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R.I.P. Jonathan Winters

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Stream-of-conciousness improvisational comedian Jonathan Winters died this week.

I remember watching Winters on TV when I was a kid. He was remarkable, and his manic sense of humor was special in my family because we ALL laughed at him, even when I was too cool to enjoy the things my parents thought funny.

The tributes say Winters was more influential than successful, at least by the show business megastar yardstick. Measured in terms of movies made and money earned, he was no Robin Williams, but there would have been no Robin Williams without him.

Here’s Winters in character while roasting Frank Sinatra. But notice the cast of prominent characters on the dais, all of them gasping for breath during his routine.

http://youtu.be/XynxTU8ovZ8

Jonathan Winters may have elicited as many tears as he did laughs, but they were connected. It was his humanity that touched us, every time.

When have you been helpless with laughter?

100 thoughts on “R.I.P. Jonathan Winters”

  1. Morning–
    Thanks Dale. Jonathan Winters. My first memory is always from ‘Mad Mad Mad Mad World’.

    I never know what might strike me just right. Comments from my son or wife often make me laugh. Being tired makes things funnier. Of course, trying to explain what was funny often isn’t.

    ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
    Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
    Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy was he?’

    That used to crack me up. Still can in the right circumstance.

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  2. I spent three days once fishing with a man who knew Jonathon Winters well. He described him as, “The onliest man I ever met who shoulda been locked up but wasn’t.” What my fishing friend meant was that he considered Winters seriously disturbed, mentally disturbed. He was convinced that Winters belonged in some kind of asylum.

    Winters was a total original. He observed life with a distinctive and creative eye, then turned his observations into totally fresh humor. He had an amazing ability to mimic human voices or recreate mechanical sounds that he heard. I think it is also true that Winters was a genius, but being so intelligent didn’t do him much good. He would get bored quickly and then he would begin to create chaos to amuse himself.

    The man I fished with described a deep sea fishing trip with Jonathon Winters. Fishing lines are attached to poles with clips, and when a fish strikes a bait the crew has to race to the right rod to set the hook. Within a few minutes, Jonathon Winters learned how to make the sound of the clips as they indicated a fish strike. Like a ventriloquist, he began making that sound over and over, causing frantic crew members to dash about the boat trying to find the right rod to pick up. People never considered that Winters was doing this, and soon crew members were in a terrible mood.

    Tiring of that game, Winters then turned to the captain and first mate. The captain was high up in the boat while the mate was below decks, so they couldn’t see each other. Speaking in the voice of the mate, Winters said something disgustingly disrespectful to the captain. He roared back at the mate, who had said nothing. Then when things began to cool down, Winters threw an insult at the mate in the voice of the captain. After minutes of this, the two men rushed each other swinging fists until someone broke in to explain that the whole fight had been fashioned by Winters.

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    2. My wife saw Johnathan Winters in a hotel lobby. He went into his act in the lobby and gave the people there a very funny free show.

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  3. Good morning. A routine done by the Smoother Brothers hit me as unbelievably funny. I can’t remember what they did. It seemed to me it was the funniest thing I had ever heard. I always enjoy hearing them. However, I have only found them to be “off the chart” that one time. As Ben said above, there do seem to be times when the mood that one is in can cause something to seem extra funny. I was probably in one of those moods that causes me to find things unusually humorous when I heard that very funny routine by the Smother Brothers. They are capable of coming up some very unusual humor that could strike a person in a certain mood as being completely and totally funny.

