Even in the Mork and Mindy days Robin wasn’t that funny. Robin doing Shakespeare, now would be funny. Hamlet perhaps.
That’s my problem with him as well. He’s always ‘on’ and can’t turn himself ‘off’ and just have a conversation. I remember years ago on David Letterman when he was still on NBC, Robin Williams was one of the guests. After he was introduced and sat down David said something like, “I’d like to ask one question before you do whatever you’re going to do.”
He has said frankly in several interviews that he’s doing it strictly for the money. His divorces have cost him tens of millions of dollars and his movie career isn’t what it used to be financially but he still has an expensive lifestyle. I haven’t seen the show yet, but this admission alone kind of turned me off a little bit; granted, money’s the main motivator for most TV shows probably, but he doesn’t even pretend it was because of the scripts or comedy.
He does work Shakespeare into some of his bits. Standup or talk show he’ll usually rattle off something in Shakespeare idiom and then flick into old man, then young William Buckley, Reagan, little kid…until someone comes along and drags him offstage with a black bag over his head.
There were a few moments in the episode where Williams’s character would start going off on a tangent and the one girl would burst out laughing while everyone else stood around uncomfortably.
That’s kind of how I felt about the show itself. A few funny moments, but it was mostly uncomfortable. And I really do like Robin Williams.