained no examples of his work on Steve Allen's shows, only one skit (no standup) from the Andy Williams series, and one sole clip from his many years on Carson (where he's NOT playing a character). There are no clips from the many weekly shows he hosted over the years, and only one LP cut. The single rarest thing is a fascinating-if-you-like-early-TV failed game show pilot called “Pass the Line” from 1954 (warning: Jon isn't funny at all and the game's concept is ponderously slow).

One thing I found interesting in exploring old episodes of the NBC network radio series “Monitor” was that Jonathan started regularly doing commercial campaigns as early as the late Fifties. He was particularly good for these kinds of things as he could play both interviewer and interview subject, and either follow the script to the letter or (if the sponsor was in any way adventurous) could make up his own bit, while remembering to mention the product (or cause) an ample amount of times. Here are some bloopers with Jon “winging it”:

He also was featured in a number of industrial films and PSAs. Here he appears in various guises to talk about litter on the streets and in parks:

Somewhere along the way, producers realized that the best set-up for a Winters spot would be to put him in a set filled with wigs and hats and have him just go with the flow. One of the earliest instances of this was on a 1963 special with guest star Art Carney, which the producers clearly edited; George Schlatter talks about the show, which was being prepped when the news that JFK had been assassinated came through, here.

A handful of the best Winters clips that can be found online come from the primetime Jack Paar Show. The first shows off Jonathan’s skills as an impressionist — he avoided doing celebrity voices in his act and his sketches, but he was excellent at them. Here he and Paar talk about how Jon prank-called Jack pretending he was JFK. (This was during the Cuban missile crisis!)

Now for the gold: a Paar appearance from 1963. From Paar’s praiseworthy intro to Jon’s lengthy tangent about “what married couples do” (pretty racy for ’63), this is just great. The main piece is a bit about fishing from the POV of the fish:

Another gem occurred in ’64, when Jon discusses undressing in front of a dog and does his own deranged version of a classic horror movie, replete with some awesome verbal sound effects:

As noted above, the Winters clips online are incredibly skimpy on certain busy periods in his life. For instance, he was a regular guest on The Andy Williams Show, but the only trace of those many appearances is in a mega-montage I link to below, and this odd 1971 sketch in which Jonathan plays a small-town TV broadcaster who produces a show starring a cheesy big-band duo (guests Ozzie and Harriet), along with their daughter (Karen Carpenter!). Only the before and after bits show Jon doing his thing with Andy:

Winters was so overpowering you rarely saw him work with other comedians, but here he is with Mort Sahl playing his straight man (and some other comedian watching TV), in a 1986 cable special, and with Peter Ustinov (and John Astin!) in the cute but not-hysterical film Viva Max.

The most interesting rarity to be found “hidden in plain sight” is the entirety of the 1959 Motorola LP “Progress in Sound/Magic Moments in Music,” which was given to customers who bought a Motorola record player. The first side of the LP features that inevitable ping-pong game between the left and right channels, but the second side contains interview with Jonathan in character (as a British hunter, Maude Frickert, and a bragging businessman).

*****

Now a short tangent about the serious side of Winters (more brilliantly funny stuff below this, for you impatient types). 

Unlike most of his fellow standups, it didn't seem like Jonathan sought out a serious acting career. His two best-known films are It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, World (which he literally steals in a famous scene set in his character’s gas station) and, for aficionados, The Loved One (1965). Those who have seen items like the unbelievably poorly paced Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad have seen Jon’s talent squandered on a massive level.

He did have a very serious side, which came out in interviews and some of the work he chose in the last few years. One quite sweet inclusion in one of the shows he hosted was this little segment about his family, about whom we heard very little (aside from discussing his breakdowns and time “inside,” Winters was a very private man, to his credit).

