All language subtitles for Episode 06 Sparks of Madness

It's a life-and-death experience.

You go up there, you take
your life in your hands.

My stomach hurts -- badly.
Uh-huh.

And I've been nauseous all day.

Oswalt: You're overthinking
what you're wearing,

how you're gonna say the first
thing you're gonna say.

Hey! Out of the way!
I feel sillified.

I wonder, "Why tonight?
Why again?"

Ladies and gentlemen, Robin Williams!

Patton Oswalt!

Richard Pryor!

When I walk onstage,

I'm riddled with fear and excitement,

'cause I have no idea what I'm gonna do.

This was the --
What?

Oh, no.
You idiot.

Oh, God.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Oh, God.

I despised myself from pretty much

close to getting out of the womb.

I was always wrong.
Let's start with that.

When you're always wrong,

you seek an audience
to disprove that theory.

I was just hell-bent
on having to prove myself.

I know I'm right. I can't
be always wrong, you know?

I was the victim.

My father was a very strange man.

He was kind of a performance artist

that was fueled by beer.

I was very shy, and at home,

I was always quiet and didn't
get to speak very often

just because other people

were jibber-jabbering a lot, you know?

Some people wouldn't clam up -- Mom.

When I did different voices or different noises,

people say, "That's weird," or, "Shut up."

I feel like there's a fear of seeming crazy.

A lot of comedians are people

that are very introverted, very shy,

very sensitive to humiliation,

a little narcissistic, a little damaged,

and so the only way to combat it

is to go to the one place
where you are stripped bare.

The big sea change for comedy was the '60s.

People's own neuroses and foibles

were being addressed in the routines.

The routines became more personal.

I don't know if anyone
here knows group analysis.

It's a group of very neurotic
types that meet in a room

a couple of times a week

and sit around and twitch or something.

And this is an adorable story.

Two of the kids had gotten married,

and it's really cute,

'cause it's what you'd call a mixed marriage

or an intermarriage
in that the boy was paranoiac

and the girl was schizophrenic.

There's a big conflict about which way

they would bring up the children, you know?

Started in school with, um, uh, drinking

and...

I was -- Really.
I was, like, a real depressed kid, you know?

7, 8 years old, and I'd really get juiced

and get out of my head.

I can't be a wife, I can't be
a writer, I can't be everything!

I can't! I can't! I can't!

And Edgar said, "You're right."

He said, "You're right.
I understand this completely."

He said, "Tomorrow morning,
Joan, first thing,

we're going to go out tomorrow

and hire a woman to come in and be a wife."

That period was the start
of all the stand-up comedians

that came after who were experimenting

with stand-up comedy
as a form of personal expression

in all sorts of different ways.

When I first saw him before the show,

he was still trying to decide

whether he could be a drunken Eskimo,

the Queen of the Vikings, or a doorknob.

I'd rather he came out
simply as himself to begin with,

because when he's Johnny Winters,

he cannot be imitated.

The wild, wild man --
my friend, Jonathan Winters.

When I was 12 or 13,

one of my best friends called me up once.

It was like a drug deal at 12.
"Come over."

I go, "What? What do you got?"
"You got to hear this."

Do something with a stick.

Watch him do a routine with a stick.

You can give him anything.

Well, that was a pretty
good cast, wasn't it, Bob?

I think we're onto something this time.

I'm sorry, Margaret.

Try to swim in.

The routines are ridiculously brilliant.

It was endless riffing.

And I'm going, "Whose brain can do that?"

The United Nations...

now recognizes the delegate from Nyasaland."

To be as genius as Jonathan Winters,

you have to think differently
than normal people.

He's working within his mind
at a very high level,

at a very fast level.

By thinking that way

and being that untethered to the rest of us,

you can lose your mind more easily.

Jonathan was a profoundly troubled guy

that had drinking issues,
that had depression issues

that were clinical, that were deep.

