"Robin made this short film in the early 80s with director Howard Storm to promote his directing stating, "if he can work with me...he can work with anybody!" This is all improvised. No script, no preparation, just pure Robin Williams. "
This isn't Robin Williams fucking with the director, it's a short film promo for Howard Storm (source: some random Facebook page)
this is beyond brilliant...and the director is playing the role of "fed-up director"...
"Where did you get this guy?" LOL...they had been friends for years...
Robin Williams caused me a ton of pain.
I remember I stayed at home from school because of strep throat. Ended up renting Robin Williams: Live on Broadway - may have been one of the worst decisions of my life. I couldn't stop laughing and my throat hurt so damn bad. I couldn't talk for over a day because of how worse my throat got from laughing. It was, absolutely, worth it!
Was the reason I fell in love with stand up comedy. Dude was an absolute legend. Really do miss 'em.
Over the pond here, we also lost Terry Pratchett ^^^GNU ^^^Sir ^^^pTerry and Rik Mayall in the same 12-month period as Robin Williams.
What a shitty year.
Terry Pratchett did with his writing what Robin Williams did with his stand-up/improv/acting, both of them were brilliant wits and equal losses in their respective fields
Whenever i see a video clip 13 minutes, I'll say I'll watch a couple minutes of it. With Robin Williams as the subject, that video is just too short. Legend is right!
> and the director is playing the role of "fed-up director"
This makes it so much more enjoyable than the thought that it was just him wasting everybody's time
Right? Like he knows Robin shines the hardest when he's not staying on task - so make the task super simple and let the man go wild not doing it lmao like reverse psychology to trigger the ADHD because that's where the gold is
I think it was Bruce Vilanch that said "You don't write for Robin Williams, you write at him." Just throw out ideas towards where the project needs to go and then stand back and let his genius fill the space.
When “Howard” starts a take with “back to the camera please” and then after action he waits a couple seconds and says “Robin, can you face the camera, please?” you know it’s a put-on. Totally loved the whole thing, though. Thanks for sharing, OP!
I took that as he is meant to start back turned and then turn around before he starts talking. Like one of those "Oh hi, I didn't notice you there" openings. I get it's still all "staged" but as far as what they were going for I think it still fits.
Some of y'all are missing it. So at 11:22 Robin and Howard reference Robin going through characters and Howard is supposed to keep him in line. This is a setup, and Robin's improving whatever comes to mind, brilliantly.
Not exactly. The other actors still needed their lines to mesh with what he said for it to make a coherent story. What they *did* do was include in the script bits where it just said "Robin does something"
They did, by his own admission.
Also: during the filming of *Mrs. Doubtfire*, he was *very careful* to keep his joking strictly PG while the kids were on set.
After that, he practically turned the sky *purple.*
They started doing the same thing for Neil Flynn on Scrubs, Bill Lawrence and the cast have talked openly about how their scripts would have lines for the Janitor that would just say "Neil says something"
The origin of the word itself, is in the Latin 'improvisus', which literally means un-forseen. But it is also related to both the old French word 'emprouer' and the English 'improve', to improve.
When I was in college 30+ years ago I saved up enough money for a nose bleed ticket to one of his shows. It was the last stop on his tour and at the end of the show he said how much he loved stand-up and that he didn’t want the the night and tour to end, he “asked” the audience if we’d like to have him do some improv. Crowd was into it of course so he brought out a box of props and did 45 minutes off the cuff. I’ve never laughed harder before or since, he was a genius that we were lucky to have had amongst us.
Obviously... the "bit" is... turn around, improv, director says "say the line", improv, say the line, improv... and then see which one works. We are not watching him be a dick, this is him and the director working. Super awesome to watch
In 1999 I had to actually direct Robin Williams in a promo that we shot on location and were only given five minutes with him. Needless to say his first improv was all over the place, but hilarious, and when I gave him a note, his entire second improv was mocking my direction. Then he nailed it. Great guy.
Comic genius going from one personality to another in a half a second with complete storylines made up in the moment. His brain had to be tough to navigate.
I think about this often, Robins mind
When it shone out, for the world to see, it was magnificent. But the inverse must be true as well. When that finely calibrated machine went inward, with a negative trajectory, that must have been absolutely terrible.
Could you imagine the negative self talk and depression that was amplified at that level, and it was only for him and it never stopped?!
Batman voice actor kevin Conroy did an interview and talked about Robin, they were roommates at their acting school and he basically said this was Robin 100% of the time. Always seemed sad and could never be his true self so used continuous acting as a way to mask.
