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Jonathan
Winters
| "Pound
for pound, Jonathan Winters is the funniest man on earth."
These words, spoken by talk show host Jack Paar in the early
'60s, were not chosen lightly. After war service and graduation
from Kenyon College, Winters began his career on a radio station
in his hometown of Dayton, OH. The rotund comedian was supposed
to merely introduce the records and announce the temperature,
but ever so gradually his irrepressible ad-libs and improvisations
took over the show. His TV career began on CBS' daytime The
Garry Moore Show, where he introduced such imperishable characters
as freewheeling senior citizen Maudie Frickett and doltish
Elwood P. Suggins. He was a regular on the 1955 summer series
And Here's the Show, and in 1956 landed his own 15-minute
NBC series (the first network program to be regularly videotaped).
Though never less than side-splittingly funny on camera, Winters
was plagued by severe emotional problems in real life, not
the least of which was his reliance on what he called "the
sauce." After a highly publicized sanitarium stay, a
clean and sober Winters returned to TV, though it would be
1967 before any network would take a chance on his headlining
a regular weekly show (during the 1964-1965 season, he starred
in a group of well-received specials, and was also a frequent
guest on The Tonight Show, The Jack Paar Program, and The
Andy Williams Show). During the early '60s, Winters' recorded
bits began frequently popping up on the NBC radio series Monitor,
and in 1963, he made his movie debut in the all-star It's
a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). In answer to critics who
felt that Winters was tied down by scripted material, the
comedian starred in the two-season syndicated weekly The Wacky
World of Jonathan Winters (1972-1973), which was completely
ad-libbed. Many young comics of the 1970s and 1980s have declared
that Winters was a prime influence in their choice of career.
No comedian was more vocal in his praise of Winters than Robin
Williams, who in 1981 arranged for Winters to be cast as overgrown
baby Mearth on Williams' popular sitcom Mork and Mindy. Jonathan
Winters remained as funny and active as ever into the 1990s,
making uproarious appearances on Jay Leno's Tonight Show and
co-starring in such big-budget theatrical films as The Shadow
(1994). — Hal Erickson |
Jonathan Winters Fan Message Board
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