You could say the pauses between laughs during Robin
Williams’s performance Thursday night were lengthy, but only if you also
consider the rests between the rapid heartbeats of a hummingbird as
lengthy.
The comedian offered a nearly full MSU Auditorium close to 100 incessant minutes of reasons to laugh and keep laughing.
His quicker-than-a-spraying-machine-gun joke delivery began
with a knock on MSU’s football team: “You either need to practice more, or
shorten the game by two minutes.” From the start, the mostly middle-aged crowd
roared with approval, as Williams poked fun at Michigan figures, like Governor
Granholm, Ted Nugent and the Detroit Lions. He even poked at local fixtures, from
the upscale Whitehills to Omar’s strip club.
Williams’s familiarity with the audience was proof of his
professionalism and efforts to please. And please he did, delivering joke after
joke, until the crowd was convulsing with constant chuckles, chortles and
cackles.
Looking fit in a black dress shirt, black pants and soft
shoes and equipped with a wireless, clip-on mic, the 58-year old moved briskly
about the stage in front of a large, live video screen.
Much of Williams’s quick-witted comedy could be construed as
crude, but the profanity just added to the man’s likeable insanity.
With a sense of intelligence, Williams regularly joked about
oral sex, his substance abuse issues, oral sex, his past movie roles, oral sex,
his heart surgery, oral sex, drugs and fellatio.
When he made fun of other celebrities, like Nick Nolte, Jack
Nicholson and even Walter Cronkite, the impact was heightened, because it was
clear he knew them personally.
An obviously more liberal Williams also had the skill to
make insults about noxious conservatives in an innocuous manner that made most
everyone in the auditorium giggle.
He made flatulence jokes seem classy and genitalia
references seem like sophisticated humor. By the end of the show, the only
significant complaints warranted might have been from bruised bellies, ribs and
slapped knees after so much laughing.