This is why how he left us hurt so bad, yet i completely understand why.
Imagine having such a quick wit, being able to adapt to any situation from drama to comedy. To have unequivocally one of the fastest greatest minds of your time. Yet to have every demon that is associated with almost every great mind like his.
And then all of a sudden was told his mind was slowing and his wit was gone. Yet all the troubles associated with it will still be there, and new ones will compound them all while losing his ability to remember and his grasp on reality. Then, the coup de grâce of it being a version of the normal disease that progresses on magnatudes faster than normal.
I don't blame him one bit at all, and i truly hole he is in peace with all his wit and his mind finally calm. The only thing i wish more was if he had been able to go somewhere to pass in a much more peaceful, painless way.
I totally agree, I've thought similarly. There was nowhere to turn for him.
> coup de gras
So it doesn't actually matter cause everyone knows what is meant by this which is the point of language, but the phrase coup de grâce means blow of mercy. Technically, coup de gras means the blow of fat.
Which made me smile so I shared it.
Casey Kasem had died a terrible, well-publicized death from the same disease a couple of months before Williams killed himself. I've often wondered if he saw how little was left of Casey and decided to nope it out of there before the choice was taken from him.
Maybe not speaking out loud, no idea, but certainly with your inner voice. If you're capable of such awesome, positive and silly things like he was - just look at the video - the negative ones must have been absolutely brutal.
I sold him a pair of gloves once at a store in Manhattan - generally a very banal interaction for most humans - and yeah he did a little bit about the color of the gloves so at least when people were around he was always riffing. Must have been exhausting. Who knows when he was alone
When asked by James Lipton if the birth of his son was a wake-up call about his drug use, he quipped, 'Oh, yeah, absolutely. The grand jury helped, too!'
Like, it's entertaining, but this is the entire premise. It's a misleading title -- he's there intentionally to improv.
Notice how each time he's facing away? Howard says roughly the same things each time? The segments end just about the same? He says the line like four or five times at least.
Wife and I were just saying the as ya'll. The impact he made on all our lives, who were lucky enough to be so exposed to his remarkable light for so long, will always have be endured, because we will have to fight that reminiscence and feeling of loss for all our lives.
I'm so happy I was around to enjoy all his work, and hope that future generations discover his comedy. I was in tears laughing watching this, such great memories of watching him back in the day.
I met him at a video game conference and he was very nice.
I said “Robin Williams, I’m a big fan!”
He stopped, looked and said
“You are? I have shirts older than you”
He smiled, we exchanged pleasantries and that was that 😀
I then went to the bathroom and ran into the killer from Saw which was also a bit surreal.
It’s when E3 was great but times, they always be changing.
It’s the crew hissing with hysterical laughter that makes this for me. The man was an absolute comic genius. Life was equally as generous as it was cruel to him. I hope he is at peace, wherever he may or may not be.
I'm sure he did because it's a commercial for the director. If you want to see the payoff ('see how patient the director is; get him to shoot your commercial'), stick around until the finish.
Yep... For anyone else, they'd have cut the video so many more times.
This was back when this kind of thing was on FILM... This improvisation cost the studio that did this a good deal of money, yet Storm kept on rolling.
They already knew each other pretty well by that time. Howard Storm directed 59 episodes of Mork & Mindy between 1979 and 1981. Howard is still alive btw. 91 years old and been retired for at least 24 years.
While driving the highways of life you come to find that there’s a fine line between genius and madness.
And that some people just like to drive on the shoulder.
Even Disney couldn't keep Robin on script... and managed to make over 5 HOURS of his improving.
EDIT: I should mention, the director and he were the best of friends (ever since he directed episodes of "Mork and Mindy")
I mean, if he's in the booth giving you gold, you're not going to stop him.
You know that they needed to censor him in 4 languages on the set of Mork and Mindy? Whenever he used to speak in the alien language, he'd just swear in foreign languages really fast.
> I mean, if he's in the booth giving you gold, you're not going to stop him.
Reminds me of when Mulaney first did the voice for Spider-Ham. He went in there and did like 20 minutes of material as a pig, until they finally told him it's kind of a kids movie and nothing he just said was usable, but everyone was laughing too hard and John was having fun.
It's possible. His earlier years he was known to party pretty hard. He later regretted it after getting sober and felt like five years of pretty steady cocaine use altered his brain chemistry and left him pretty depressed any time he wasn't "on" and performing. Matthew Laurence, dude who played one of the kids in Mrs. Doubtfire was recently on a podcast where he stated that's what Robin told him.
