Jonathan WInters: Master of Improvisation

This montage of Jonathan Winters work from the Orinda Film Festival in 2003 is a nice review of what was so so funny about him.  He was a comedian who was unpredictable and surreal.  He had the proverbial straight face down, ad he could play his comedy off of anyone.  The montage opens with some work he did on the Andy Williams show, and about a minute into what was supposed to be an 'improv', Mr. Williams says "this is nothing like what we did earlier".  Mr. Williams was having a hard time keeping up with Mr. Winters, because the same set of props brought about an entirely different cast of characters and scenarios than it had perhaps earlier that afternoon.

He describes himself as perpetually bored, ad his comedy does have an attention deficit disorder feel to it--some of the connections he makes are brilliant, some of them are weak, and some miss the mark all together, but none of them goes on for very long.  He was funny as hell but he had trouble with focus--so he went out of view once shows like 'Laugh In' went away--the end of Vaudeville on television was the end of a gifted comic's wide exposure.  The occasional talk show was all that was left--but his brand of humor was incredibly hilarious (and as many of my friends will tell you, I am not all that fond of comedy) and he will be both missed and remembered.