Remembering Jonathan Winters

One of the truly original voices in comedy, Jonathan Winters, died last night at age 87.

Jonathan Winters was born November 11, 1925 in Dayton, Ohio. He started his career in radio and stand-up comedy in which he developed perhaps his best known character Maude Frickert. Winters was not only known as a comedian, but also as an actor, appearing on TV shows such as The Twilight Zone, and talk shows such as The Jack Paar Show, and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson where he frequently appeared on the show in character. Winters appeared in movies such as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World, and The Russians are Coming, The Russian’s are Coming. His first TV show, The Jonathan Winters Show, ran from 1967 to 1969. He later had The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters, which was on TV from 1972 to 1974. In the 70’s, Winters career waned as he battled mental illness, undiagnosed at the time but later thought to be manic depression. His career and stature in show business was revitalized in the late 70’s and early 80’s due to Robin Williams’ public support. Watching the video at the left of this article you can see that a lot of Williams improvisational abilities had a first iteration in Jonathan Winters.

The Doors appeared on The Jonathan Winters Show on December 27, 1967. The set on Winters’ show was a little hipper than the predictable backdrop of the Sullivan show, which featured ‘doors’. Moonlight Drive opened with a picture of galaxies and cut to The Doors who were on risers with fog billowing out behind and around them. Jim Morrison sang wearing dark shades, and during the instrumental the show’s production team added some psychedelic effects. The addition of special effects perhaps went too far in Light My Fire where The Doors were on a different set with some wavy frames with strings in between them, and shadow girls dancing behind them like flames. You can tell Morrison’s vocal was live as his voice broke and was hoarse when he tried to scream “fire” into the instrumental section. That may be the reason during the second stanza that Morrison omitted the last scream of “FIRE!” The cameras caught Morrison tangled up, attacking the strings webbing the set, and as the music ends Morrison’s body goes limp. It’s hard to tell what Morrison was trying to do because the show kept adding the ‘psychedelic’ special effect of the wavy lines.

Another Doors related item about Jonathan Winters is that he was in the Marines and during his stint in the military served on the Bonhomie Richard, a ship that would later be under the command of Jim Morrison’s father.

Thank you for the laughter Jonathan! You can see some classic Jonathan Winters skits on Youtube.

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Remembering Jonathan Winters

One of the truly original voices in comedy, Jonathan Winters, died last night at age 87.

Jonathan Winters was born November 11, 1925 in Dayton, Ohio. He started his career in radio and stand-up comedy in which he developed perhaps his best known character Maude Frickert. Winters was not only known as a comedian, but also as an actor, appearing on TV shows such as The Twilight Zone, and talk shows such as The Jack Paar Show, and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson where he frequently appeared on the show in character. Winters appeared in movies such as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World, and The Russians are Coming, The Russian’s are Coming. His first TV show, The Jonathan Winters Show, ran from 1967 to 1969. He later had The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters, which was on TV from 1972 to 1974. In the 70’s, Winters career waned as he battled mental illness, undiagnosed at the time but later thought to be manic depression. His career and stature in show business was revitalized in the late 70’s and early 80’s due to Robin Williams’ public support. Watching the video at the left of this article you can see that a lot of Williams improvisational abilities had a first iteration in Jonathan Winters.

The Doors appeared on The Jonathan Winters Show on December 27, 1967. The set on Winters’ show was a little hipper than the predictable backdrop of the Sullivan show, which featured ‘doors’. Moonlight Drive opened with a picture of galaxies and cut to The Doors who were on risers with fog billowing out behind and around them. Jim Morrison sang wearing dark shades, and during the instrumental the show’s production team added some psychedelic effects. The addition of special effects perhaps went too far in Light My Fire where The Doors were on a different set with some wavy frames with strings in between them, and shadow girls dancing behind them like flames. You can tell Morrison’s vocal was live as his voice broke and was hoarse when he tried to scream “fire” into the instrumental section. That may be the reason during the second stanza that Morrison omitted the last scream of “FIRE!” The cameras caught Morrison tangled up, attacking the strings webbing the set, and as the music ends Morrison’s body goes limp. It’s hard to tell what Morrison was trying to do because the show kept adding the ‘psychedelic’ special effect of the wavy lines.

Another Doors related item about Jonathan Winters is that he was in the Marines and during his stint in the military served on the Bonhomie Richard, a ship that would later be under the command of Jim Morrison’s father.

Thank you for the laughter Jonathan! You can see some classic Jonathan Winters skits on Youtube.

Subscribe to get The Doors Examiner article’s as they’re published just click the subscribe button at the top of the article. Thank you for reading The Doors Examiner!

Source Article from http://www.examiner.com/article/remembering-jonathan-winters?cid=rss

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You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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