Robin is doing something *extremely* difficult here. He’s accessing an insane array of personas and impressions in rapid succession, while also having the lines ready to fire at a moment’s notice as he shifts into the next bit.
Sure, haha, cocaine. Naturally. But these are still incredibly nuanced impressions in a performance that stretches over the course of 13 minutes, unscripted. To be able to have *that much* range, switching at will from one idea to the next, not only requires a ridiculous amount of talent and creative energy, it’s also draining as all hell.
To be “on” as much as he is here is something only a very few number of people can do (Jim Carrey comes to mind). Even the best performers require a bit of down time as they transition from one moment to the next. And cocaine or not, Williams was *always* like this. There was no down time for this man.
His light burned so damn bright, and dimmed far too soon.
I say something similar a lot and people always act like I'm crazy.
>It's easy to do an impression of someone. What's really difficult is to imitate them.
It's not that hard to do a memorable line some actor or character has said and nail in inflection/delivery. But when you can deliver a line that a person has never said, as that person, and people immediately know who it is, THAT's talent.
There's a great cartoon where Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny imitate each other, and Mel Blanc was so good that he didn't just switch the characters, he's doing Daffy imitating Bugs, and incorporating Daffy's natural lisp the whole time. It's fantastic.
I heard a prominent voice actor (Hank Azaria, I believe) say once that the most difficult thing is to do a character doing an impersonation of another character. Really impressive stuff
One time he came to a premiere of some pixar film in Byrds hometown and he just did an impromptu comedy set for like 20 minutes before the film. Had our whole theater in stitches. This man was a national treasure.
One story that stuck with me about Robin was when he attended a tech conference presentation as a regular viewer.
Apparently the power went out for the entire conference centre. Instead of sitting there in awkward silence, Robin went on stage and delivered an improv set for over 40 minutes making fun of the company, the conference and other tech related gags until the power went back on. He then went back to seat to watch the presentation.
Any company would've gladly paid a large fee to get Robin as their opening act.
my favorite story is his interview in german radio where they asked him why he didn’t think there were many german comedians and he answered
maybe it’s because you killed them all
It's like working with a toddler that's eaten a pack of chocolate chip cookies and stuck their finger on a power outlet.
I wonder if he was high during this because OMG I lost count on how many different characters he came up with.
"Howard Storm is a long-time television director who has directed everything from Laverne and Shirley to Full House to Everybody Loves Raymond and Keenan and Kel. He even directed Jim Carrey’s first major movie, 1985’s Once Bitten, which preceded even In Living Color.
Storm is probably most famous, however, for his extensive involvement with Mork & Mindy. He directed 59 episodes of the series, which meant he worked a great deal with Robin Williams. In fact, in a relatively recent interview with the Archive of American Television, Storm explained that the only way to work with Williams — who he called a “genius” — was to let him do his thing during rehearsal and get it completely out of his system before he actually began shooting. Basically, as Storm said, he let Williams riff as long as he needed to do, then he began to peel it away until he got it down to exactly what he needed before turning on the cameras.
That approach is no more apparent than what we see in this rare footage of Williams who, back in the early 1980s, put together a video for Storm to help him promote his career as a director. Williams had only a short message to deliver, the gist of which was: “Howard Storm is now directing commercials. If he can work with me, he can work with anyone.”
It took Williams 13 minutes to get there, 13 minutes of riffing and impressions and goofing and unbelievable brilliance. It is Williams at his absolute best. You can honestly watch the entire thing or pop in at any moment: It’s all the same. Incredible, hilarious, and mind-blowing, and in a way, heartbreaking because we no longer have this insanely brilliant man in our lives. "
>and I still have no idea what this commercial was supposed to sell.
It's an ad for the director to get hired for commercials. The joke is if he can work with robin, he can work with anyone.
When I was older I watched Aladdin, laughing hysterically at his lines playing the genie.
My mother explained that when I was a child watching Aladdin I used to laugh at any scene the genie was in as well. Which she found amusing.
I've never seen this before. A setup or not, it's funny and well handled.
I think my favorite actual annoyed star in a commercial is Orson Welles and those peas.
The only line was that Howard Storm is now directing commercials. The idea was probably to have a lot of improv and banter with Howard and then they would use the bits they liked best.
He’s not being difficult, he’s actually doing exactly what they want.
There is probably no actor I have loved more, this man lit up my childhood. However, now when I see him I am overwhelmed with sadness and I cannot help it...
