Jonathan Winters – Stuff’n Nonsense

Stuff’n Nonsense is the best of the only 3 Jonathan Winters recordings reissued on CD to date.

You can certainly forget about more recent releases with Gary Owens, especially the dreadful Crank(y) Calls and Outpatients.  Jonathan Winters is known as the king of improvisational comedy and this CD, Stuff’n Nonsense features thirty-four minutes of this legend of comedy working with audience suggestions.

The weakness of most comedy stand-up comedy CDs where the audience interacts with the comic is you do not get to hear the audience and the comedian does not repeat the comment he is reacting to. This is not a problem on Stuff’n Nonsense. You usually hear the audience member’s suggestions and Jonathan Winters repeats the suggestion.

What makes Stuff’n Nonsense the best Winters CD available for the moment is the setups are very good and the comedian really makes the best of them. On other artists’ CDs the improvs sometimes end with a fizzle but this is not a problem here.

There are some really good comedy bits here. These include John Wayne Landing On The Moon, President Nixon’s First Day In Office, and Heart Transplant.

A few of the tracks on this CD are really more visual than auditory so you know you are missing something. A good example of this is Male Elephant Wrapping A Present and John Wayne Protecting The Fort

Jonathan Winters Stuff’n Nonsense is a bit dated in its humor. The stand-up comic sometimes relies on a gay-ish character for a few easy laughs and as a punch line.

One of Winters’ fortes and common comedic references is flying saucers. In fact, no other comic does a best UFO sound effect. Unfortunately there is only one such track on this stand-up comedy CD.

Jonathan Winters
Stuff n Nonsense
Originally released 1969
Laugh 2001
34 minutes

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