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  4. i can remember watching tv with my dad and jonatan winters would come on and my dad would say “jonathan winters is a genius” i was 5 or 6 and sure he was funny but a genius? my dad would start laughing get tears in his eyes from laughing so hard and when jonathan ws doen he would explain that it isnt what he said but unexpected way it came into the conversation. he must have been remembering the jack paar bit with the stick because he told me that jonathan was so good you could give him a banana and watch him do a 10 minute routine on it.
    he didnt like red skelton (i did) but he loved the singer at the bar who was a drunk (was it frank fontane) he said the difference between laurel and hardy and the three stooges was obvious and he taught me about the subtle differences between things back then.
    the things that make me laugh so hard are things of the moment always, you cant go back and redo them with the same impact but you cant lose the memory of laughing so hard you cant catch your breath and your sides hurt and you are holding your ribs form the pain and you start to get control and then…you remember what struck you as funny and start all over again. one of my favorites is a memory of sitting in a booth at a restraunt on the corner of 90th and lyndale with steve gross and i was trying to mess with him and for some reason hot russian tea was a particularly funny phrase and i started out saying and faking laughter to see if i could get the tea to come out his nose and by the end of the episode every time one of us would stsart to get control the tea would come back into the conversationa and away we;d go again. there was someone else in the booth with us who had no part int he exchange but was caught in the moment and was forced to laugh so hard her sides were splitting too. i love those moments. cant explain it. cant forget it

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  5. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Jonathan Winters certainly is someone who could make me laugh til I cried. Robin Williams can too, especially in Mrs. Doubtfire.

    There are a few others:
    Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, and Tim Conway, especially in the Gone with the Wind sketch, but many others. Another favorite is Conway and Korman having a military parade while stranded on an island.
    Movies–Four Weddings and a Funeral, Little Miss Sunshine, What’s Up Doc.

    Then there are several family stories. Should I be hanging out with siblings and cousins and they start telling stories, there are several that reduce me to helplessness:

    My sister and my cousin who as children, fought over a can of mandarin oranges to the point of hair pulling and slapping;

    Thanksgiving in the year 2000 with my great aunts and Uncle Burnell who were then in their 90-something years, with Uncle B slipping into dementia. The aunts quibbled about who dropped a crumb of pie on the tablecloth while Uncle B pee-ed in my sister’s yard;

    Uncle Bob (Oh, Lord help me) claiming that my Uncle Jim was, and this is a direct quote, “Is a Jap–he has a Jap name–Hoey. What else could that be? And he looks like a Jap.” (Name is Irish and he is a bit Native American).

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    1. I’ve seen this a million times and it still makes me giggle. So many good lines in that movie.
      And no, I did not just wake up.
      I remember showing my son this movie when he was maybe 10. And he was extremely upset with the ending. ‘That’s it!??’ he exclaimed?? But he has learned to appreciate the movie. I’m so proud.

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  10. If I don’t laugh so hard I cry for a good long while, I realize things have gotten too grim.

    I’m with Ben, the more tired I get, the funnier things are. We’ve been watching a good bit of Mystery Sci Theatre 3000 of late, and some of the toss-off lines in that can render me helpless. And then I have to explain the reference to the s&h, and it just gets funnier and funnier.

    My mother is not a big laugher, just not her thing, but there was one time…..

    My dad was gone for a few days (conference or something) and she was on her own with the 3 of us, ranging in age from 9 to 17. The youngest brother was cutting up as we were sitting at the dinner table, and she said, “Paul, if you don’t quit that, I am going to hit you”. My other brother, not waiting even a beat said, “let me, let me!” She could not stop laughing, tears came from her eyes and she actually fell off her chair (the only time I have seen someone do that).

    Sometimes, hysteria is the best answer.

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  13. I was not a big fan of Winters but I appreciated the mind behind it. I think, not having seen him that much and a long time ago, that his humor was not often the mean-spirited, put-down, superior, belittling humor so common today. Am I right about that?