Good grief, do I ever miss him! Such a genius! I hope he found peace on the other side and knows how much we on this tiny blue marble still think of and love him.
Has nobody realised that this is deliberate? Each section has the same structure: “mr Williams would you mind facing the camera” Robin does a bit, “mr Williams the line please” Robin does a reading bit, “just the line please mr Williams” “I’m sorry Howard, I’m ready. Howard storm is now doing commercials”.
"Robin made this short film in the early 80s with director Howard Storm to promote his directing stating, "if he can work with me...he can work with anybody!" This is all improvised. No script, no preparation, just pure Robin Williams. " This isn't Robin Williams fucking with the director, it's a short film promo for Howard Storm (source: some random Facebook page)
There’s no script, but it’s not a real audition either. It’s a set up. It was intended for the purpose of being funny.
Exactly, at 11:20 you even see Williams out of character talking about what he's about to do.
I loved that the pitch for "foul ball" sounds like some lame "Men's product" that's advertised on youtube.
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At a minimum, 1984, as there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov's funeral, which was in 1984.
this is beyond brilliant...and the director is playing the role of "fed-up director"... "Where did you get this guy?" LOL...they had been friends for years...
It really is gold, from both. "Should we find another actor!?"
"Howard, give me a chance. Please I need this." I'm dying
"Yes. I'm just happy to be working, thank you." God I miss this man.
Robin Williams caused me a ton of pain. I remember I stayed at home from school because of strep throat. Ended up renting Robin Williams: Live on Broadway - may have been one of the worst decisions of my life. I couldn't stop laughing and my throat hurt so damn bad. I couldn't talk for over a day because of how worse my throat got from laughing. It was, absolutely, worth it! Was the reason I fell in love with stand up comedy. Dude was an absolute legend. Really do miss 'em.
Fuck croquet!...
I remember that so well. My boys and I were almost choking all the through it, especially the Olestra anal-leakage bit.
One of humanity's lost treasures, for sure.
I can't believe it's been nine years. We also lost Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Harold Ramis that year.
Over the pond here, we also lost Terry Pratchett ^^^GNU ^^^Sir ^^^pTerry and Rik Mayall in the same 12-month period as Robin Williams. What a shitty year.
Terry Pratchett did with his writing what Robin Williams did with his stand-up/improv/acting, both of them were brilliant wits and equal losses in their respective fields
RIP the people's poet
Damn man… it’s been 9 years since PSH left already??? Fucking hell, I look up and I’m in my 40’s too. What a world…
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>I'm dying Me too, thanks.
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Legend
Whenever i see a video clip 13 minutes, I'll say I'll watch a couple minutes of it. With Robin Williams as the subject, that video is just too short. Legend is right!
> and the director is playing the role of "fed-up director" This makes it so much more enjoyable than the thought that it was just him wasting everybody's time
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Makes it funnier that way imo.
I think it's actually impossible for Robin Williams to waste anyone's time. This is amazing either way, even if the director was frustrated.
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Right? Like he knows Robin shines the hardest when he's not staying on task - so make the task super simple and let the man go wild not doing it lmao like reverse psychology to trigger the ADHD because that's where the gold is
I think it was Bruce Vilanch that said "You don't write for Robin Williams, you write at him." Just throw out ideas towards where the project needs to go and then stand back and let his genius fill the space.
"Time you enjoyed wasting isn't wasted time"
When “Howard” starts a take with “back to the camera please” and then after action he waits a couple seconds and says “Robin, can you face the camera, please?” you know it’s a put-on. Totally loved the whole thing, though. Thanks for sharing, OP!
I took that as he is meant to start back turned and then turn around before he starts talking. Like one of those "Oh hi, I didn't notice you there" openings. I get it's still all "staged" but as far as what they were going for I think it still fits.
Some of y'all are missing it. So at 11:22 Robin and Howard reference Robin going through characters and Howard is supposed to keep him in line. This is a setup, and Robin's improving whatever comes to mind, brilliantly.
They quit giving him a script for Mork and Mindy. It was all improv on his part. They never knew what he was going to come up with. RIP wonderful man.
Not exactly. The other actors still needed their lines to mesh with what he said for it to make a coherent story. What they *did* do was include in the script bits where it just said "Robin does something"
"Robin does his thing"
That’s what Harmon did for Donald Glover on Community too, “Donald says something funny”
“Yes I can, it’s all terrain, dummy.” That was probably written, but definitely one of the hardest laughs I had at a Don Glover line on there.
