I can't think of too many funny men who are universally admired by those who do comedy for a living. And it wasn't just that Jonathan Winters made his fellow practitioners laugh. It's that they'd look at him and that awesome body of funny, shake their heads and envy someone who was just plain born that way. Jonathan's humor seemed to come from someplace deep within him; not like a lot of guys who decide they could make it as a comic and then sit down and write an act. Jonathan was his act and vice-versa.
People said he was "always on." In my encounters with him, that was true as long as he had his finger on the "on" switch and didn't feel someone was manipulating him into providing free entertainment. He would start doing bits in restaurants, bits in hallways, bits on the street. For a time at Hanna-Barbera, he'd come in to do voices on some show and then spend hours after the session, working the corridors and performing for anyone willing to listen. And of course, everyone was. You couldn't go up to him and ask him to be funny but…well, here's how it worked. A bunch of writers would be sitting with me in my office, plotting against Management. I had a great office there, far better than I deserved…but a perfect room for Jonathan Winters to work. So he'd poke his head in seeking an audience and I'd say, "Oh, are you here to fix the plumbing?" And suddenly, it wouldn't be Jonathan Winters there. Suddenly, it would be a plumber talking about how my sewers were backed up clear to Escondido.
I first discovered him on his records. They were great records but what was wonderful about Jonathan was his spontaneity. What really made me love him was when he appeared with Jack Paar and you could tell, as is never the case with today's talk show hosts, that Paar had no idea where Jonathan was going. Jonathan probably didn't know either but when Paar introduced him, no one was sure who or what would walk out. Then, I thought, he stole one of my favorite movies, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Given the competition on the screen, that was like winning the World Series of Comedy.
I'll probably have to write several posts about Jonathan, especially given that I should be getting ready for a lunch meeting instead of writing this. I'll write about working with him. I'll write about seeing what I believe may have been his last stage performance. (I'm wondering if his last lengthy interview was his two-plus hour conversation with Stu Shostak on Stu's Show last September.) There's just so much to say. He was also a fine artist and one-time cartoonist and I'd half-talked him into doing the foreword for the next Pogo collection. The other guy we were going after was Roger Ebert so let that be a warning to you if you're asked.
Remember what I wrote here the other day about how we're losing too many of the great comic book artists of the past? Well, it would apply to comedians like Jonathan Winters but for the fact that there are no other comedians like Jonathan Winters. There never have been and, alas, there never will be.