Verbally, my mother and
my dad were on me constantly.

Your dad, too?
Oh, yeah.

And it just never let up.

When you were younger, did you find yourself

trying to get away from them in your head?

Yeah.
I -- Naturally,

and it got to me.

He was doing the hungry i in San Francisco,

and later that night,

Jonathan Winters left his hotel room,

and the police found him on the wharf.

He was climbing the mast
of a ship, yelling that,

"I'm the man in the Moon."

I was in the middle of a breakdown,

no question about that.

How do you know when

you're in the middle of a breakdown?

Well, you begin to hallucinate
and seeing things that, uh...

And not boozing.
I wasn't drinking.

You know, a lot of people say,

"Well, Jonathan, how do you feel?"

and I said, "Man, I'm out.
I'm out."

That's what counts, you know?

'Cause when you're in there,

"Hello.
Is it sunny today?"

"Stay back in there, kid!"
"Oh, yes, I'm sorry."

If you're going out on stage

and you're being Jonathan Winters

and you're being really honest
about it in a time

where no one else is doing that,

that's 100% the edge.

Jonathan Winters!

Ladies and gentlemen, there he is!

My hair is gray, my coat is tan,

my pants are black.

If you're not seeing these colors,

there's nothing wrong with your TV set.

You're just watching
the Steve Martin Special,

a wild and crazy guy!

By the time we get to the '70s,

comedy started to get away
from punch lines.

Steve Martin was poking fun
at the whole nature of comedy,

taking the standard conventions
and turning it on its ear.

Sorry.
Just lost my mind just for a minute.

Steve Martin had fun with making fun of

taking yourself seriously, and the schmoozy,

"We're gonna have some fun tonight!"

Like, it seemed to mock
what everyone else was doing.

Steve Martin was just so goofy,
and beautiful writing.

I mean, I don't know
if I appreciated that as a kid,

but now I appreciate it, just the succinctness.

He had very good t-t-t-timing.
That's not a thing.

Oh, no! I'm getting happy feet!
Whoa!

No stand-up comedian was ever more successful

at a given time than Steve Martin.

But in real life, he was a quiet,

intellectual kind of guy,

and he didn't really take
to that superstardom.

He was such a popular comedian,
and then he just stopped.

And I was there on a night
that, I think, in my mind,

had something to do with it,

where he had this routine about

how he blames himself
for his girlfriend's death.

He's laying all the material
to get to the punch line,

and right before he got to it,

some guy out in this huge audience,

in the very back of the auditorium,

gave away the punch line.

And you could tell he was pissed.

Today, I realized that I misunderstood

what my last year of stand-up was about.

I had become a party host,

presiding not over timing and ideas

but over a celebratory bash of my own making.

If I had understood what was happening,

I might've been happier, but I didn't.

I still thought I was doing comedy.

Comedy goes in waves that way,

where what we accept as normal or offbeat

is within the parameters of our time.

But there are people that upset the norm,

and there is something to be said

for being different in comedy.

My favorite thing about Andy Kaufman

was that he annoyed a lot of comedians

who didn't have a sense of humor.

The joke was on stand-up comedy.

I love my wife very much,

but she don't know how to cook.

You know, her cooking is so bad...

How bad is it?
How bad is it?

Her cooking is so bad...

How bad is it?
How bad is it?

...it's terrible.

Kaufman: When I was starting, up until then,

the only performers you had were either

straight singers or comedians.

I've never told a joke in my life, really.

I've never really done
what they call straight comedy.

Wow.

Andy Kaufman was just the
most fun you could ever have.

I've never -- in my 44 years of watching,

I've never seen someone take an audience

through the kind of emotional roller coaster

that he was able to do.

I would say Kaufman was the only one

I ever saw truly work without a net.

Well, how many people want me to stay?

How many --

Now, how many people don't want me --

don't want me to stay?

Thank you.
Thank you very much.

You've shown me where I'm at tonight.