In 2009 Jon did a spoken-word CD where he recited various items, including the Serenity Prayer and the 23rd Psalm (he spoke in interviews of being religious, but seeing no need to preach to other people; he also spoke about having become sober in 1959 after years of struggling with alcohol). He recited a piece called “Ghost Brigade” and did some pieces on old age, including “Just a Memory”:

One of his best-remembered serious efforts — which did prove he could’ve had a good dramatic career if he’d wanted one — was his appearance on The Twilight Zone opposite Jack Klugman in “ A Game of Pool.” Here is an abridged version of the ep:

Most interviewers did want Jonathan to segueway into his characters (listen to what seems to be his very last interview here). But the single best on-camera talk with him comes courtesy of the PBS talk show called Day at Night, hosted by James Day. This talk, which aired on November 27, 1973, finds Jon quoting Emerson (“Humor is the mistress of sorrow”), discussing his grandfather as this comedy inspiration, and talking about the influences on his art (Klee, Miro, and Magritte):

*****

Back to comedy: One of the best sources of full-blown Winters madness are his guest appearances on The Dean Martin Show. Perhaps it was producer Greg Garrison’s wise idea to let Jonathan loose and then just edit his improvs down to an airable length, or maybe it was just host Dino’s breezy “let’s not take this thing too seriously” attitude, but Winters shone with Dean, as he had with the first three hosts of Tonight.

Here he does old Maude Frickert, uttering her catchphrase, “all over my bodeeee” A real piece of unscripted weirdness takes place here when he assumes the role of an annoying passenger on an airplane (replete with beautifully weird riffs that aren’t meant to be openly funny, as when he talks about his brother who lives in the basement and rolls his cigars).

The airplane concept was also carried out with a full set (and Dean in a tuxedo) and Jonathan in full flower, ad-libbing as he goes. Again, the notion of an unseen brother (in a dark turn, Jon’s character discusses using his brother’s dead body out on the lawn “with bunny eyes in ’im”):

I was mesmerized by the roasts on Dino’s show as a kid. Now I’m still fascinated by the mix of un-p.c. humor and celebs reading off of cue cards, but the two comedians who ALWAYS “killed” on that show were the only two who ad-libbed their segments, namely Don Rickles and Jonathan. Here Maudie Frickert mocks Ronald Reagan’s hair dye. And, as “Willis Mumford,” a country boy, he gets to crack up roastee Johnny Carson.

In recent years, despite having health problems, Winters continued to appear on talk shows. Bonnie Hunt wisely had him come out in character, something most contemporary hosts are scared of — with talk shows being so tightly constructed these days, there is no time for anything that didn't come out of the writers’ room. He did get off a few lines (out of character) to Craig Ferguson about his ill wife and how he likes to scare her from time to time.

That is what is so incredibly impressive about Jonathan’s art (and his ad-libbing did move from standard comedy into sheer artistry): the fact that he created very bizarre images with his choices of words and sounds.

That isn’t something that is tolerated on late night talk shows these days, though — on a guest appearance with Jimmy Kimmel a few years back he showed up as a deranged scout master who dressed his little boy charges as little girls. The bit was not hysterically funny, but Winters' word-paintings got stranger and stranger (and more and more brilliant) until he finally got to a description of a flood that came through the woods and washed all their little dresses downstream.

The piece was a top-notch example of Winters’ talent, but all Kimmel could do was interrupt him, ask him “Can I speak with Jonathan?” and then move on to quiz him about his work on other shows, from Paar and Carson to Dean Martin. Rather than have a bona fide piece of Winters’ weirdness on his show, Jimmy wanted to reconnect to the old weirdness and hear a bunch of reminiscences.

Thus I give full kudos to Marc Maron, whose podcast “WTF?” (as noted here before) is an odd amalgam of interview show and therapy session. As he so often does in his chats, Marc's interview with Jonathan got the latter to go to “the dark places” in his past: the fact that his parents never were affectionate to him and hated his work as a comedian. The other sad topics tackled included Jon’s time “in” and the clever ruse that at one point helped him to escape having electro-shock therapy.

However (as Professor Irwin is apt to say), Marc also prodded Jon to dip into his stash of characters and, unlike Kimmel, allowed him to come up with little slices of genius. The whole interview is worth your time and attention, but Jon begins “winging it” (as he often put it) at the 55:00 mark.

A truly BRILLIANT bit of comedy occurs at 1:01, as he plays out a therapy session in which the therapist is fed up with his spineless patient and begins instructing him on ways to off himself. Remember, at this point Winters is 85 and still functioning on all cylinders. You can listen to the interview here (caution: at some point this interview will be “locked up” for pay, as Marc does with all his older shows).

