Infact, he was painfully unfunny in my opinion.
Having to watch the rest of the characters pretend to laugh at his awful jokes was just cringeworthy.
Did people find this sort of stuff funny in the 80s?
The guy was just annoying, needed to shut the hell up.
It's not due to the 80's.
shareI thought he was funny. I didn't laugh at all of his jokes of course, but at least half of them.
shareThe thing is, this movie was made in the late 80's, the sense of humor was much different, less crude jokes and insulting jokes. It was more slapstick humor and impersonations. You also factor in that during the Vietnam war, the world was in a more dire period, less stand up comedians, less comedy movies, things where more serious then. Add in that the soldiers in Vietnam are fighting in one of the bloodiest conflicts in American History and that many of them soldiers were drafted against their will and I think you would be laughing at any joke you were allowed to hear. They were forced to listen to boring radio reports and things like Polka, along with propaganda from the US Military obviously lying about their situations.
So for some guy to come in, break up the monotony, the routine lies about their officials and politicians and truly speak his mind about them, play rock songs which was seen as "Rebellious Music" at the time and try to bring joy and humor to those who are going through hell in a foreign humid hell spot of a country would be a god send for these troops. They didn't have Ipods or MP3 players. They didn't have the same freedoms, amount of possesions, the technology and whatnot that our current soldiers do. Our current soldiers get airconditioned barracks and tents, MP3 players, WIFI and computers, phone access, increased medical aid and far fewer casualties. War is less stressful for our current soldiers than it was during Vietnam
Remember comedy evolves. Some people watch old Monty Python movies and think it's stupid. Some people watch old comedy shows like the Three Stooges and find it's slapstick humor to be incredibly boring and stupid. Some people love Jim Carry's old movies and hate his new movies. Some people love Adam Sandlers old movies and hate his new movies and some people hate both people and have hated all of their movies. Some people like comedy in the context of the time it was made. Adam Sandler and Jim Carry's style of humor hasn't really changed and the movies have even higher budgets than their older movies, yet some people can't stand the humor in his new movies, even though it's the exact same style of humor and jokes.
The problem is you thought the movie was a comedy. It isn't. (I don't care what the movie was billed as, it's a Drama) I'm a huge fan of this movie and I think his on air jokes were only mildly amusing. But if Robin could have gone back in time and really spouted those kind of jokes to 1960's troops, they'd be cracking up.
If you think Robin's over-all performance sucked, then there's no hope for you.
He was funny for about half the time. The other half, I found him OTT and couldn't even make out what he was saying at times.
The film as a whole is very moving, but this is more to do with the dramatic elements than the comedy. Williams was a damn fine serious actor when given the chance.
The Job Interview Poem https://youtu.be/MtkmC4kCSTs
The weird thing about this movie is that he's basically doing his 'normal schtick' and different voices, imitations and such (which he was amazingly good at), and doing that, he can be hilariously funny, just making you laugh uncontrollably.
However, his interviews, his stand-up, and his 'Mork' character in the old TV show, 'Mork & Mindy' are all about eight hundred thousand times funnier than anything he does in this movie.
OK, there is that ONE scene that makes probably everyone at least giggle a little bit, with the VP, VIP, MIA, and so on, but in the end, even that's not THAT funny, it's just using acronym terminology in a superficial way in one sentence, instead of making a proper comedy routine out of it, like Benny Hill did A LONG TIME before this movie came out. Benny's version is funnier, and it goes on for a very long time, and is ACTUALLY clever and multi-layered.
In short, Benny's version is brilliant, Robin's version is "OK".
Still, that's the only funny thing in this movie, the rest is an uneven hodge-podge of explosions, 'dramatic events', 'betrayal' and other crappy plot that tries to forcibly make you feel sad. What's the point of a comedy if it's just trying to make you feel exactly like EVERY OTHER VIETNAM movie ever tries to make you feel?
I can never understand murdering (systemic or not, institutionalized or not, it's ALWAYS unlawful, no matter what garments you are wearing and how much you say you were just following orders. I can order you to murder, but if you murder, you are doing something unlawful regardless of what I said to you - I would never do that, of course, because I value life, even non-human life) or Vietnam, or why there had to be SO many movies made out of that hellish insanity, but this movie doesn't do anything other movies don't do better.
Other movies do better comedy, better drama, better Vietnam depictions, make you cry more, make you laugh more, make you more invested in the STORY this movie doesn't have..