And I'm sorry that I brought you
all down at this party.

All of his intentions were different

than every other comedian.

He was trying to get a reaction,

and it really was art more
than straight stand-up comedy.

But I'm gonna get off.
No!

So thank you.
No!

You really showed me where I'm at tonight.

You! You ruined everything!

Thank you.

Ay-ya-ya-ya-ya!

My worst fears are confirmed.

I'm going totally under their heads.

I was really influenced by Andy Kaufman.

I was self-destructive,
but I was also kind of infamous.

My earlier stand-up was like,

"Oh, I'll show you crazy," you know?

Well, it is sweeps,

and I love Jay very much, and I thought,

"Well, what if I --
I don't know --"

What are you doing?

"What if I set his furniture on fire?"

No, don't set that on fire.

Now you have to sit in this.

Now sit down.
Sit down.

Sit down.
Sit down.

I'm not sitting in it!

Sit in that chair.

I set "The Tonight Show" on fire --

Actually, I just set the chair
on "The Tonight Show" on fire.

And I am a convicted arson
because I brought lighter fluid.

That made it premeditated.

I learned a lot about the law.

I would just do stuff, and I would think,

"Well, this is funny to me,"

and genuinely be surprised
when things didn't go well.

Oh!

I used to think that the mind of a comedian

was like that of an addict --
big ego,

insecure, driven.

But I do believe now that we are susceptible,

a little bit, to madness.

We'll --
We'll be right back!

We'll --
We'll be right back!

We'll be right back!

There are things about you
that you just don't like,

that you wish you could change.

You wish you were smarter.

You wish you were better-looking.

You wish you were, um --
had more confidence.

But -- But you don't.

I had to be funny, I had to be likable.

I was a bed-wetter well into my teens.

You know, there's a lot
of humiliation to overcome,

and being the funny one at camp

is a really good deal

if you're also the one that smells like pee.

If you're a comedian, there is a part of you

that is unhinged and, more importantly, unhappy.

I'm friends with mostly comedians,

and, like, most of us
are on antidepressants.

And I don't think that's a coincidence.

As you see in the news,
comics can mess up, you know?

We do everything from shoot at our cars

to O.D., and we're the people
who make people happy, you know?

Watkins: Richard Pryor grew up
in a very unusual situation.

His grandmother ran a house of prostitution,

and his mother had worked in it,
his father was a pimp,

and he was very aware
of that situation growing up.

I grew up seeing my mother
go into rooms with men

and my aunties go into rooms with men.

Who believed in you?
Who cared about you?

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III...

You.

...and magic dust.

My dad's humor came from life.

And I don't think Dad had a choice.

I think you either laugh your way through it

or you die through it.

Thinking about that, though,

I'd like to die like my father died.

Right?
My father died fucking.

He did.
My father was 57 when he died, right?

And the woman was 18.

My father came and went at the same time.

Richard's comedy was funny.
It was also therapeutic.

It was almost like this guy
was using the stage

the way a therapist would use their couch.

My grandmother's the lady that
used to discipline me, right?

You know, beating my ass.

You know, "Get your ass out --
Put your hand down!

Put your --
Don't you run from me!

Don't you run...

from...me!

As long as you black, don't you run from me!"

What people took from him
was a lot of the attitude

and the over-the-topness and the profanity.

The thing that people don't give
Richard Pryor enough credit for

is what he brought to stand-up
comedy was vulnerability.

Thank you.

For me, the best night was having a woman

that was sitting close
to the stage beg me to stop.

She was looking at me, and she's going...

In pain.
Her face was in pain.

She was in pain. She went,

"Please stop!
Please stop! Please stop!"

You can't beat that.

The one thing about Hitler that I admire

is that he wouldn't take any shit from
magicians, you know?

It brings out the best parts
of your personality.

It brings out your "best self."

Hello.
It does.

You like yourself when you're up there.