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  16. The last time I was able to belly-laugh is recorded on video and reminds me of the joys of hearty laughter. My surgery cut through my diaphragm and took this away (along with sneezing and yawning). I’d hired my oldest granddaughter and her BFF to clean the cottage while I went dancing. I discovered that the good band had been replaced with a lousy one, so I turned around and went home, surprising the two teenagers. They had stripped down to thongs & bras, donned my large colorful straw hats, and were dancing as they dusted to blaring classical music! They were doing leaps and twirls and ballet moves. I grabbed my digital camera, filmed them for about two minutes, and can be heard laughing so hard that I drowned out the classical music. I now know how to embed a video on this site, but this one’s simply too X-rated for even mature eyes. I had one of those raucous laughs that infected everyone around me more than whatever the source of humor was. Oh, how I miss that release!

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  17. As several others have mentioned, the funniest moments often happen in special settings or moments. One of the times I laughed the hardest was in eighth grade English, when every kid in the class was supposed to stand up before the class and recite a wretched bit of poetry called “The Man Without a Country.” That maudlin, precious poem appealed to the starched-panty patriotism of our teacher, who lacked a sense of humor. The poem describes a man who betrays his country and then regrets it the rest of his life.

    One of the lines was:
    “For him no minstrel raptures swell;
    High though his titles, proud his name,
    Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
    Despite these titles, power, and pelf,
    The wretch, concentred all in self,”—

    The thing was way too pious for testosterone-inflamed youths, so maybe it was planned that the fist kid to recite, a scamp named Dean Bailey, got it wrong. Remember, each kid in the class was wound tight with performance anxiety. From Dean’s lips came the immortal line: “For him no ruptured minstrel swells.”

    The class erupted in laughter. Kids snorted, slid to the floor and peed themselves. The combined roar of laughter was so loud it brought panicked teachers running from all over the school. I’ve never seen anyone laugh harder or longer.

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  18. So when you start looking up ‘funny’ on Youtube it’s kinda overwhelming. So then I searched for ‘What makes us laugh’ and that narrowed it a bit.
    So there’s this:

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  19. Greetings! My favorite times to laugh usually involve any of the sketches from the old Carol Burnett show, the old Dean Martin Roasts (like the clip with Don Rickles above) and those special moments when something goofy is said or done that just can’t be replicated. I also love “Whose Line is it Anyway” as their brilliant improv bubbles up with the most outrageous stuff. Brilliant improv isn’t just quick-wit and clever ideas — it’s total commitment to whatever they’re doing for the sake of humor.

    There was a clip I watched a week or two ago with the Party Scene. The “host” of the party lets people into the room individually, and each of them has to act out a certain trait or character written on slip of paper. Colin Mochrie picked one that described his persona as someone who was unsure of other people’s gender. The female on the show that day was the “host” of party, so Colin comes in and stares at her chest, pokes her nipples, etc., and it’s just downhill from there. As other “characters” come into the party doing their thing, Colin is going around grabbing crotches, chests, etc., of other cast members. The audience is screaming with laughter, the actors onstage can barely keep it together, and I’m falling out of my chair laughing. It may sound rather sleazy and sordid, but Colin’s total commitment to the humor of the situation makes it absolutely hysterical.

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    2. This clip has to be one of my top ten. Even today, having seen it dozens of times, I’m still wiping my eyes:

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  20. My first reaction to “what makes me laugh so hard I can’t breathe” is most any meeting of my long-standing book club. These are women who have been meeting to (ostensibly) talk about books for nigh on 20 years – once a month, with few exceptions. A good book club is when we can get someone to fall out of her chair from laughing so hard. This happens at least 8 out of 12 meetings in any given year. It’s a good group.

    Outside of that book club, and several of the other humorists already mentioned (Carol Burnett will always be a favorite), I would say Zilch the Gravedigger/Torysteller (Terry Foy) from Renaissance Festival. Terry is a dear man and quite funny. His tellings of fairy tales in spoonerisms is hilarious – he knows how to play a spoonerism (or avoiding one on purpose) for just the right laughs. Hearing him recite Shakespeare in spoonerisms (go sometime to hear his re-telling of “Romeo and Juliet” or wait for him to slip in “wow is the ninter of our cisdontent…”), well that gets me laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes (which can be bad, since he is an old friend and will pick on me if he recognizes that I am the one laughing so hard I’m wheezing…).

