When the news broke that Fred Willard died, someone tweeted that he was the most naturally funny person ever.
That comment struck me as hyperbole. But then I started thinking, maybe the tweet’s right.
I came upon Willard, on a show called “Fernwood Tonight,” which later became “America Tonight.”
It remains one of the great surreal comedic experiments of its time -- a fake talk show with bogus guests, a disgruntled bandleader in Frank De Vol and lurid backstories concerning its main host Barth Gimble (played by Martin Mull). Sounds like “The View.”
The show was an exquisite wreck, largely due to its co-host, played by Willard, who invented a new kind of external interior dialogue. His stream of conscious thoughts were journeys in idiocy -- like a cheerful guy who sits next to you on the bus and tells you his sociopathic desires -- in between humming show tunes.
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Willard showed you the banality of evil. And made it hilarious.
He went on to movie fame, “Spinal Tap,” “Best in Show,” “A Mighty Wind,” playing the same character over and over: an idiot.
When I was editor of Stuff magazine, we invited Fred to be our guest editor. Normally, this is a publicity ploy -- you do it to get free media for both the magazine and the star.
Fred Willard showed you the banality of evil. And made it hilarious.
No celebrity ever edits a thing. Maybe they'll drop by the office and take a picture. But they want nothing to do with us lowly scrubs.
But not Fred. We had to send him all the issue pages. And he read them. And made notes on every single page!
They were genuinely helpful, super funny, and 100 percent Fred.
We ended up just running his comments all over the magazine. They were that great.
The fact is, you have to be super smart to play dumb so good.
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And man, he was the best.
R.I.P.
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