You like yourself.

Thank you.
Seriously, thank you.

You have no idea what
a good mood I'm in right now.

This is --
Fuck, this went so well!

Okay. Um...

It wasn't that things
went so well for an hour.

It was that, for an hour,

you kept a potential disaster
from being a disaster.

That's where the high comes off of.

It's all instinct.

I think that when stand-up
comedy is truly your calling,

you don't really have a lot of thoughts

about whether this is a good
decision or a bad decision.

I think the real stand-up comics

are truly in love with the process

and not the results.

Bullshit!

Bullshit?
My dick.

People in the audience get hostile.

You drunk, motherfucker.

Fuck it!

This is --

Shut the fuck up.
Hey!

I got hit with Bibles and boots.

You know, I got hit with a teenager once.

All these little fried shrimp
started hitting me.

They threw these, like --
They looked like subway tokens.

I just got pelted with them.

I've had a glass thrown at me.

A shot glass comes at a much faster speed.

I've also been punched onstage.

It's like street fighting

and performing combined, you know?

'Cause you get people
so loaded, they can't see.

And you're fighting for your life up there.

Oh, yeah. That's where
you learn real quick lines.

You know, you have to start --
You get real tough,

'cause I saw a lot of friends
who were very funny,

but gave it up after one or two times.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Home Box Office and the Roxy

are pleased to present Robin Williams!

Hiya!

I guess most of my stuff is just madness.

It's a totally different perspective.

You know, it's a combination
of writing and acting

at the same time, which work wonderfully.

I'm doing fantastic!

No, you're not, you fool.

You're not doing essence,
just pure pee-pee-caca!

No reality, no truth,

no discussion on the nature of man!

Both of you be quiet. Shut up!

I'm the rational mind.

We'll have to release the subconscious.

He'll be the arbitrator.

I totally think Robin Williams

had a pinball-machine head.

I just think, you know,
he would just pull his tongue,

and then the ball would get launched,

and it would just bounce off everything.

It was definitely stardust and magic.

It was self-expression,

and Robin went anywhere that the words

and the informality of thought, the mad--
the madness,

I guess -- the harvested madness would take us.

And I loved that.

Look, toys, all over the set.

Can we --
Don't be afraid.

Come on, Mr. Camera, we're going crazy.
Come on.

When he would just take these flights of fancy,

it might go on for 10 minutes or 20 minutes.

You know, that was the magical
part of watching him.

Mother gave this

so I could write my new book.

Buddha?
No, an ode to Fred Silverman.

Take 2, let's go.

Let's start from the beginning again.

Auto, props, let's go.

But like a comedians, when he was offstage,

he was full of fear, full of anxiety.

About what?
Who knows.

He himself said he was full of dread,

and he didn't know why.

He just was overwhelmed with anxiety.

But he definitely used
the stage to be free,

to be comfortable, to be himself.

I'm being grotesque, but you got to be.

You see what I mean?
You got to be crazy.

It's too late to be sane.

Too late.

You got to go full-tilt bozo.

'Cause you're only given
a little spark of madness.

And if you lose that...

you're nothing.

After performing, if it's a good show,

there's that high that you'll get from that,

but then you walk off the stage.

And I could see why a lot of performers

would want to do drugs and drink,

just to keep some kind of high going.

When you're famous, people give you drugs

because they just --
number one,

it kind of gives them
a little control over you.

And they like knowing that, you know,

"I got him high.
I got him loaded.

And know what he did?
He looked out the window the whole time."

Comedians are a lunar profession,

not a solar profession.

You're gonna end up getting irregular sleep,

really bad food.

It has the same rhythms as combat,

where it's a lot of boredom

and then incredible tension

and either victory or just crushing failure.

There's no in between.

Oh, God. Hey.
Now I need it.

Now I need this.

They tell you marijuana smoking

makes you unmotivated.

That's bullshit.

When I was high,

I could do everything I normally
could do just as well.