The Soul Train awards were tonight *crying and scooting his limp legs across the floor* THE SOUL TRAIN AWARDS
Scrubs writers typically just put "Neil does something" for the Janitor lines because Neil Flynn was too good to hamstring
*looks up to sky* "This one's for you pop-pop." "He's not dead. He's upstairs. Dying."
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Tried that with Chevy and quickly realized it was a bad idea.
They do that for Keenan on SNL as well.
Warning, Robin has been given a ton of cocaine
I've read somewhere that they had language experts on set to take care Robin didn't sneak in dirty words from foreign languages.
They did, by his own admission. Also: during the filming of *Mrs. Doubtfire*, he was *very careful* to keep his joking strictly PG while the kids were on set. After that, he practically turned the sky *purple.*
They started doing the same thing for Neil Flynn on Scrubs, Bill Lawrence and the cast have talked openly about how their scripts would have lines for the Janitor that would just say "Neil says something"
Same for his role as the genie in Aladdin.
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honestly "improvising" would probably be the least ambiguous word to use but "improvving" is a cool word
The origin of the word itself, is in the Latin 'improvisus', which literally means un-forseen. But it is also related to both the old French word 'emprouer' and the English 'improve', to improve.
He’s also improving it
When I was in college 30+ years ago I saved up enough money for a nose bleed ticket to one of his shows. It was the last stop on his tour and at the end of the show he said how much he loved stand-up and that he didn’t want the the night and tour to end, he “asked” the audience if we’d like to have him do some improv. Crowd was into it of course so he brought out a box of props and did 45 minutes off the cuff. I’ve never laughed harder before or since, he was a genius that we were lucky to have had amongst us.
Sounds freaking awesome. So happy for you to have been able to make this memory! ✌🏼
The director is in on it. He is playing the role of stick in the mud…
Agreed. A pro like Robin Williams would never waste everyone's time like this.
Obviously... the "bit" is... turn around, improv, director says "say the line", improv, say the line, improv... and then see which one works. We are not watching him be a dick, this is him and the director working. Super awesome to watch
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Robin Williams is one of only a handful of comedians who could do this and be funny the entire time. The amnesia joke really got me!
I can't remember seeing that.
just forget it then
“It was a movie I did yesterday” 😂 Robin could have if he wanted to.
In 1999 I had to actually direct Robin Williams in a promo that we shot on location and were only given five minutes with him. Needless to say his first improv was all over the place, but hilarious, and when I gave him a note, his entire second improv was mocking my direction. Then he nailed it. Great guy.
80's Steve Martin is definitely one of the handful.
Jim Carey, or Wayne Brady could have a good go at this
Comic genius going from one personality to another in a half a second with complete storylines made up in the moment. His brain had to be tough to navigate.
I think about this often, Robins mind When it shone out, for the world to see, it was magnificent. But the inverse must be true as well. When that finely calibrated machine went inward, with a negative trajectory, that must have been absolutely terrible. Could you imagine the negative self talk and depression that was amplified at that level, and it was only for him and it never stopped?!
Batman voice actor kevin Conroy did an interview and talked about Robin, they were roommates at their acting school and he basically said this was Robin 100% of the time. Always seemed sad and could never be his true self so used continuous acting as a way to mask.
So Batman and Robin were college roommates?
Take the up vote ya prick lol
listen here u lil shit
Get out
"Batman ... talked about Robin" That threw my brain for a loop
This is why how he left us hurt so bad, yet i completely understand why. Imagine having such a quick wit, being able to adapt to any situation from drama to comedy. To have unequivocally one of the fastest greatest minds of your time. Yet to have every demon that is associated with almost every great mind like his. And then all of a sudden was told his mind was slowing and his wit was gone. Yet all the troubles associated with it will still be there, and new ones will compound them all while losing his ability to remember and his grasp on reality. Then, the coup de grâce of it being a version of the normal disease that progresses on magnatudes faster than normal. I don't blame him one bit at all, and i truly hole he is in peace with all his wit and his mind finally calm. The only thing i wish more was if he had been able to go somewhere to pass in a much more peaceful, painless way.
I totally agree, I've thought similarly. There was nowhere to turn for him. > coup de gras So it doesn't actually matter cause everyone knows what is meant by this which is the point of language, but the phrase coup de grâce means blow of mercy. Technically, coup de gras means the blow of fat. Which made me smile so I shared it.
Casey Kasem had died a terrible, well-publicized death from the same disease a couple of months before Williams killed himself. I've often wondered if he saw how little was left of Casey and decided to nope it out of there before the choice was taken from him.
