Where the Hell Did We Go Wrong?!

Watching Jonathan Winters perform stand-up has never been about traditional setups and punchlines. He steps into the spotlight, lets a stray impulse take over, and populates the stage with half a dozen distinct personalities, complete with sputtered sound effects and twitchy physical cues.

By 1992, Winters was in the middle of a late-career victory lap, having picked up an Emmy for Davis Rules and stopped by Johnny Carson’s farewell Tonight Show run. On stage, he remains an uncontainable eccentric. Instead of reciting structured material, he wanders through impressions of sputtering airplanes, rambling small-town elders, and confused authority figures.