Robin Williams wasn't funny

Of, fuck off.

I agree. He was a nice man but not very funny and a closet case.

Too manic, too needy, too over-the-top, too much of an attention whore. Too much of everything except humor or comedic skills. Painfully unfunny. Loathe him.

He never made me laugh either. He peaked with Mork & Mindy. His silly voices were unfunny and forced. And he could never stay composed thru an interview. It always devolved into uncomfortable foolishness.

I didn't like Mork & Mindy either.

Steve Martin made me laugh when he was still a stand up. But as an actor, he never made me laugh.

Also, Robin Williams was never funny.

R3 Loathe is kind of strong. I wouldn’t say I loath him. By all accounts he was a great guy. And I like him in Ms. Doubtfire. But in everything else, I can pass.

Robin Williams was funny and a pretty good actor, Steve Martin, not so much. Ellen's awkward shtick is just that, awkward

Tell me some comedians you like. Does anyone like Joel Kim Booster? Wanda Sykes? I used to like deadpan Margaret Smith. Are there any you like (or don't like) , current or older? (I like Seinfeld as a show, but don't like Jerry Seinfeld doing standup, for ex.) I'm curious.

Williams was great, particularly before he was sober. Like Richard Pryor (easily my all time favorite), he told the truth rather than just telling jokes. Steve Martin also was funny in his early days. A little Lewis Black goes a long way. Benny was funny but clearly scripted though still influential (Carson and others drew a lot from him)---Lucy wasscripted always overrated---she lacked the subtle delivery to put over schtick that Benny had.

Most comedians are lame. The only series I can remember making me laugh were Curb Your Enthusiasm, Frasier Blackadder, The Young Ones, and The Windsors and that was more the writing than the actors. Ellen deDegeneres makes me laugh sometimes.

But some are more obnoxious than others - Bill Cosby, Jerry Lewis, the child who played Steve Urkel, Jim Parsons, and yes, Robin Williams are the worst.

Mrs. Doubtfire has made over $200,000,000. And it wasn't off the sparkling talent and wit of Sally Field or Pierce Brosnan.

Kiss my Na-nu, Na-nu.

Ugh, Wanda Sykes. That voice.

Too maniacal, which becomes exhausting in no time

^Link.

Agree. I'm adding Martin Short to the list.

I thought he was funny in Aladdin. His manic energy was well-suited for animation.

But in everything else ... not funny, cloying, and cringey.

OP, I like Kathleen Madigan.

He could be funny at times but he was exhausting with the constant high velocity stream of consciousness ramble. I did like him better as an actor in scripted roles.

I disagree. He was manic, but always conveyed intelligence and humanity. Sometimes it worked in movies, sometimes it didn’t. Seeing his genie in Aladdin was really a high point, since nothing like that has ever been done before.

Maybe you needed to have experience the 70s to understand him. It was everything that had been pushed down in America suddenly bubbling up. I’d love to have fewer wrinkles, but I am glad to have a few memories of that time.

I did not like his stand up or over the top personality but in movies he was just fine. Mrs. Doubtfire is a fun little movie and he was a great dramatic actor. I love Dead Poets Society and he was very good in One Hour Photo. Also he seemed to be a kind man and that’s what really matters. I’m sad that he’s gone.

I agree with the manic-to-the-point-of-exhausting description - he was sometimes just too much! However, he was exceptional in Mrs Doubtfire (I can't imagine anyone pulling it off so successfully!) and I loved him in The Birdcage, too (though I loved Nathan Lane more).

For me it's R Robert Klein Rich Little who were boering

I feel the same way about Kathy Griffin and most other female comedians...just not funny. Mean girl sarcasm belongs in high school and DL, not on stage.

He did make me laugh sometimes but his schtick was that just acting manic was somehow funny. After a while it just got old

He made me anxious when he was doing “comedy.” I didn’t mind him in the movie Insomnia.