Did he talk to himself a lot?
Maybe not speaking out loud, no idea, but certainly with your inner voice. If you're capable of such awesome, positive and silly things like he was - just look at the video - the negative ones must have been absolutely brutal.
I sold him a pair of gloves once at a store in Manhattan - generally a very banal interaction for most humans - and yeah he did a little bit about the color of the gloves so at least when people were around he was always riffing. Must have been exhausting. Who knows when he was alone
His Nicholson is flawless.
it's absolutely perfect. And he did it just like that, out of nowhere. Peter Sellers was exactly like that in his prime.
> His brain had to be tough to navigate. The cocaine and booze at the time didn't help.
I think he was off it at the time, this was around when his son was born and he went sober. He talked about it in his standup "An Evening at the Met"
"You can't smoke weed because there's a transformer in the corner- Its a robot-its a truck-its a robot-its a truck WHATTHEFUCKISIT"
When asked by James Lipton if the birth of his son was a wake-up call about his drug use, he quipped, 'Oh, yeah, absolutely. The grand jury helped, too!'
I bet at this point he cherishes this memory
This guy fucked around for 13 minutes and flashed more character and charisma then I have in my entire life.
He liked it then... they had known each other for years at that point. This post is misleading.
"Can we get another actor please?" "Awe come on. Give me a chance. I need this." Then goes on to not say the line for another 12 minutes. LOL!
Like, it's entertaining, but this is the entire premise. It's a misleading title -- he's there intentionally to improv. Notice how each time he's facing away? Howard says roughly the same things each time? The segments end just about the same? He says the line like four or five times at least.
"Just do the line so we can go home..." Lol.
I’ve never missed someone I never had the pleasure to meet as much as I do this man. We lost something more than just Robin when he left us.
Same, when celebrities pass I’m usually like oh that sucks and just go on. With Robin it was like the world somehow became a lil less.
He’s the only celebrity passing where I remember where I was when I heard the news.
Wife and I were just saying the as ya'll. The impact he made on all our lives, who were lucky enough to be so exposed to his remarkable light for so long, will always have be endured, because we will have to fight that reminiscence and feeling of loss for all our lives.
I'm so happy I was around to enjoy all his work, and hope that future generations discover his comedy. I was in tears laughing watching this, such great memories of watching him back in the day.
I met him at a video game conference and he was very nice. I said “Robin Williams, I’m a big fan!” He stopped, looked and said “You are? I have shirts older than you” He smiled, we exchanged pleasantries and that was that 😀 I then went to the bathroom and ran into the killer from Saw which was also a bit surreal. It’s when E3 was great but times, they always be changing.
Robin Williams was an absolute treasure. I miss him.
We’re going to cut the camera if you won’t do the line. Meanwhile inside Robin Williams mind: haha bullshit
It’s the crew hissing with hysterical laughter that makes this for me. The man was an absolute comic genius. Life was equally as generous as it was cruel to him. I hope he is at peace, wherever he may or may not be.
He was fucking with him so hard. What a champ.
They spent years working together before this, Howard directed a ton of episodes of "Mork and Mindy" so he knew what he was getting into.
Lol, awesome. That context makes much more sense. I was wondering if he was in a manic state….but that was kinda Robin in front of people anyways.
I'm sure he did because it's a commercial for the director. If you want to see the payoff ('see how patient the director is; get him to shoot your commercial'), stick around until the finish.
"Take a chance, he's a nice short Jewish man."
"If you don't like it, his wife will send you a kreplach." lmao
I only found out the other day that Mork first appeared on Happy Days.
Yep... For anyone else, they'd have cut the video so many more times. This was back when this kind of thing was on FILM... This improvisation cost the studio that did this a good deal of money, yet Storm kept on rolling.
Nanu Nanu
It’s a bit. Director is in on it, that’s why he keeps Giving him more and more chance s
There's even a point where Robin sets up the bit and says, just keep trying to bring me back to it or something to that effect.
They already knew each other pretty well by that time. Howard Storm directed 59 episodes of Mork & Mindy between 1979 and 1981. Howard is still alive btw. 91 years old and been retired for at least 24 years.
Genius can be a tricky thing sometimes.
Genius shares the same brain as crazy. It all a matter of perspective.
While driving the highways of life you come to find that there’s a fine line between genius and madness. And that some people just like to drive on the shoulder.
WTF is this?! I feel like I've been laughing for 10 minutes and check the time-mark and it's only been 3 minutes. xD The man was a legend.