I just realized it wasn't
worth the fucking effort, man.

That was it.

People say pot smokers are lazy. I disagree.

I'm a multitasking pot smoker.

I was walking down the street,

I was putting eye drops in my eyes,

I was talking on my cellphone,

and I was getting hit by a car.

All comedians, 9 out of 10,
seem to be potheads.

There's something about
the playfulness of marijuana,

the thought process, the giggle aspect,

that is similar to the comic mind, in a way.

I like to have a puff of pot
when I get offstage

because it's just so hard to come down after.

And I'm watching MTV,

and the lead singer from Motley Crue comes on,

and he tells me not to take drugs?

Motley Crue's idea of a drug problem

is not finding any after a gig.

I did too many drugs, is what I'm saying.

I did too many drugs.

And when I say I did them,
I fucking did them.

I didn't "experiment" with them.

You know, when people say, "Oh, yeah,

when I was in my late teens and 20s,

I experimented with drugs."

No, you fucking didn't.
You're not a scientist.

The desire to feel okay can
manifest itself in performance,

it can manifest itself in drugs and alcohol,

it can manifest itself
in any number of behaviors,

but it's not necessary to be
a drunk or a drug addict

to be a good performer.

It's not science

to blow a dealer for crack!

That's not science!

That's art.

Gottfried: When they'll talk about John Belushi

or Chris Farley, they'll say,

"Well, you know, there was
the great side of him,

the side that would just take his clothes off

and hang off the ledge of a building.

That was the fun side.

But then there was the bad side --
the drugs and drinking,"

and you go, "Hmm, maybe the two
have something in common here."

I'm a drug addict and an alcoholic.

I didn't know for a while.
I was in denial for years.

I said, "I'm not an alcoholic.
I'm not an alcoholic.

I'm not an alcoholic."
I was a mess.

I didn't know what was going on.

I think my dad and his friends did more cocaine

than was ever in the movie "Scarface."

That became the thing that,

for a moment, got rid of the pain.

Until you're clean and you're
like, "Oh, I'm just me."

I did it so bad, dope dealers
tried not to sell me none.

Now, that's doing it
where dope dealers just say,

"Man, I ain't gonna give you
no more of that shit.

I'm sorry, brother. I can't
see you do it to yourself."

Now, that's --
Dope dealers don't give a fuck

about nothing, usually, people think.

These motherfuckers refused to sell me cocaine.

Said, "No, motherfucker, you're killing yourself."

What?

Williams:
Here's a little warning sign

if you have a cocaine problem.

If on your tax form, it says $50,000 for snacks,

mayday!

You got yourself a cocaine problem, smartass!

I met Sam when he was about to become huge.

He kind of took me under his wing, to a degree.

He neutered my ability to --

to function through drug use

and draining me by making me
party with him for hours on end.

So, I'm trying to be like -- I'm
trying to live up to the image,

"Oh, get out of my way!
Watch me! Aah!"

And I would sniff all this shit up.

About 10 minutes later,
I'm walking around the party

going...

Hey, man.

Hey, man, we got any shoe polish

or something I can drink to slow this down?

Listen, you guys keep partying.
I'm gonna go ahead and lay down

and beg God to live for a while, all right?

Sometimes drugs and alcohol

have led to some amazing comedy --

amazing music, amazing literature,

amazing sculpture and painting.

But in the end,

the drugs and alcohol always beat art.

Back up.
Get back.

John Belushi died today at 33 years old.

Belushi died in a bungalow
at the Chateau Marmont Hotel

in Hollywood.

Sources have told Eyewitness News

that the nightstand in Belushi's bungalow

contained what was described
to us as a fair amount

of white powder, believed to be cocaine.

When you get to that level of fame

and you've got the money
and you've got a lot of enablers

around you, it's easy to keep going

and keep on a self-destructive path,

and it's hard to stop.

