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Sat 10 May 2025 20:30, UK
Anyone who followed Robin Williams‘ career knew he was a comedic force unlike anything else Hollywood has ever seen. He always knew what tickled his audience’s funny bones, from his breakthrough role as ‘Mork from Ork’ to his riotous stand-up sets to his box-office dominating days in Mrs Doubtfire and Aladdin. However, over the years, Williams couldn’t help but feel aggravated by how Hollywood tastemakers often viewed comedy.
In 2006, Williams sat down with IGN to talk about The Night Listener, a psychological thriller that cast him as a tortured radio host searching for the truth. Some observers may have felt the movie was a departure for Williams, but in truth, he had always balanced out his comedic roles with more ‘serious’ fare almost from the very start of his film career. For every Toys, Moscow on the Hudson, or Club Paradise, Williams would make films like Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, and The Fisher King.
Indeed, while he will always be best known as a comedian, Williams admitted that he knew the true critical plaudits would be in drama. He sadly felt that comedians could be viewed as being good at what they do, but no more than that, even though comedy was one of the most successful genres in the industry. He also pointed out how it was rare for a comedy to be nominated for an Academy Award, even if some other award shows include comedy as a separate entity.
“With the comedies, it’s always like, ‘Oh yes, those are there and sure it pays for the industry.’ Sure that’s how it started, but they’re damaged people,” Williams said. “The Golden Globes acknowledge it as a category, but that’s them.”
This double standard upset Williams, because he considered comedy to be every bit as valid an art form as dramatic acting. “With comedies, you realise how many great comedies there are and how many people are affected by them,” he mused. “Is comedy a great art? Yeah, when it works.”
Fascinatingly, this led Williams to wax lyrical about what he dubbed the funniest movie scene he’d ever seen. It revealed that he could appreciate funny for funny’s sake, and he didn’t necessarily need his comedy to have any deeper layers or make satirical points about society. In fact, if something simply wanted to make him laugh by being as silly as possible, he was more than willing to go with it.
“I’ve never seen anything funnier than Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor, that scene around the dinner table,” Williams smiled. “That alone would get an award if you just want to go for sheer funny, but they always want to talk about, ‘Well, is it meaningful?’”
However, at this point, a crestfallen Williams acknowledged that even the most ambitious comedy that has incisive points to make about the world is still unlikely to receive any awards consideration. “Comedies can be dark, like Dr Strangelove, but Peter Sellers didn’t get an award that year,” he grumbled. “John Wayne did.”
So, there you have it: a comedy legend like Williams found Eddie Murphy burping, farting, and putting on silly voices while buried under layers of prosthetics to be the absolute height of comedy. There’s something charming about that, given the cultural tendency to dismiss this kind of comedy as lowbrow and dumb. After all, if a comedy genius like Williams thinks it’s hilarious, who are we to argue?
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