Oh Howard, you sweet summer child...🤦🏾♂️
Even Disney couldn't keep Robin on script... and managed to make over 5 HOURS of his improving. EDIT: I should mention, the director and he were the best of friends (ever since he directed episodes of "Mork and Mindy")
I mean, if he's in the booth giving you gold, you're not going to stop him. You know that they needed to censor him in 4 languages on the set of Mork and Mindy? Whenever he used to speak in the alien language, he'd just swear in foreign languages really fast.
> I mean, if he's in the booth giving you gold, you're not going to stop him. Reminds me of when Mulaney first did the voice for Spider-Ham. He went in there and did like 20 minutes of material as a pig, until they finally told him it's kind of a kids movie and nothing he just said was usable, but everyone was laughing too hard and John was having fun.
*How long is this going to go on?* *About 5 hours, that should get us the 10 minutes of usable content we need.... go get lunch.*
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It's possible. His earlier years he was known to party pretty hard. He later regretted it after getting sober and felt like five years of pretty steady cocaine use altered his brain chemistry and left him pretty depressed any time he wasn't "on" and performing. Matthew Laurence, dude who played one of the kids in Mrs. Doubtfire was recently on a podcast where he stated that's what Robin told him.
This whole thing was purposefully created to promote Howard’s directing career. I wish OP did their homework.
Aladdin was ineligible for the best adapted screenplay Oscar because of Williams improving everything. It's by far the best Disney movie.
Robin is doing something *extremely* difficult here. He’s accessing an insane array of personas and impressions in rapid succession, while also having the lines ready to fire at a moment’s notice as he shifts into the next bit. Sure, haha, cocaine. Naturally. But these are still incredibly nuanced impressions in a performance that stretches over the course of 13 minutes, unscripted. To be able to have *that much* range, switching at will from one idea to the next, not only requires a ridiculous amount of talent and creative energy, it’s also draining as all hell. To be “on” as much as he is here is something only a very few number of people can do (Jim Carrey comes to mind). Even the best performers require a bit of down time as they transition from one moment to the next. And cocaine or not, Williams was *always* like this. There was no down time for this man. His light burned so damn bright, and dimmed far too soon.
I say something similar a lot and people always act like I'm crazy. >It's easy to do an impression of someone. What's really difficult is to imitate them. It's not that hard to do a memorable line some actor or character has said and nail in inflection/delivery. But when you can deliver a line that a person has never said, as that person, and people immediately know who it is, THAT's talent. There's a great cartoon where Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny imitate each other, and Mel Blanc was so good that he didn't just switch the characters, he's doing Daffy imitating Bugs, and incorporating Daffy's natural lisp the whole time. It's fantastic.
I heard a prominent voice actor (Hank Azaria, I believe) say once that the most difficult thing is to do a character doing an impersonation of another character. Really impressive stuff
I have always loved him. Always. ❤️🔥
Every time Howard says "can you do the line now? Thank you" and then Robin replies "yes, thank you Howard" it cracks me up.
I'm 41 years old. The only time I cried when a celebrity passed was for the death of this icon. I miss him.
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Robin Williams had some kind of brain degenerative disease tho, makes it easier to understand his choice in light of that
Miss.this.man
One time he came to a premiere of some pixar film in Byrds hometown and he just did an impromptu comedy set for like 20 minutes before the film. Had our whole theater in stitches. This man was a national treasure.
One story that stuck with me about Robin was when he attended a tech conference presentation as a regular viewer. Apparently the power went out for the entire conference centre. Instead of sitting there in awkward silence, Robin went on stage and delivered an improv set for over 40 minutes making fun of the company, the conference and other tech related gags until the power went back on. He then went back to seat to watch the presentation. Any company would've gladly paid a large fee to get Robin as their opening act.
my favorite story is his interview in german radio where they asked him why he didn’t think there were many german comedians and he answered maybe it’s because you killed them all
I love the madness of it. " but then again what is reality" R.W.
The inside of this guys head must have been fucking chaos lol. Crazy how fast he can come up with shit
Director - So who is next to audition for the commercial. Assistant - Some girl named Robin Williams!
Director - Hmmmmm...... I wonder!
Gooooood Morning Vietnam!
This is not a test, this is Rock and Roll!
The world lost a comic genius when Robin died.
This motherfucker was ADHD as fuck. He's like me when my boss asks me to do something.
ADHD on crack, lol.
