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| Scene from Flubber |
On Monday, August 11, 2014, the world was shocked to learn of the unfortunate passing of eccentric comedian Robin Williams. Over a career spanning 36 years, he was a massive presence whose unpredictability wasn't a detriment, but an asset. He never compromised his style and ended up making an enviably vast body of work that speaks differently to each generation. With an amazing reputation for being joyful, his death comes as a great loss. Since it is impossible to summarize the influence that he has made on me in a singular post, I have decided to split up my tribute into four parts released over the next few days. From how he influenced my childhood to my latter years, it will be a candid ode to why he meant a lot to me and will continue to for a long, long, long, long time.
PREAMBLE
The thing that continually amazes me is that he holds a different meaning to everyone dependent on age. For the older crowd, he was Mork from Ork and this avid stand-up comic who was everywhere. To audiences after the 90's, films like Mrs. Doubtfire and Hook resonate as Williams transitioned into family films to the point that many began stereotyping him as a stunted goofball who could only make films like Jack or Patch Adams while mugging at the camera. One of the benefits of his career is that it is so diverse that many can go eons without knowing that he was a great dramatic actor or a stand-up comedian of some renown. He could either be a disc jockey (Good Morning, Vietnam) or an inanimate statue of Teddy Roosevelt (A Night at the Museum). He remains unexpected and with his death, it has made me reflect on everything that he meant to me. In the spirit of the recent outcries of "Depression is real," I want to say that Williams has done his share of cheering me up and making my life better. I cannot speak for anyone else, though I have read stories that are inspirational. The hope of this four-part tribute is to highlight, in order of how it impacted me, how his comedies, dramas, TV, and stand-up influenced me in ways that very few performers have.
PART I - The Comedies
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| Scene from Jumanji |
It all started with Aladdin.
The year was 1992 and I was only three years old. For reasons still unknown to me, the Willett family decided to go to the movies. For me, it was the first of hundreds of visits to a cineplex to watch images project on a screen. To say I remember the occasion would be a lie. However, Aladdin was the first. It was a wondrous time for children into Disney films. After a rocky period, the studio was back in form and creating some of their best work with Beauty and the Beast and The Hunckback of Notre Dame. Among them was this film that featured a blue genie that talked a mile a minute, sang songs that I have yet to forget, and created a rich tapestry of animation as the desert turned into a mystical place in ways that wouldn't be topped until I saw Lawrence of Arabia over two decades later. There was something alluring about the film not only because it was the first, but because Robin Williams was there.
Much like nowadays, the Disney character was a prominent figure in my life. Beyond Aladdin, Williams played the genie in numerous incarnations, including the direct-to-VHS sequel Aladdin and the Prince of Thieves and in bumpers for ABC's Saturday programming called Great Minds Think for Themselves. He wouldn't let me forget that he was there. This wasn't a problem because as a child, there was nothing quite like making silly voices and jumping off the walls. Aladdin is the pinnacle of Williams' persona glorified. He has made many movies that I love more, but there is no better way to be introduced to Williams than to feel his enthusiasm jump off of the celluloid. He was comic relief. He was also vulnerable. He was as realized a character as he would ever play in real life. In animation, he could go anywhere and do anything. So what does he do? Turns a monkey into an elephant.
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For this piece, I will be looking specifically at the 90's because those remain the most formative years of my life. I learned to walk, talk, and think in that time and with all of that free time, allowed for me to watch a lot of movies. I pretty much devoured the Disney collection on a regular basis and even bought those sing-along videos and compilation CD's. While there are films from the 90's that I feel are important (Deconstructing Harry), Williams was only a comedian at this point of my life. I didn't know about Good Will Hunting or even Popeye. I just knew what movies were coming out at the time. It united me with schoolyard chums and in all honesty, Williams came up quite a bit. As the case with most people's childhood, there are films that you can't explain why you love because people outside of the experience won't understand. I feel vulnerable sharing this information because it is my childhood and my relationship with these films are specific.
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Of his filmography, there was one film that immediately struck me as a crucial film to my childhood. As much as I liked Aladdin, I loved Flubber. As a child, it was the iconic film that had it all. It featured a premise so ridiculous that it allowed for a whole lot of slapstick, a flying car, and a very strange sequence of dancing green goo. It was aggressive in its approach and seeing a bowling ball rocket to the sky only to hit someone was the height of comedy. More than anything, Flubber worked on a base level. It was an excuse to watch this uncontrollable source fly through the air only to be caught in a catcher's mitt. It was a madcap exposure to science and most of all, it had a very vulnerable center.