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    1. My Danish book club is like that, Anna. We often make quite the ruckus laughing. What do we laugh at? Anything and everything is fair game, it’s rarely someone telling a joke, but more often than not, recalling something we’ve done together. Once a year, usually in November, we get together to make Christmas ornaments. We’re each responsible for bringing something to make ornaments of, and our efforts have resulted in some rather unusual ornaments. Like the year I had a hysterectomy, I brought half a box of tampons that I would never need and that we could make Christmas angels out of, so as not to waste them. I’m betting that if these women have their way, at least one of those angels will make into my coffin when I die.

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      1. Yeah, laughing with a book group is just about the best, I think. Sometimes with our group we can’t even explain what was so funny – especially out of context. Usually something esoteric or a bit out there, or a word or two grossly mis-heard (especially walking back in on part of the group conversation and hearing only the last odd phrase – which then requires comment and leads us down a path to giggling fits).

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    2. Yes on Zilch the Torysteller – my personal favorite is from Rindercella, where the prince “slopped her dripper.”

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  21. I don’t remember specific times that a comedian or someone on tv or radio made me laugh until I was helpless, although I’m sure there were some times. More often, it’s when something strikes me funny – VERY funny – and the laughing is multiplied if I’m with someone who also finds the same thing funny. I seem to have a sense of humor that is not shared by many people – mostly it’s things like a picture I get in my mind when someone tells an anecdote (or just a certain sentence in the conversation) that makes me crack up – or if I take something literally that isn’t meant to be taken literally – or just a wisecrack that is said under somebody’s breath. My sister (the FBI one) and I tend to get each other going until we’re pretty much wasted because we’re laughing so hard – and more often than not, nobody else gets it.

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  22. I’m not crazy about stand-up comedy, seems artificial to me. I’m more likely to crack up reading something that has evoked a mental image that strikes me as hilarious. Or it can be a situation that suddenly strikes as me a bizarre. If I’m tired, and/or had a couple of glasses of wine, there’s just no telling what will set me off.

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  24. First graders make me laugh: “Mrs. B, do you think Godzilla real?” “No Carter. He was a creature in a movie that somebody made up.” “Yes he was so. Mason said he was God’s pet!” Me, struggling with a child’s stuck coat zipper: “Gee Addisyn, I sure hope we can get you out of this without having to remove your head.” Addisyn: “That would suck.” Brianna, who loved all things pink and all kinds of earrings wrote a book, complete with beautiful illustrations entitled, Earrings. Pg.1: earrings cool, pg. 2: earrings wacky, pg.3: earrings nice, pg.4: earrings so awesome, pg. 5: earrings frickin nice, pg. 6: earrings so frickin nice, pg.7: earrings so cool I can throw up!

    Funny, right? Or maybe I’m biased.

    Jonathan Winters was the first comedian I thought to be hilarious. I think I was 8.

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    2. Donna, those humorous things that those kids did remind me of a funny incident that haven’t when I subbing for the teacher of some 7th and 8th graders. I girl with a lot of personality and not much respect for following instructions was having trouble getting into her seat when class started. Finally I suggested that I might have to send her to the office. She said if I tried to do that she would give me the evil eye and then she demonstrated the evil eye by twisting up her face and looking at me with a scary squinty look.

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    3. priceless. can you figure out how to publish the observations of a 2nd grade teacher. i think you may have a bestselling bathroom book ala chicken soup

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    4. Hi Donna! I used to get some zingers from the kindergarteners, too, and had a hard time sometimes keeping a straight face… Daniel comes to mind who looked around one day during Show-and-Tell and said, “Where do you sleep?”