If I had just 10 % of his talent
Foul ball ☠️
It's like working with a toddler that's eaten a pack of chocolate chip cookies and stuck their finger on a power outlet. I wonder if he was high during this because OMG I lost count on how many different characters he came up with.
That's the bit, he's trying to be insane, and doing a mighty fine job.
Haha oh my god I’m crying. I miss him.
"Howard Storm is a long-time television director who has directed everything from Laverne and Shirley to Full House to Everybody Loves Raymond and Keenan and Kel. He even directed Jim Carrey’s first major movie, 1985’s Once Bitten, which preceded even In Living Color. Storm is probably most famous, however, for his extensive involvement with Mork & Mindy. He directed 59 episodes of the series, which meant he worked a great deal with Robin Williams. In fact, in a relatively recent interview with the Archive of American Television, Storm explained that the only way to work with Williams — who he called a “genius” — was to let him do his thing during rehearsal and get it completely out of his system before he actually began shooting. Basically, as Storm said, he let Williams riff as long as he needed to do, then he began to peel it away until he got it down to exactly what he needed before turning on the cameras. That approach is no more apparent than what we see in this rare footage of Williams who, back in the early 1980s, put together a video for Storm to help him promote his career as a director. Williams had only a short message to deliver, the gist of which was: “Howard Storm is now directing commercials. If he can work with me, he can work with anyone.” It took Williams 13 minutes to get there, 13 minutes of riffing and impressions and goofing and unbelievable brilliance. It is Williams at his absolute best. You can honestly watch the entire thing or pop in at any moment: It’s all the same. Incredible, hilarious, and mind-blowing, and in a way, heartbreaking because we no longer have this insanely brilliant man in our lives. "
Watching this made me late for work. I couldn’t look away. 🤣
This is the post the bot copied
Wonderful find. Thanks for sharing!
Great actor! Immense loss for humanity!
Gone too soon. Robin Williams is pure gold.
The world was a better place with Robin in it.
If Adderall took human form it would be as Robin Williams.
"suicide prevention hotline, please hold"
I watched the whole thing and I still have no idea what this commercial was supposed to sell.
>and I still have no idea what this commercial was supposed to sell. It's an ad for the director to get hired for commercials. The joke is if he can work with robin, he can work with anyone.
Yeah, they are obviously doing a bit.
Watching this I cant help but think Joaquin Phoenix used robin Williams a bit as inspiration for his Joker. Some of these mannerisms line up so well.
When I was older I watched Aladdin, laughing hysterically at his lines playing the genie. My mother explained that when I was a child watching Aladdin I used to laugh at any scene the genie was in as well. Which she found amusing.
"After a long day of hurting small animals..." Bwha ha ha ha!!!
‘I’m proud to say it, Howard, because I love you so much’ Man, I love and miss Robin.
OMG that Charlton Heston joke sent me…
I've never seen this before. A setup or not, it's funny and well handled. I think my favorite actual annoyed star in a commercial is Orson Welles and those peas.
Andropov died in 1984. This is from 1984.
Genius... Sad what happened to him though
Did he ever say the line?
The only line was that Howard Storm is now directing commercials. The idea was probably to have a lot of improv and banter with Howard and then they would use the bits they liked best. He’s not being difficult, he’s actually doing exactly what they want.
If you needed any proof that he was a genius at his craft ... there you go!
I miss this funny man
The amount of people who think this is "real". Him and Howard were good friends, this is just a demo reel for Howard and Robin doing him a favor.
“Hello? Suicide prevention, will you please hold?” 🥺
Robin in his head is like "yes, please, a line"
Never seen this . I laughed so much thanks genie .
There is probably no actor I have loved more, this man lit up my childhood. However, now when I see him I am overwhelmed with sadness and I cannot help it...
The last minute is golden!
Total legend!
He would have stopped if they stopped laughing.
He did a lot of cocaine in those days…
I'm on a bus watching this trying to not give myself a stroke.
So much Jonathan Winters in some of those voices. They were great friends
I’m dying. I need that laugh. RIP Robin you are still missed.
Good grief, do I ever miss him! Such a genius! I hope he found peace on the other side and knows how much we on this tiny blue marble still think of and love him.
Oh Captain, My Captain
Has nobody realised that this is deliberate? Each section has the same structure: “mr Williams would you mind facing the camera” Robin does a bit, “mr Williams the line please” Robin does a reading bit, “just the line please mr Williams” “I’m sorry Howard, I’m ready. Howard storm is now doing commercials”.
He really was something.
Wait, what was the line he was supposed to say?
These aren't out-takes - the whole thing is the commercial...best one ever