HBO just showed Robin Williams live from Broadway. Did anyone else watch it? Do you think he’s as funny as he used to be? Still relevant or tired cliche.
For my part, I have to say that he was absolutely hilarious. As funny as he was, it really looked as if he had a hell of a lot of fun up there. Maybe he misses doing stand up more than he thought he would.
He’s been doing a standup tour for the past 3 months. He was at that theater for 2 days before tonight’s show. I caught him on David Letterman last week, completely manic and over the top, looking like he was having a lot of fun.
How was it?
I tuned in to the show tonight about half way though. After about 15 minutes I left the room. I just didn’t think it was very funny. He was hitting on topics that REALLY reminded me of Eddie Izzard’s Dressed to Kill show but it wasn’t near as funny.
I still think he’s a funny guy, I just think Robin is better if you take him off the leash and let him go bonkers.
My wife was cracking up though. She really enjoyed it.
It was better than I thought it would be, although I agree with the Eddie Izzard rip-offs. I don’t think it was as funny as Live at the Met, although I don’t know if that’s because HE’S 15 years older or I’M 15 years older.
I guess Robin Williams doing manic stand-up at age 50 … kind of creeps me out. I was just watching him do his parody of oral sex and thinking “Rob, your last three movies have you playing psycopaths for a pretty good reason.” What’s edgy and hilarious at 35 just comes off as … creepy after you hit 50. It’s like watching my Uncle with the mortgage and the kidney stones trying to do stand-up.
Although I was laughing at the Osama bin Laden and 71 virgins jokes 5 minutes after they’d been told.
Are they going to re-air the show anytime soon?
I couldn’t get through the promos for it without leaping for the remote . . . Will someone please slip some Ritalin into his coffee?!
Throw me into the category of not liking R.W. I watched him for 15 minutes, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I just don’t find him humorous. My biggest gripe with him is that if he doesn’t get the laugh he thinks a particular punchline should deliver, he seems to try HARDER to get the laugh he needs with a bit of improv.
The older he gets, the more hyperactive he seems to be. He reminds me of a crazed subway rider that walks up and down the car babbling to no one in particular.
Maybe he’s the same, and I’m slowing down. But I can still hit the remote!
I made it thru the first half of the show before I decided sleep was a better option. I dunno - the jokes about tits and nipples seemed right out of junior high. His digs at Michael Jackson weren’t very original. Frankly, I found myself paying more attention to the sweat patterns on his shirt than to his routine.
I was not impressed.
My husband watched the whole show while I was on the computer. At one point he looked at me and said “You’d never know this from the movies he’s in, but he is really crude and lude.”
I nodded.
The show was OK, nott the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, but it definitely had its moments.
For those who missed it, it will be on again. This is HBO we’re talking about, after all.
I laughed at him for an hour, but I couldn’t make it through the whole 90 minutes. He lost me with the Bible story shit. But frankly, I had a 007 mission on the Xbox to attend to, so I was looking for any slow part as an excuse to flip over to the vids.
I think he’s as funny as he’s always been. My favorite joke was: “Look at what’s on TV: The Chamber, The Chair, Fear Factor. Texas is saying, 'We’ve got all those shows. We just don’t film ‘em…’.” His delivery on that one was marvelous.
He gets that maniac look on his face with sweat popping, eyes narrowed, and a freakish grin. I love it. He must have been a sight when he was deep into a coke bender. Maybe it had the opposite effect and shut him up for once.
The stand up I’m really looking forward to is Martin Lawrence’s movie, soon to be released in a theater near you. His other stand up movie, You So Crazy, sent me into paroxysms when it was aired on cable a few years back.
The stand up to look forward to is Margaret Cho’s The Notorious C.H.O. I saw part of the Robin Williams show, and wasn’t so amused. If I want to see funny Robin, I’ll watch Club Paradise. Is Live at the Met the one where he’s leaping all over the balconies with those rainbow(?) suspenders on?
I really liked it, not rolling on the floor laughing, but lots of good laughs. I was glad to see he still had the balls to do it his old way rather than giving into PC crap. I doubt that a new comic would be able to that routine without being protested for being xenophobic. I kind of wondered if he was just having fun seeing how many potentially offensive sterotypes he could fit into one routine.
I also love Eddie Izzard and didn’t see anything that I would call ripping him off. Eddie and Williams are my two favorite stand-ups because of their delivery which is fairly different. Almost every subject has been dealt with by comics sometime, but those two just know how to form a joke that they can deliver very well.
Laughed my ass off.
I have always liked Robin Williams, though.
Well, I don’t think Robin tried to steal any of Eddies jokes. But there were times when I just got this feeling Robin had watched Dressed to Kill a few times and it influenced Robins set. It’s hard to explain.
My wife said something interesting about it. She said “Robin really picked on George Bush in that show. I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of Robin Williams after this.”
If you want to see him shine, rent Patch Adams!
… I’m just kidding of course!
You are right on.
Here’s what I learned about Robin Williams back in the late 80’s, when I was doing standup: He is a shameless and aggressive thief. I sometimes wonder if anything he does is original.
However, my knowledge of his thievery taints my ability to enjoy him thoroughly, and I both recognized direct steals in his show as well as feeling exactly as you do: he studied Eddie.
I also usually find his manic “look at me!” thing really annoying.
All that said… he made me laugh pretty good in a few spots, and I was impressed at how disciplined the show actually was.
stoid
Robin Williams is brilliant. . . but out of control! And I suppose that’s his appeal.
Some parts of Sunday’s show were fall-on-the-floor funny and other parts were duds. I suppose that’s what you should expect in a stream of consciousness act.
The crudeness got to me after a while. Waaaaayyyy too much emphasis on private body parts.
The political references got me, too. Blaming the George Bush administration on little old Jewish people in Miami was, I thought, out of line.
The water sipping annoyed me. Granted, he loses all his water intake through sweat, but it almost seemed like those water bottles were his crutch!
With such a high sweat factor, Robin may have stolen the Hardest Working Man in Show Business from James Brown!
I’m not a big Robin Williams fan and watched the show against my wishes (“isn’t that the guy from Bicentennial Man, Patch Adams, and Father’s Day?”) I have to admit he was pretty funny, especially the end with the oral sex thingy. Some of the material seemed cribbed which echoes what Stoid says.
My wife and I were really excited to see this. I can take him or leave him in movies; it’s not really the best format for his humor. Live, though, that’s where he shines.
Except, um, that he didn’t. We turned it off after about 45 minutes. We sat there occasionally chuckling, more often looking at each other with perplexity: Is this really Robin Williams? Then we looked at a clock and said, There’s another hour of this? and switched off.
For me, it was just an endless series of easy targets. During the time we watched, I noted two – count 'em, two – Amish jokes. I mean, Jesus, a comic of Robin’s caliber doesn’t need to be firing a shotgun at the side of the Amish barn. My cat can make Amish jokes.
The only time I really laughed was during the “ice fucking” bit. That’s where I think Robin is the strongest, when he launches off into a tangent and synthesizes a few unrelated ideas into a single absurd notion. This time, though, the majority of his routine, as I said, went for easy and obvious targets: President Bush is stupid. Ted Kennedy is fat. Texas likes executing prisoners. Yawn, seen it.
My wife and I would never in a thousand years have expected to get bored and switch off the premiere of a brand-new Robin Williams live comedy special, but that’s what happened. It was sad, in fact, to see this once-great performer so clearly past his prime.
(We can’t wait for The Notorious C.H.O., though. That’s gonna be some funny-ass shit.)