A Night at the Met

Last updated
A Night at the Met
Robinwilliamsmet.jpg
Studio album by
ReleasedAugust 9, 1986 [1]
Genre Stand-up comedy
Length53:13 (audio album)
65 min (TV movie) [2]
Label Columbia, Legacy
Producer David Steinberg, Brooks Arthur
Robin Williams chronology
Throbbing Python of Love
(1983)
A Night at the Met
(1986)
Pecos Bill
(1988)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [3]

A Night at the Met is the third official album by Robin Williams, released August 9, 1986. It features segments recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The album won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Performance Single or Album, Spoken or Musical.

Contents

The album was released the year before Williams's critically acclaimed performance in the motion picture, Good Morning, Vietnam . He had been shifting his focus from stand-up comedy to filmmaking for several years, and A Night at the Met would be one of his last major concerts during the 1980s. The show is a mix of Williams's quick-witted humor and voice work, with rants on the topics of drugs, sex, world affairs and parenting. References to the events and people of the 1980s are heavily mentioned throughout: U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, are central to many of the jokes.

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."Opening"1:58
2."Ballet"1:31
3."Alcohol"5:27
4."Marijuana"2:21
5."Cocaine"4:11
6."Cops"2:53
7."Reagan"5:45
8."Khadafi"1:51
9."Spring"1:32
10."Men's Parts"1:37
11."Lust"3:48
12."Dr. Roof"4:33
13."Pregnancy"2:08
14."Childbirth"4:14
15."Childhood"6:03
16."...And the Future"3:16
Total length:53:13

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billy Crystal</span> American comedian, actor, and filmmaker

William Edward Crystal is an American comedian, actor, and filmmaker. Crystal is known as a standup comedian and for his film and stage roles. Crystal has received numerous accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Awards and a Tony Award as well as nominations for three Grammy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. He was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2007, the Critics' Choice Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Belushi</span> American actor, comedian, and musician (1949–1982)

John Adam Belushi was an American comedian, actor, and musician. He was one of the seven original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL). Throughout his career, Belushi had a personal and artistic partnership with his fellow SNL star Dan Aykroyd, whom he met while they were both working at Chicago's Second City comedy club.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Williams</span> American actor and comedian (1951–2014)

Robin McLaurin Williams was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike, he is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time. He received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, five Grammy Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Elliott</span> American actor, writer, and comedian

Christopher Nash Elliott is an American actor, comedian, writer, director, and author, known for his surreal sense of humor. He appeared in comedic sketches on Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1988), created and starred in the comedy series Get a Life (1990–1992) on Fox, and wrote and starred in the film Cabin Boy (1994). His writing has won four consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards. His other television appearances include recurring roles on Everybody Loves Raymond and How I Met Your Mother, starring roles as Chris Monsanto in Adult Swim's Eagleheart (2011–2014) and Roland Schitt in Schitt's Creek (2015–2020). He also appeared in the films Groundhog Day (1993), There's Something About Mary (1998), Snow Day (2000) and Scary Movie 2 (2001).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard Keel</span> American actor and singer (1919–2004)

Harold Clifford Keel, professionally Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer known for his rich bass-baritone singing voice. He starred in a number of MGM musicals in the 1950s and in the television series Dallas from 1981 to 1991.

<i>Good Morning, Vietnam</i> 1987 film by Barry Levinson

Good Morning, Vietnam is a 1987 American war comedy film written by Mitch Markowitz and directed by Barry Levinson. Set in Saigon in 1965, during the Vietnam War, the film stars Robin Williams as a radio DJ on Armed Forces Radio Service, who proves hugely popular with the troops, but infuriates his superiors with what they call his "irreverent tendency". The story is loosely based on the experiences of AFRS radio DJ Adrian Cronauer.

