The Night Robin Williams Sold Johnny Carson a Movie He'd Later Call a Sucker's Deal

On 6 February 1986 Johnny Carson introduced Robin Williams as a remarkably gifted comedian with a new film out, The Best of Times. It had opened six days before. Carson Entertainment's own title for the tape is 'Lightning Fast': twelve minutes, the quickest of his nine nights on the couch, with two straight sentences in it. It's a sweet film. The clubs are cheaper than therapy. The record around the couch: a film that cost twelve million and took under eight; a second film shot and shelved; and, six days later on Skid Row, the announcement of Comic Relief, the four-hour telethon that saved the year, followed by the Oscars, a twenty-three-city tour and the Met. In February 1988 he took both sentences back in print. Every clip is real and dated from the rights holder's own publication and the listings; every read is attributed; the rest is reconstruction, and says so. Chapters 0:00 Cold open 1:11 Lightning fast 1:17 The couch, February 1986 6:01 The mime, the football, the film 9:50 The record of the film, and Comic Relief 14:22 Cheaper than therapy 17:33 January 1991: one serious question Sources Every clip is real; every airdate is from the rights holder's own publication, a catalogue or a newspaper listing; every read is attributed to the person who made it. One link per source. • Carson official channel, "Robin Williams Is Lightning Fast", 12:16, "February 06, 1986" —    • Robin Williams Is Lightning Fast | Carson ...   • Paley Center for Media, catalogue B:44306, The Tonight Show, 6 February 1986 — https://www.paleycenter.org/collectio... • CTVA, Tonight Show 1985–86 listings (season 24) — http://ctva.biz/US/TalkShow/TonightSh... • Wikipedia, Tonight Show episode list 1986 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...) • Dave Itzkoff, Robin (Henry Holt, 2018) — https://books.google.com/books?id=nfQ... • People, "A Comic's Crisis of the Heart", 22 Feb 1988 — https://web.archive.org/web/201608091... • Rolling Stone, "The Rolling Stone Interview: Robin Williams", 25 Feb 1988 — https://web.archive.org/web/201803031... • UPI, 12 Feb 1986, "Comics to hold benefit show for homeless" — https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/02/... • Come Inside My Mind (HBO, 2018), subtitle transcript — https://www.subtitlecat.com/subs/736/... • Rolling Stone via Salon, "Come Inside My Mind: 10 Things We Learned", 18 Jul 2018 — https://www.salon.com/2018/07/18/robi... • Wikimedia Commons file pages for the photographs — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ca... Photographs used under Creative Commons licences, with thanks • Robin Williams at a Democratic fund-raiser, Los Angeles, 8 Sep 1986: CC BY 4.0, Lacy Atkins / Los Angeles Times; the only 1984–87 photograph of him on Commons • Robin Williams with Chicago City Limits, New York, 1 Apr 1983: CC BY-SA 4.0, Del Forsberg (ep002 A1) • Billy Crystal, ABC press photo, 1977: Public domain, ABC Television; nine years early • Johnny Carson, NBC press photo, 1970: Public domain, NBC Television (ep001 A7) • The Metropolitan Opera House facade, 2007: CC BY 2.5, Blehgoaway • NBC Studios, Burbank, 1978: CC BY-SA 3.0, Antarctic96 • NBC Burbank, 1988: CC BY 2.0, Alan Light (ep001 A11) • Robin Williams as Mork, ABC press photo, 1978: Public domain, ABC (ep001 A1) • Paley Center catalogue record B:44306, re-set: Catalogue text, re-set as a card • Paley Center catalogue record T87:0008 (Comic Relief, 29 Mar 1986), re-set: Catalogue text, re-set as a card • CTVA listing lines, 6 Feb 1986, 7 Feb 1986, 18 Dec 1987 and 10 Jan 1991, re-set: Listing text, re-set as a card All via Wikimedia Commons. About the pictures The clips are real and unaltered. The reconstruction stills between them are generated, including lookalikes of the people in the story; they are not photographs of the events, and no generated picture stands in for a moment on the tape. Catalogue and listing text on screen is the real record, re-set. The narration is synthesised.