With the story focusing around Williams as scientist Professor Brainard, he couldn't do anything right. His work consumed him and caused him to miss his wedding and destroy his house. His flying computer/secretary Webo was a great counterpart, displaying imagery of pop culture moments. It remains one of my first major exposures to Pope John Paul II. Nonetheless, he was a man caught up in his work and he clearly tried to make the world a better place. Maybe his methods were a little nutty, but this was a film based around green goo. With my love of monster movies to develop (in this case, The Blob), this was an excellent introduction and made me feel something more. It made me feel creative.
There is something pure when you admire people as a child. While it is likely that children coming of age in the early 00's will feel the same way about Robots or RV, I felt a personal connection. To me, the 90's was his commercial peak in that he released the most endearing of his family films. He was coming off of the 80's, which was his most prestigious period in which he tore apart the shackles of Mork & Mindy with ease. Somehow, the 90's influenced a change that came out at the right time. He was wanting to be a joyous family friendly mogul who used his humor for good. There are stories of him entertaining children at the hospital as the genie character. He was in many ways a thankless hero for children of my generation.
It was a time when I was void of cultural criticism. I didn't know that he would get backlash for Patch Adams for being too childish. To me, it was simply a film full of whimsy and introduced me to the Marx Brothers and coincidentally Marxism. However, the more dramatic the film, the less likely I was to see it. I liked Patch Adams, but compared to Flubber or some other films, I can't recall it with fondness. In fact, the only real family film that didn't click with me was Toys, though that came from not seeing it until a few years ago. He was strange, maybe even too strange at that point. It was a clash of sensibilities that made the drama and comedy not land.
But this post isn't to lambaste his lesser films. This is about how his comedies in the 90's impacted me. In fact, there was another film that seems like a sore thumb now, but at the time, there was a film I held with some reverence as being this profound statement about life. It made me ask if I was doing things right, or if I would just age super fast. I am not talking about Awakenings, but...
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| Scene from Jack |
Yes... Jack.
You see, as a seven year old, there is nothing quite like having a man who ages rapidly serve as a metaphor for your impending maturity. With Big being one of my favorite films, I never had opposition to adult children quite like some did. Of course, that's only when done right. Still, there was something innocent and pure to Jack when you're seven. It was before I ever knew that there was a backlash for its ridiculous nature. In my memory, it was this great film about being with your friends and having a great time. I didn't care about the creepy context of this then 45-year-old hanging around with children farting and looking at erotic magazines. To me, it all felt like some grander message.
Even if the film remains a conundrum to most audiences to this day, I still cannot write it off entirely because of those feelings. I remember the scene of him graduating as an old man. There was a sense that time was precious and that it shouldn't be wasted. It is by no means a film that I revisit regularly, though it does hold a lot of other significant milestones. For starters, it was where I discovered the great Bill Cosby. For a film of this nature, to have two of the greatest comedians in history in one film is something brilliant. It could be facade of a family film by today's standards, but it had all of the elements, including... director Francis Ford Coppola. For many, The Godfather would be their entryway into that man's career. For children of the 90's, it is likely Jack. This isn't some great gateway, but it was a way of infiltrating higher profiled artists into my consciousness and try to build my love affair with them.
To a seven-year-old, this is a powerful scene that caused a lot of philosophical discussions with my mother:
It feels strange to be reverent about Jack in a post honoring a comedian of many talents, but this may have influenced a more existential worldview for me. Was it a great movie? Not necessarily, but it did mean something to me then. It got me thinking about life and how fragile it really is. Considering this scene in context of his death adds an unexpected poignancy. Speaking as he was a performer who consistently made speeches about life's importance, this one meant something at an impressionable age.
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But there were two other films that came and influenced me in bigger ways. These films aren't necessarily comedies, though they don't fit into the rest of the discussion quite the same way. They were more adept at showing a variety of his persona. In fact, I only mention them here because there is nowhere else to mention them. Were they funny? Occasionally. However, they also presented something deeper about the world to me that has held more reverence. To me, these films have the strongest attachment to my childhood. While I continue to admire Flubber unconditionally, there is something about these two that feel distinctly 90's and thus will always benefit from nostalgia factor.