The routine that Jon did on the Maron podcast is a fascinating echo of Winters' “underside,” which is heard at length on the privately-pressed 10” record called It's Hee-Hee-Hee Hee Larious (an anonymous slab of white-labelled vinyl that is credited only to "J.W."). The original record is indeed a rarity, since presumably it was made to be given away as a gift to Jonathan's friends. It connects him with the other radical "black humorists" of his day; if you want proof he was not only friends with the Vegas folk, you merely need to check out the Lenny Bruce CD box set Let the Buyer Beware, on which you can hear Lenny doing an early show strictly for the benefit of Jonathan, who was playing in the same town (and evidently had told Lenny he wanted to see his show, but was doing his own at the same time). On the Maron interview, Winters notes that he knew Lenny professionally, but was "running buddies" with the inimitable (and equally irreplaceable) Lord Buckley!

It used to fetch hundreds of dollars, but I see by a quick Google search that a copy of this extremely rare record just went for a lousy fifteen bucks on eBay (*after* his death). Whatever its monetary value, it is priceless as an example of Jon truly being a “sick comic,” doing a series of dark sketches and radio-commercial parodies. The whole thing can now be heard on a CD called The Underground Tapes, but only a small sliver of it is up on YT. Feast:

On that same note, here's a very intriguing slice of standup in which Jon seems pissed off about something. The poster doesn't note what show it came from, but it is from 1980 (he timestamps it by mentioning that he's been married 32 years). He really goes to town here, free-associating about gas stations, going to dinner parties, and generally making bitter fun of his marriage (not his usual sort of material – and of course he did remain married to his one and only wife for another 29 years!).

Showing that he had indeed lost none of his edge in his final years, here is an outtake from the mockumentary Certifiably Jonathan in which he riffs a Western poker game, and below is a radically weird and uncensored retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. This definitely fits in the “Hee-Hee-Hee Hee Larious” mode, and I'm very glad the filmmakers caught it on video. The guy was 85 years old and his mind was as sharp (and blissfully strange) as ever.

And, because I'm sure he'd want this aspect of his public life emphasized, I link to his personal website where he displayed and sold his art, both paintings and sketches. Winters' mind is now silenced, but his imagination will live on for a long time to come.

He contained multitudes: Deceased Artiste Jonathan Winters (Part 1 of 2)

I want to slow down the production of obit posts here on the blog, but it is indeed hard not to rhapsodize about Jonathan Winters. He was, simply put, a complete original, a comedian who was unlike anyone else in the business. Sure, it's easy to see bits of Jonathan in later standups, from George Carlin and Robin Williams to the dreaded “prop comics.” But he was the complete package – a comedian who created not only characters but ensembles, situations, and settings with a tone of voice, an odd gesture, a crazed expression. He was perhaps the truest improv comedian of all, a performer who was willing to fail and flounder at points only to produce a phrase or line that could utterly floor you.

There are several reasons why Winters was so special. Perhaps the most important was that he was truly troubled in his personal life. His rapid-fire mind and ability to inhabit different characters at the drop of a hat was an immaculate talent, but it also indicated that his mind was indeed moving at a speed that few of us can recognize. He ended up being institutionalized in 1959 for two weeks and then had another collapse in 1961 (that time he was “in” – he liked to joke in his act about the difference between “out” and “in” – for eight months).

In this regard, Jonathan stands with only one other comedian who did literally suffer for his comic genius by having several mental breakdowns. That man was Spike Milligan, the immortal creator of The Goon Show and another indelibly original comedian. Both he and Winters were one of a kind and can never be replaced.

Winters was thus “a man apart” from his contemporaries – who ranged from the Vegas comedians (the Shecky Greenes and Buddy Hacketts) to the brilliant crop of standup satirists who emerged out of Chicago (Sahl, Berman, Nichols and May). He also was very different from his successors, who were not as plagued by their comic brilliance. Robin Williams might have had drug troubles over the years, but he always has been, at base level – despite the manic energy – a somewhat normal guy, as is evidenced by his impressive career as a dramatic actor.

Jonathan was not “abnormal,” he was just very... different. He was blessed with a talent that allowed him to act out entire scenes — something comedians had done since vaudeville, but which he did with a manic energy and invention that was infectious.