<i>The Young Ones</i> (TV series) British sitcom

The Young Ones is a British sitcom written by Rik Mayall, Ben Elton, and Lise Mayer, starring Adrian Edmondson, Mayall, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan, and Alexei Sayle, and broadcast on BBC Two for two series, first shown in 1982 and 1984. The show focused on the lives of four dissimilar students and their landlord's family on different plots that often included anarchic, offbeat, surreal humour. The show often included slapstick gags, visual humour and surreal jokes sometimes acted out by puppets, with each episode also featuring a notable selection of guest stars and musical numbers from various performers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Winters</span> American comedian, actor, artist (1925–2013)

Jonathan Harshman Winters III was an American comedian, actor, author, television host, and artist. He started performing as a stand up comedian before transitioning his career to acting in film and television. Winters received numerous accolades including two Grammy Awards, and Primetime Emmy Award as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, the American Academy of Achievement in 1973, and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Pryor</span> American comedian and actor (1940–2005)

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most important stand-up comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974. He was listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him first on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wild Man Fischer</span> American musician

Lawrence Wayne "Wild Man" Fischer was an American street performer known for offering erratic, a cappella performances of "new kinds of songs" for a dime on the beaches and the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. Most of his life was spent homeless or institutionalized, and he later became regarded as "the godfather of outsider music".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danny Aiello</span> American actor (1933–2019)

Daniel Louis Aiello Jr. was an American actor. He appeared in numerous motion pictures, including The Godfather Part II (1974), The Front (1976), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Hide in Plain Sight (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Moonstruck (1987), Harlem Nights (1989), Do the Right Thing (1989), Jacob's Ladder (1990), Hudson Hawk (1991), Ruby (1992), Léon: The Professional (1994), 2 Days in the Valley (1996), Dinner Rush (2000), and Lucky Number Slevin (2006). He played Don Domenico Clericuzio in the miniseries The Last Don (1997).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Dice Clay</span> American comedian and actor

Andrew Dice Clay is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He rose to prominence in the late 1980s with a brash, deliberately offensive persona known as "The Diceman". In 1990, he became the first stand-up comedian to sell out Madison Square Garden for two consecutive nights. That same year, he played the lead role in the comedy-mystery film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.

<i>Night Court</i> American television sitcom (1984–1992)

Night Court is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC for nine seasons and 193 episodes, from January 4, 1984, to May 31, 1992. Set in the night shift of a Manhattan Criminal Court presided over by a young, unorthodox judge, Harold "Harry" T. Stone, it was created by comedy writer Reinhold Weege, who had previously worked on Barney Miller in the 1970s and early 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bobcat Goldthwait</span> American comedian and actor (born 1962)

Robert Francis "Bobcat" Goldthwait is an American comedian, actor, director and screenwriter. He is known for his black comedy stand-up act, delivered through an energetic stage persona with an unusual raspy and high-pitched voice. He came to prominence with his stand-up specials An Evening with Bobcat Goldthwait—Share the Warmth and Bob Goldthwait—Is He Like That All the Time? and his acting roles, including Zed in the Police Academy franchise and Eliot Loudermilk in Scrooged. Since 2012, he has been a regular panelist on the radio-quiz show, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mason Williams</span> American musician

Mason Douglas Williams is an American classical guitarist, composer, singer, writer, comedian, and poet, best known for his 1968 instrumental "Classical Gas" and for his work as a comedy writer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and Saturday Night Live.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Davidson (entertainer)</span> American entertainer (born 1941)

John Hamilton Davidson is an American actor, singer, and game-show host known for hosting That's Incredible!,Time Machine, and Hollywood Squares in the 1980s, and a revival of The $100,000 Pyramid in 1991.

"Fire" is a song written by Bruce Springsteen in 1977 which had its highest profile as a 1978 single release by the Pointer Sisters. The song was also released by Robert Gordon and Springsteen himself.

Chris Rush was an American comedian, writer, actor, radio personality and author. He is best known for his stand-up routines and albums, along with having been a writer and editor on the satirical publication National Lampoon magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nichols and May</span> American comedy duo

Nichols and May was an American improvisational comedy duo act developed by Mike Nichols (1931–2014) and Elaine May. Their three comedy albums reached the Billboard Top 40 between 1959 and 1962. Many comedians have cited them as key influences in modern comedy. Woody Allen declared, “the two of them came along and elevated comedy to a brand-new level".

References

  1. "Robin Williams: An Evening at the Met" via www.imdb.com.
  2. "Robin Williams: An Evening at the Met (1986) - IMDb" via www.imdb.com.
  3. "A Night at the Met - Robin Williams | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic" via www.allmusic.com.