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Its effects are sorely dated, yet Jumaji is a touchstone film largely because it is the quintessential action-adventure family/board game film. For children of a pre-computer era, board games were a lot more significant and made films like this seem more palpable. It was a surreal experience in which the game created real world danger and terrified children. There where rhinoceroses running through houses and poachers trying to kill you. It was an intense world in which a story of childhood takes on deeper symbolism and Williams, who was stuck in the game, has the choice of finishing the game as an allegory about his childhood.
Action films are not necessarily Williams' calling. He didn't do too many and this film was more about the fantasy elements than violence. Even then, in an era where R.L. Stein reigned supreme, horror was still a prominent subject for children. There were stakes involved and a sense of mission to the family films. Full of humor and whimsy, this is a film that not only helped to launch Kirsten Dunst career, but temporarily made Williams running from things seem plausible. It was fun and again, serves as sparking the imagination.
I loved this film a lot at a child and probably watched this either more or equal to Flubber. I loved it and found the action and peril to be highly engrossing. If nothing else, Williams knew how to work with legitimate directors. From Coppola in Jack to Joe Johnston in Jumaji, he was presenting an impressive range of quality with directors who understood their mechanics and needed someone who was manic-yet-controlled. Nobody could pull off manic-yet-controlled quite like Williams. He had a vulnerable touch that at the end of the running and screaming paved the way for an emotional climax that feels earned.
Of course, for generations, young and old, he will always be...
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| Scene from Mrs. Doubtfire |
Mrs. Doubtfire.
Of the many films that I overlooked in this piece (The Birdcage, Hook), it all would seem less egregious than ignoring Mrs. Doubtfire. Yes, Aladdin had landed him the iconic gig of a lifetime, but to ignore this cross-dressing film is like ignoring that Mork & Mindy was his claim to fame. Beyond the jokes and the fact that it became the reference point for the "men-in-drag" comedies to follow, this probably holds up as one of the best because at its core, there is a sense of dramatic importance. Yes, Williams is essentially using every moment to spout jokes, do impressions, and dance to Everlast's "Jump Around." However, that is how the film works on a surface level. It is endlessly referential, and I can do a decent impersonation.
However, this film shares more in common with Kramer vs. Kramer than any Eddie Murphy vehicle. Yes, it is very funny, but there is something at its core that speaks to a wider audience. Coming from a strained family life, Williams was aware of broken homes and its impact on children. The notion of Mrs. Doubtfire may be a tad creepy if over-observed, but it is also the comedy about how the children are influenced by the bigger picture. We see Williams interact with the children in his alter ego, and the results are rather candid. While Williams was equally dysfunctional as his wife counterpart, the children weren't to blame.
In fact, its ending summarizes everything up perfectly about what it means to truly be family. It isn't love by association, but by your personal feelings. Everything was valid and fine, as long as you believed it. The jokes about being in drag only go so far without providing a sincere context, and Williams made it work. It was a box office smash and to many, the quintessential performance as it captures both his heart and his madcap comedy in one (or two) perfect encapsulations of family identity. Many would attempt to capture the magic again down the line, but Williams felt sincere when he did it, and that goes miles.
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| Scene from Patch Adams |
I feel that in this series, it was important to establish why the 90's was an important period for my relationship with Williams. It was a time before pretensions set in and I began to judge things too harshly. I was enjoying his work on a base level and being exposed to some grander themes. The films that he geared towards children tended to work on me, and I loved him for it. The countless afternoons that benefited from Flubber or Jumanji being on are invaluable to shaping my worldview. Even Jack, for all of its flaws, taught me about existentialism. I found depth to his comedy that is unprecedented. He made me laugh and feel better on my bad days. I loved these films and it made my childhood memorable in unexpected ways, much like the rest of his work that we'll explore. For the sake of this piece, I will provide five influential titles that I recommend checking out if you wish to know what a young Thomas Willett found enjoyable and is the core of why Williams' passing hits me harder than most recent deaths.
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| Scene from Jack |
My Top 5:
1. Mrs Doubtfire
2. Aladdin
3. Flubber
4. Jumaji
5. Patch Adams
Honorable Mention:
Jack
Note: I do not include The Birdcage, Deconstructing Harry, Toys, or Hook largely because those films don't have immediate resonance with my childhood. While they have varying degrees of merit, this is a personal piece about the films that influenced me.
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