The actor/comedian Chris Farley was found dead

in a Chicago apartment today.

Farley followed his idol

John Belushi's path of success,

and along the way,

friends say he succumbed
to the same excesses --

food, alcohol, and drugs.

When you have that kind of brain --

and I don't want to get into that stuff --

except that you're wired dark.

You can go dark real fast.

Dad couldn't take it anymore,
and he wanted it to stop.

He just was like, "I want it to stop."

Richard Pryor, the comedian and writer,

was badly burned in an accident at his home

in California last night.

The burns cover the upper half of his body.

They are severe enough to endanger his life.

Finally, tonight, comedian
Richard Pryor is feeling better.

Doctors at his Sherman Oaks,
California, hospital

have taken him off the critical list.

Pryor is responding well
to skin-graft treatments

for burns he suffered
at his home three weeks ago.

You've gone through a tragedy, you're a comedian,

you're gonna go up on stage
and talk about that tragedy.

That's what the comic mind does.

You're compelled to tell your experience.

I'm gonna tell y'all the truth tonight.
Okay?

All right, now, all my friends
know this to be true,

'cause everybody who knows me, usually,

before I go to bed, I have milk and cookies.

And one night, I had some low-fat milk

and some pasteurized,

and I mixed them together,

and I dipped my cookie, and the shit blew up.

My dad wasn't afraid to bear his pain.

He made jokes about that

because he knew you were gonna do it,

"so let me do it."

You know, dad had some steel balls, man.

Well, I'll tell you one thing, man.

When that fire hits your ass,

that will sober your ass up quick.

And you know something I found out?

When you're on fire
and running down the street,

people will get out of your way.

Except for one old drunk, right?

He's going, "Hey, buddy, can I get a light?"

"How 'bout just a little off
the sleeve, okay?"

When Pryor did talk about his personal life,

it's harrowing,

and it's funny because of the courage of it.

But does everyone relate
to setting yourself on fire

with a pipe or shooting your car
so your wife can't leave in it?

You have to grow to accept that
people may be laughing with you,

they might be laughing at you,

or they might be laughing
'cause they're shocked.

You know, if I hadn't have done this,

I'd be in great despair now.

But I've done it, and it's out
there for everybody to see.

Regardless of what the reaction
is, it's out there,

and I did it, and I'm glad I did it.

If you want to put someone on a pedestal

that is unattainable by anybody else,

it has to be a guy who ran
a mile and a half on fire,

who did coke, crashed cars,

drank, and then took it to the
stage and made everyone laugh.

This is incredible.
How do you get to the Met?

Money.
Lots and lots of money.

Goddamn.
I wonder if Pavarotti's at The Improv going,

"Two Jews walk into a bar.
Yes."

For me, it's therapy.

It's another world for me.
It's so much.

It's such a great release.
It was such freedom.

It's wonderful, it's great.
It's a whole other world.

Now, this is when I knew
I was in a bad neighborhood.

You only see this in the worst neighborhoods.

Remember, it's 3:00 in the morning.

There was a fucking baby standing on the corner.

When I'm onstage, I get real happy up there.

Like, maybe that's
the only time in my adult life

that I feel like myself.

You're standing up there...
You know what I mean?

...like a gladiator, and them lights is on you,

and you look down,

and everyone's looking up at you like...

Doing comedy, it's needing to express,

needing to expose yourself.

Sometimes I find myself telling audiences

my deepest, darkest secrets.

You know, it's this odd confessional.

When I moved to L.A., I had an eyebrow, and...

...my roommate at the time was like,

"Hey, let's go make this into two."

And so I went to her waxing lady.

I'd never been to, like, a waxing lady,

and the lady called me in,

and I'm, like, following her into her room,

and she turns around, and she goes,

"What are we doing today?
Just the mustache?"

I did have OCD. I had difficulty
making eye contact with people

for -- about until the age of 32.

And so stand-up was so great

for a way to connect with people

that felt very safe.