I’m one of many, many people who can attest to how magical his TV appearances were for children. His stagework seemed impetuous and was very silly, and thus went straight for kids’ funny bones. As an adult, I get his side remarks and the truly dark streak that ran through his work. Witness this piece from The Dean Martin Show:


Winters’ standup was truly unpredictable. The nailed-down bits were captured in about a dozen LPs that are a lot of fun to listen to, but do lack that one key aspect: seeing Jonathan’s rubber face contort, watching him move from voice to voice (he did ethnic characters and celebrity impressions, but tended to focus on dimwitted American characters of all stripes).

A bunch of his nightclub routines were movie spoofs, a standup staple throughout the Fifties and Sixties. If Winters did a Dracula sketch, though, he wouldn’t just do the requisite Lugosi impression — he’d do the castle door, the wind, the creaking coffin and staircases, and, natch, the “thup” noise of bats flying.

Winters’ records are not well-represented on YouTube — perhaps because most fans remember his visual bits the best. However, they can be heard on the private research blog Vintage Standup Comedy, which has a public “mirror” site here.

A short bit of chronology is necessary for those who don’t know where Jonathan “came from”: a native of Dayton, Ohio, he followed service in the Marine Corps during WWII (as an aircraft gunner) by becoming a student of cartooning at the Dayton Art Institute. There he met his wife Eileen, who was indisputably the most important person in his life (they remained married for 61 years until her death in 2009).

His entry into show business sounds like a tall tale, but Jonathan swore it was the truth: his art was going nowhere, so in 1948 his wife encouraged him to enter a local talent contest so he could replace a lost wristwatch. He won the contest and shortly thereafter became a disc jockey. Instead of simply playing records and giving the time/temperature/traffic, he began interspersing his “characters” on the air, and thus was born the Winters we all knew and loved.

He came to NYC in 1953 and got his big break in television, depending on what obit you read, on either Chance of a Lifetime with Dennis James in 1954, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, or Alistair Cooke’s Sunday morning program Omnibus. He soon became a regular guest on variety and talk shows.

The hosts who showcased him at his best were themselves the best: Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Johnny Carson on the talk front, and Dean Martin and Andy Williams in variety. The reason was because he could literally take any simple prop and come up with a situation and character, in fact several situations and a multitude of characters. He was the first “prop comic” and pretty much the only one who was ever truly tolerable for more than a minute (Jon is not to be blamed for either Carrot Top or Gallagher):


Winters’ career was sidelined for a short time by his breakdowns in ’59 and ’61, but he returned with more frantic energy than ever shortly thereafter. I will move onto the clips here, but must lastly mention what was my single favorite thing about Jonathan: the fact that his improv was 100% legit (as opposed to the improv troupes that move immediately toward material they’ve prepared and performed before).

Winters impresses precisely because of the “gaps” in his bits, the moments where he’s not as funny. This was evident in the longer guest shots he did for Paar and Carson, in which the host would allow him to simply ramble on in character, to the point where he would seem to have lost his energy — and then a brilliant line would appear (or a look, or an odd noise).

It was this particular aspect of what Jonathan did that made him so incredibly unique, the fact that his improv was true ad-libbing, it went “up” and it went “down.” The fact that he recovered and would suddenly throw in something brilliantly funny was the essence of his art.

The single best intro to Jonathan’s imagination is this mega-montage put together when he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 at the now–defunct Orinda Film Festival in Ordina, Calif.

The first part features Jon in a new interview saying the reason he improv’ed SO much was that “I get bored with my material.” This montage also includes him doing Maude Frickert and has one of the many “missing” (online) Andy Williams Show appearances, where he does the costumes-and-prop deal with Andy. Also included is the golden moment on Paar where he was presented with a simple stick and came up with a few minutes of material and several different characters.



The second montage from the Orinda fest contains outtakes of Jon ad-libbing a commercial for eggs and a terrific segment from The Rosey Grier Show (1969-70), in which Jon does his “black voice.” Today this would be deemed un-p.c. and offensive, but Jon cast his net wide and did a host of voices, so he didn’t leave any group out. You’ll notice Rosey is cracking up, so what he’s doing is not offensive, it’s known as true improv. On the level of genius.