Robin Williams never really made me laugh either but I lived in San Francisco for most of my life and one day I was on a bus in the Marina and I was looking out the window and there he was, Robin Williams, standing three feet away on the side walk and when he saw me he smiled and started to wave very enthusiastically so I waved back and we both laughed together as we were waving frantically as though we knew each other….he kept his eyes on me the entire time as the bus rolled away, it was very sweet I think he must have been a real nice guy. Love him, sorry he had to suffer in the end.

Sarah Silverman and John Mulaney are the only two comedians who consistently make me laugh hard.

Robin Williams never made me laugh, in part because he felt like a pathology on display. It is hard to watch him without speculating what issues are driving him.

As an actor, I did not like him much either, although I thought he was amazing in the episode of Homicide he was in.

Sebastian Maniscalco first two comedy shows. After that he descended into Dump support. Punch and delete.

I loved him in Birdcage. I liked all of them in Birdcage.

I can always go back to Lenny Bruce. Not his most famous bits, or the especially politicized stuff. It his material that deals with film and film stars of the 30s, 40s, and 50s. His breakdown of The Esther Costello Story is funny, but I love Father Flotsky’s Triumph.

No he wasn't funny. He just jumped around like a four year old, muttering nonsense. It was funny for five seconds, like the "You can call me Ray..." guy. But his act took thought.

R22 I wouldn't have thought Robert Klein would be hilarious, but I saw him at college with about a thousand or more people in the audience, and he was extremely funny. I saw Lewis Black at the cabaret at Williamstown Theater Festival, a small audience, and he was just very funny in that setting. Everyone there was really laughing hard. NOrmally (on TV) I liked him ok, but sometime you have to see people in different settings. Richard Pryor always made me laugh (on screen, on TV).

I've laughed at Robin Williams' brilliance til tears rolled down my face. I hate those 'comics' like George Carlin who tell excruciatingly unfunny tales.

I loved Robin when he started out, as I was a nerdy ten year old boy at the time. I religiously watched Mork every Thursday, and repeated his jokes around the house, and I got to see his Live at the Met special. This was non stop hilarious.

I found a few of his movie roles to be great, but most of them he just seemed to be this one dimensional sensitive bear riding on sentimentality. What Dreams May Come is one example.

Patch Adams and Death To Smoochy. 'Nuff said.

I still remember his debut on Happy Days. No one had ever seen anything Ike him; he was operating on a different, and very manic level. . I too watched Mork and mIndy every week and loved it.

When he went into dramatic acting, I followed. Movies like Dead Poets Society, The Fisher King and Good WillHunting showed that he was a man of astonishingly wide-ranged talents. I’m pretty sure I saw Almost every movie he made, and admired him enormously, but...

...back in the nineties, when I still watched talk shows, I saw him on something, Tonight Show or something else, and what I was seeing was WRONG: too manic, too desperate to be ‘on’ at every moment. That was when I knew there were deep problems in this guy’s life. Still, I followed most of his work with interest. One Hour Photo and Insomnia showed he still had ‘it.’

His death hit me as few celebrity endings do. I was in MIDDLE SCHOOL when he debuted on Happy Days, and now I was middle-aged, so he’d been there through the vast majority of my life And suicide? This man who’d brought so much joy to me, and millions of others, couldn’t find it for himself? It still makes me sad, and I wish I could have told him that he should stick around, but I guess that wouldn’t have really helped.

Still, I wish...

He had his go-to voices that he would always yank out of his grab bag: John Wayne cowboy guy, flaming gay guy, weird insect voice guy, etc. that would always seem to be pushed out during a cocaine-induced episode like he was at a loss or grasping at straws.

Even as a teenager, to me it didn’t seem spontaneous as much as manic looking for something, anything to land.

Smart? Absolutely.

Informed? Certainly.

Socially responsible/humane. Without a doubt.

It just seemed like he was being made to get up in front of people, that it unnerved him, and I was just watching him cope as though he was dared to be up there.

He was very good in some of his roles.