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    2. David Sedaris is dangerous to listen to when I drive, since I have had obscured vision from laughing so much that I start to cry during some of his monologues. Just back from a whirlwind trip to Fargo. Daughter was pleased with her performace today at the NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) competition although she didn’t make the final round. The baritone we gave a ride to won the high school men’s division, and daughter’s best friend won the freshman women’s division. Keven, the baritone, is a chatty little fellow who talked the whole way there and wore converse sneakers with his suit during today’s competition.

      We hurried back as early as we could since we might get up to a foot or more snow later tonight and tomorrow.

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        1. I want as much snow as can be mustered right now. The NOAS says we could get a maximum of 19 inches. Bring it on! We need moisture!

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        3. Wouldn’t rain do the same thing? Or is snow preferable because it melt slowly and minimizes the risk of flooding?

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  28. My daughter Molly and I once got terrible colds at the same time. These were full-blown colds, the real deal, with racking coughing, wet sneezes and noses that flowed like faucets with slippery snot. Think of a cold that makes you cough, and then that cough triggers another cough, and soon you are barking uncontrollably like a diseased seal. Any compassionate human being would have wanted to put us out of our misery.

    We were down in the basement, Molly and I, watching a VHS tape of an old Peter Sellers move. The film was one of the Inspector Clouseau series, with Sellers falling out of windows, bungling a seduction scene and barely escaping while Herbert Lom tried over and over to kill him. Once we got laughing we couldn’t stop, so we could barely hear the film over the sneezing and coughing. I’ve always wished I had a video of the two of us.

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    1. That clip reminds me of the time I got my foot caught in a plant stand onstage. It was a play called ‘Play it Again, Sam’ and I was doing a sort of Woody Allen type character. Had the audience rolling with that unintended bit of stage play.

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  29. How could i forget an occasion where a lot of baboons laughed till we cried: the Tom Keith memorial tribute. When Garrison came sashaying on stage in his red dress, feather boa and huge red pumps I was helpless with laughter, and it continued on and on. It was such a hilarious and loving send-off, a truly delightful and fun-filled afternoon.

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  30. Well, we are at 8 inches of snow with more yet to come. I love snow storms when I can be at home with lots of good coffee and bakery, as my Wisconsin husband calls it.

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      1. Thanks. I am glad, too. It would have been nice to be stranded at my son’s place for a few days, but no matter how bad the weather is in our town, they rarely call off school, and I didn’t want daughter to miss classes. It’s as though each child here is issued a snow shovel when they start kindergarten and are expected to shovel their way to school no matter how deep the snow. My work is hardly ever closed, either.

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  31. You’ve named a bunch of them already, Baboons. Also, Jack Lemmon would crack me up in movies like Mr. Roberts and The Odd Couple. Laugh-In, Carol Burnett (anyone else watch American Masters last night? Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. I know there are others, will keep thinking.

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  32. In December I got a last minute invitation to see The Servant of Two Masters at the Guthrie. In the second half there was a scene in which Monsieur Pantalone lets loose. The other character on stage can hardly contain himself and the night I saw it, his first words came out as kind of a squeak as he tried not to laugh. The scene is actually in this clip. Begins at the 1:25 mark… sound isn’t good, but you don’t really need to hear all the words. I had tears running down my face by the end of it!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foVr0FaorbI

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    1. That reminds me that one of the funniest things I’ve seen on stage was Kevin Kling et al. in the Guthrie’s “Canterbury Tales” several years ago. Went with Robin and Bill, if memory serves, they had an extra ticket. 🙂 That was one of those times – they were running around in chicken suits…

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      1. We saw ‘A Funny Thing Happen On The Way to the Forum’ at the Ordway. One scene had the audience laughing and when the actors got tired of holding for us, one of them looked at his imaginary wrist watch. The other actor, made a face because to him, of course, what was a wrist watch? Which sent the audience into hysterics again.

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  33. My sister and I can usually get to that point if we have enough quality time – I’ve always liked to make her laugh, heck, make anybody laugh. One thing that will get us going, and my mom, too, is looking at our old home movies from the 50s and 60s. Uffda!

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