Memories in the Present Tense: Terrence Malick’s “To the Wonder”

“Life’s a dream,” remarks one character to another in Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder, which opens today in theaters. As is this hypnotic film, which functions more as a sensory experience than a conventionally plotted tale of love found and lost. It is not standard multiplex fare, but you can expect nothing less from the filmmaker who last gave us the love-it-or-hate-it masterwork Tree of Life.

To the Wonder is overwhelming in the way few films are these days. Its plotting is minimal, but its visuals are a feast — and not in the green-screen manner of so many contemporary blockbusters. Malick used CGI in Tree of Life, but one can’t imagine him releasing a 3-D film — although his images often feel as if they may burst from the screen.

 

So what is the film’s plot? It concerns an American environmental inspector (Ben Affleck) who falls in love with a Ukrainian woman living in Paris (Olga Kurylenko) and brings her back to his Oklahoma hometown (the real town of Bartlesville). The couple break up, then get back together and begin to seriously wonder about their compatibility. In the meantime, the local priest (Javier Bardem) suffers a crisis of faith as he tends to the poor and sick in his community.

But, as in Tree of Life, the storyline is not the main ingredient here. Malick offers us naked emotions on screen — joy, anger, sorrow, love, betrayal — and the fact that he includes flashback images throughout clearly means the film is meant to function as a series of memories or, more accurately, as a dream.

The exception to this is Bardem’s storyline, which adds a glint of reality to the proceedings. Since his perfect first film Badlands (the new Criterion of which I reviewed recently here), Malick has always had his locations function as “characters” in his films, and here he sketches Bartlesville as a beautiful if lonely suburb — but then Bardem’s plotline explores the “other side of the tracks” where the poor, the disabled, and the addicted live. Jarring images of real residents from the Bartlesvillle vicinity force the viewer to sporadically wake from the “dream” of Affleck and Kurylenko‘s relationship.

From its ornate title onward, To the Wonder is an exercise in disjunction that produces a primal emotional response in the viewer (thus the love-it-or-hate-it status). The visuals are so kinetic and gorgeously composed, and the editing — worked on by no less than five editors — is so fluid that the film creates its own sense of time and space. It is ultimately “about” emotion and memory and what’s left when a romance goes sour.

Malick has both literary and painterly instincts — here his literary side (which leans more towards poetry than fiction) is represented by a nearly nonstop voiceover narration in French by Kurylenko, with Bardem’s character contributing his reflections in Spanish and Affleck supplying a few lines in English. To add to the linguistic stew, out of a clear blue sky (and back into it) Kurylenko befriends a young Italian woman who encourages her to flee Oklahoma, all in Italian.

The voiceover keeps the film from being a silent picture, because although the characters do speak to each other, Malick rarely lets us hear both sides of a conversation — and Affleck and Kurylenko, when heard in fragments of conversation, are both speaking their native languages to each other.

One can readily see an avid fan of multiplex romances tuning out on To the Wonder for all the reasons that fans of arthouse cinema will be drawn to it. The film contains two idyllic-looking Hollywood stars — Affleck and Rachel McAdams — who are utilized for their looks rather than their acting ability. Malick’s films have contained great performances, but they have also contained plenty of actors who are “figures in a landscape.”

Those who want a straightforward love story will be turned off or even irritated by Kurylenko’s sometimes overripe musings in the voiceover narration (“Where are we when we’re there?”) and her character’s childlike giddiness when happy and petulant behavior when mad — but, again, these are “effects” (not fx) that Malick uses in the manner of control-freak filmmakers like Kubrick — a director he’s often compared to — and Bresson and Dreyer.

Those last-mentioned cinematic masters are excellent points of reference here, because Malick injects a note of (Paul Schrader’s term for Bresson, Dreyer, and Ozu) “transcendence” into both plotlines. The lovers are happy and blissful in natural surroundings, but miserable in the closed confines of their house (which always has a bare minimum of furniture — as in both Bresson and Dreyer). In addition to a sequence where Affleck refuses to pray with his temporary lover McAdams (who’s the film only “certain” Christian), we have the Bardem plotline, which plays like a modern, even grimmer take on Père Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest.

Those who liked Tree of Life — I was overwhelmed by it and needed several days to process what I’d seen — will embrace To the Wonder. For those who are uncertain about the new film, just consider the prospect of seeing a true “emotion picture," a work that is visually charged — at times remote in meaning, but exquisite in execution and absolutely wrenching on a visual level.