I was a bit of a dark kid.

I would occasionally stage
my own death for fun.

"Mother, I've taken a whole bottle of pills."

"Oh, my God.
What did you take?"

"Tums."

"Maria, those are your father's."

"What, Mother?
I can't hear you.

The calcium is coursing through my veins."

From the very beginning,

I was going up there to find
myself and to be myself.

But when I went through a divorce,

when I was separated, I went onstage

and, you know, started working through it.

And I don't know if it was funny.

It was profoundly uncomfortable.

I am a panicky, angry man.

I make calls like this --
"Dude, I'm losing my mind!

No, I'm having a breakdown or something!

I'm serious --
Oh, you're tired?

All right, take the day off.
I'll call the other guy."

"Dude, I'm losing my mind!
No, for re-- No, no, no!

It's your day. It's your day."

"So make me feel better, friend-o.
Do it."

You know, I take great pride

in not ever repeating a problem on any special,

so, um...

All right, if you'll permit me, uh...

Damn.

My feelings were so deeply hurt
in many ways that,

if I couldn't get it out with comedy,

it was a waste of time.

Ahh.
You know, basically,

what I really feel I got from my family

is low self-esteem,

which, uh -- it runs deep.

It started with my grandparents.

They lived in this condo in Florida --

Death Wish Village, which they...

Laughs are a great healer of pain.

But the laugh is over,
and there's the pain again.

Comedian Robin Williams

was found dead this morning

inside his Northern California home.

His publicist says, as of late,

Williams had been battling severe depression.

He was 63 years old.

There's no more painful realization

that the other side
of whatever comic genius is,

is sometimes this,

that with that sensitivity,
that with that love,

that with that mental agility

comes a heart too heavy to live,

a heart that becomes so heavy

that it chooses not to go on.

It's horribly sad.

Whoo!

He beat depression.

'Cause that's what comics do --
we beat depression.

But he had a disease
called Lewy Body Dementia.

His dementia is why I firmly believe

the events happened the way they did.

Him taking his life was not just a reaction

to having that disease.
I feel it was because of it.

It was misinformation that his own brain --

his brain was attacking himself.

There's a phrase you've used

on a number of occasions
to make us understand you.

Mm-hmm.

And that phrase is "legalized insanity."

Yes.

Not that we need to ask now...

Yes.

It may be superfluous, but...

...what is legalized insanity?

Well...

The idea of just trying the things

that other people wouldn't do.

Robin was so close to the source
of where the thought

was coming from --
Like dogs, you know?

It's like, "What? Huh? What?"
It was just brilliant.

Here's the line, and I'm going, "Hee-hee!"

You know?

That kind of helps, I think...

Yeah.

...just to push the boundaries a little bit.

Yeah. Um...

This is so much fun.

I agree with you.

This is nice.

The comic is a personal confessor,

exposing himself in all sorts of ways.

They help us process the sensitive subjects.

Stand-up comedians are really important.

"Okay. Okay.
So, you have, like, psychological problems."

Yeah, I probably need to see a therapist.

"Okay.
So, it's not something

you can talk about with your friends?"

Well, I talk about it, but they're like,

"Why can't you come out tonight?"

I say, "'Cause I'm filthy."
They say, "Take a shower."

I say, "No, it's on the inside!"

I'm all about talking about everything.

And it helps me feel that usefulness

that maybe I can tell somebody,

"You're not alone, and there is help,

and you don't have to suffer from this anymore."

"Well, I don't get it.

Apparently, she's supposed to be funny.

I just think she is schizophrenic."

Well, clearly, that is not my mental illness.

Um, schizophrenia is, of course,

hearing voices, not doing voices.

Now, if you'll excuse me,

I have to get back to La Quinta,

because I have faces to make
in the bathroom mirror.

Whoom.
Whoom.

