RIP Robin Williams

[SciFi Chick]

Apparently, he committed suicide.

[gethen]

I loved Robin Williams. He could be pretty annoying, but he was a genuine comic genius. I'll miss hi.

[FZR1KG]

Mork has gone home.

[SciFiFisher]

I knew he had struggled some years back with drugs and depression. Always a very bad dynamic duo. Apparently, he lost the war.

[geonuc]

Along with Phillip Seymour Hoffman's, this death is unnecessary, for lack of a better word. Not that I'm underestimating the power of depression, particularly that associated with drug dependence, but it seems so ... unnecessary.

Good night, Vietnam.

[SciFi Chick]

He is definitely one celebrity whose loss I feel. His comedy had a genuine impact on my life, and I will miss him.

[SciFi Chick]

Robin Williams on a USO tour in 2007 when the flag gets lowered in the middle of his act and he has no idea what's going on.

[Rommie]

Tragic for sure- showing my age, but I think everyone in my generation loved him first and most for the genie in Aladdin. Can't overstate how big that was in the first grade, and how much we all loved him as a comedian.

I will say though I hate how much people are attempting to "spin" his death in one way or another. "Suicide is a disease!" "No, it's a choice!" "Suicide is selfish!" "No it's not, depression is misunderstood!"

It's as if this is a complex issue that can't be summarized in a sentence, or some such.

[FZR1KG]

Suicide = evil, but self induced explosive martyrdom is rewarded by 72 virgins.
People are stupid.

[Parrothead]

I remember laughing hard the first time the Mork character appeared on "Happy Days". Some of his comedy I liked, some meh. I did like his diverging into dramatic/evil character roles. A talent which will be missed. RIP.

[Sigma_Orionis]

He was too manic for me, but I must admit he was a very good actor.

[FZR1KG]

He was too manic for me, but I must admit he was a very good actor.

That's because you are a depressed and repressed latino.

[Sigma_Orionis]

I did like him better than Jim Carrey

[FZR1KG]

I like stepping on poisonous sea shells more than Carrey, but that's neither here nor there.

[Sigma_Orionis]

I mentioned Carrey because his comedy style also annoys me and also happens to be a good actor. Of course, the similarity ends there, behind cameras Carrey is an idiot, nothing to do with Robin Williams.

Happy?

[Swift]

I almost (note I said "almost") feel guilty for not feeling worse about this. Sure, its sad and its a waste, etc., etc., and he could be pretty funny and was a good actor. But I'm not all broken up about it. It doesn't really have any impact on my life.

He could be funny, but I didn't think he was that great. Having watched his "improv" over the years, I noted that improvisational jokes he made a couple of decades ago would get repeated, sometime repeated a lot.

And some of the movies that people really seem to like him in, like Mrs. Doubtfire or The Birdcage, I don't really like all that much. Two of my more favorite of his roles were in Good Will Hunting, and the World According to Garp, and I haven't heard anyone even mention the second one.

The grieving and the attention seem over the top to me. But I'm pretty disconnected from the popular of popular media.

[FZR1KG]

I loved the world according to Garp.
Hilarious.
I'm not broken up about it either. I mean it's sad that he died the way he did but I really didn't know the guy.

[Sigma_Orionis]

That's because yer a goulash loving ape

[Swift]

That's because yer a goulash loving ape

Well, we're all apes and who doesn't love goulash.

[Swift]

I loved the world according to Garp.
Hilarious.

Spoiler Alert....

I love the scene early on when they are house-hunting and the plane crashes into the house and he announces that we have to live here as "nothing worse can happen". I've used that line once in a great while and no one ever gets the reference.

That movie is an example of a movie I saw first, which inspired me to read the book. And I hated the book. {shrug}

[Sigma_Orionis]

That's because yer a goulash loving ape

Well, we're all apes and who doesn't love goulash.

Would you stop spoiling my ethnic jokes?

[Rommie]

I told you guys, it's "cucumber season," meaning in summer people tend to over-inflate simple news stories. Which is kinda odd because this summer between Ferguson and Ukraine it's not like we have a lack of things to talk about.

I read in a follow-up article that his widow says he was showing the earliest stages of Parkinson's btw. I could imagine a depressed man coming to grips with that and deciding to bow out in his own way.

And btw, I think a lot of the in memoriam hype comes from members of my generation from what I can tell on this. I was a younger kid when he did his kid-friendly stuff (Mrs Doubtfire, Aladdin, etc) and he was probably one of the first actors who I and many others "knew," plus he was funny, so I think a lot of it is nostalgia back for those movies. Plus whenever someone dies before their time the obituary writers have to scramble a bit more so they over-emphasize the shock of it IMO.

[SciFi Chick]

I don't know. I don't expect people to feel something if they don't. That's fine. But this really hit me pretty hard, and it seems like it's hit a lot of people hard. He touched at least three generations with his comedy and his acting skill, he was very charitable. He helped people. He was known as kind.

Hell - he partied with Belushi the night he died and then changed his life for the better, because of it. Just because he ultimately died because he couldn't overcome depression permanently doesn't lower my esteem for him.

I just think he was pretty amazing, and I feel like people are genuinely grieving for him as opposed to being judgmental, which, in and of itself, is a refreshing change.

I look forward to seeing The World According to Garp.

I loved him in Dead Poet's Society, and I find that ironic.

Oh - Rommie - his first kid friendly stuff was my generation, not yours. Mork and Mindy was very kid friendly. And also fun for adults, since they still understood the art of innuendo back then.

[Rommie]

Hahaha ok, his Renaissance that saved his career was when I was a kid, that ok?

[SciFi Chick]

Hahaha ok, his Renaissance that saved his career was when I was a kid, that ok?

That works.