I remember in our yearbook senior year, they had lists of ‘everyone’s favorite’ what-have-you, and I remember Robin being ‘our’ favorite comedian.

Nobody asked me.

The last comedian I laughed at was Joyce Grenfell.

Same, I didn't hate him though or people like Steve Martin or Ellen. Their humor is a unique blend of awkwardness. Relatedly, I never found SNL very funny and was mystified why it was so popular. Only a handful of skits in the past 30 years have made me laugh.

I thought In Living Color (and to lesser extent, MadTV) was hilarious though growing up!

I won't say I loathed Williams. I will say that after one feeding, I turned the TV channel when he was on. I avoided any movie he was in.

John Mulaney is the only comedian who's ever made me laugh, with the exception of Lenny Bruce.

Hated Steve Martin, Will Ferrell, Kevin Nealon, Rich Little, and (especially) Martin Short (and not just because he's the reason John Mulaney's sitcom failed).

I liked Robin Williams very much as an actor, though. Loved Good Will Hunting and Dead Poets Society. And I liked that episode of Homicide r27 mentioned, which was also notable for our first exposure to Jake Gyllenhaal, btw. Steven Gyllenhaal, his father, directed it.

You crack me up OP.

His accent was strange. What was that!

How DARE you, you whore of an OP?

I adored Robin Williams about 80% of the time, but I can see how he would not be everyone's cup of tea.

His mentor, Jonathan Winters, made me laugh. Robin--no.

Ellen was horrible as a comic--basically and anxious "please like me" third rate knockoff of Seinfeld.

R38 Another vote for Joyce Grenfell. My dad who was a sports guy but always tried to talk to me about my interests when I was a kid, told me the funniest woman he ever saw live was Beatrice Lillie.

R46 I thought she was very much like a Seinfeld knockoff, as a comic and on her sitcom.

R44 Just 80% whore

He was no Moms Mabley.

I agree. He never made me laugh either. I actually think he was a much better dramatic actor than comedian. Hell, I like him in Jumanji and his guest starring role in SVU more than any of his comedies.

R36, if it's any comfort to you, his suicide wasn't about failing to get through life with strength. He had a degenerative disease and was getting worse rapidly. He wanted to go out on his own terms before his family had a nightmare to put up with, and to be done with the pain that was just going to get worse.

I thought he was a good dramatic actor. I always wondered how he could turn off that manic energy and just play it straight. Where did it go? I know that sounds stupid, but I was always thinking that when I was watching him in a dramatic role like Dead Poets Society. I didn't think Milton Berle was very funny, either, but he was also a decent dramatic actor on occasion. So was Gleason, of course, though I found him funny as well.

He was no Soupy Sales.

[quote] if it's any comfort to you, his suicide wasn't about failing to get through life with strength. He had a degenerative disease and was getting worse rapidly. He wanted to go out on his own terms before his family had a nightmare to put up with, and to be done with the pain that was just going to get worse.

Thank you. I’d heard something like that, but also about bouts of depression. I’d like to think bid make the same choice, since it means having control of your life.

“Robin Williams was not funny. He never made ME laugh”

Perfect example of solipsism.

R55 Glad you think I did something perfectly. It's an opinion. Humor is subjective. RW was a very successful "funny man." That doesn't mean I found him funny or that I should say he was funny because others think he was.

A lot of stuff that seemed funny in the 70s just isn't funny today. Maybe it was all too coke-inspired back then.

[quote] Agree. I'm adding Martin Short to the list.

His Jiminy Glick character is good.

I didn't like his comedy either.

R58 I thought Martin Short almost ruined SCTV. There were a lot of very funny people on that show. I never thought he was funny.

I thought RW and his friend Whoopi Goldberg were both very funny for a short time, but, like many comedians, before long they exhausted their good material and slid down into complete dreck.

R41 Mitch Hedberg or Stephen Wright never made you laugh? Not once? You are dead inside.

This guy, r62? Not funny except for one joke. And I don't remember what it was.