Being onstage, I found out, slowly but surely,

that I wasn't crazy and always wrong,

that I was having the same fears and trepidations

and insecurities as most people.

17 years of therapy --
what has it done to me?

Nothing. I masturbate to --
I don't know --

to less destructive women, quite frankly.

When I finally, 22 years ago, admitted,

"Hi, I'm Richard.
I'm an alcoholic,"

my comedy was freed up.

I mean, I was doing well.

I was doing specials and Carnegie Hall

and getting nominated for this and that,

but I still wasn't me yet, you know?

Once I said, "I'm a drug addict," whoa, man!

I just felt, like, great.

To be honest with you, really,

in the day and age we live in now,

if someone comes up to you and says,

"I think you might be clinically depressed,"

the proper response is,
"Thank you. Thank you very much.

That means I'm awake."

I thought that stand-up comics
had some higher purpose,

and I was trying to work through things,

and I was trying to find some truths

and frame them in a way that would be new

and exciting for me and then for the audience,

that we'd be moving through that stuff together.

Once, when I was at life's lowest ebb,

and I felt like no one would
ever love or accept me,

I thought I'd kill myself.

And I checked in to a motel room
in the middle of nowhere,

and I was lying there in the dark,

when all of a sudden,
there was a warm glow of light.

And I looked up and Christ
was standing over me like this.

And I looked up at him,
and he looked down at me,

and finally, he spoke, and said,

"Gilbert, am I fat?"

I always think of those two masks --

the comedy mask and the tragedy mask --

they go together.

So if something terrible has happened to you,

comedy is not gonna kill tragedy,

but it'll get it to lose its grip for a while.

I started reducing my Prozac, day by day,

trying to wean myself off of it.

Then, a month with no Prozac, oh.

My depression was like a happy puppy

just running through my body.

I actually felt bad about

going back on the Prozac, 'cause I felt like,

"Oh, I haven't taken him
to the park in a while."

Like, I wanted to give him
a couple of days just to,

"Put your bathrobe for eight days straight!"

Okay, Depression.
I know I haven't done this in a while.

Does this feel better?

"Watch 'Princess Bride'
11 times in a row!"

Okay.
Let's watch "The Princess Bride"

11 times in a row.

Oh, Depression, this is
the best day you've ever had.

Either in small or big ways,
comedy has kept someone

out of depression or suicide
or helped them cope with a loss,

and you remember that.

If you can talk about something openly

and you find the right way to do it,

it takes away all of its power,
and that's really beautiful.

I find comics to be pretty honest people,

in terms of looking at stuff
from both sides or all sides

and presenting you with, like, "Here it is."

In the process of looking for comedy,

you have to be deeply honest,

and in doing that, you'll find out,

"Here's the other side."

You'll be looking under the rock
occasionally for the laughter.

Being a comedian who lives on
making fun of everything

around him, the ridiculousness of everything,

to come through something
horrendous and to be alive,

you got to have a sense of humor.

If you don't, you go mad.

Goldthwait: Stand-up comedians
should be out there

pointing out the flaws,

basically saying to people,

"Hey, does this look right to you?"

You know, "This is weird."

I'll hear somebody's metaphorical interpretation

of an idea in a new way,
and my brain lights up,

but I'm like "Oh, I love it!"

You know, it just feels so good.

And the relief of laughing together

and the victory of a good joke,

we're all responsible for the win.

It's a team sport.

The mind of a stand-up comedian
is a scary, scary place.

No, a mind of a stand-up comedian --

it's really sweet of you

to imply that there's thought
behind what we do.

What kind of person chooses to do that?

A pretty independent person,

somebody who doesn't like,
maybe, having bosses.

I'm sorry.
Did I say comedians were a little narcissistic?

They're a lotnarcissistic.

We'll be right back.

There's nothing else that we can do.

There's no other skills.

So it's either that or nothing.

By the way, I like documentaries.

I just don't like being indocumentaries.

Don't confuse the two.