The “amazing” 2008 TV show Robin Williams would have loved to star in: “I’d do it”
Robin Williams was always vocal about his appreciation and joy for all sorts of things in life: Cycling, video games, Narnia, and a television show called Fringe.
Seeing as the star named his daughter Zelda after the high-fantasy action-adventure video game franchise, The Legend of Zelda, it’s not hard to guess that Williams was a big fan of all things sci-fi. Escapism with a capital E, we call it.
So when the television show, Fringe, premiered on Fox in September of 2008 and boasted a hybrid of fantasy, procedural dramas, and serials, Williams was naturally drawn to the show. Created by JJ Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci, the show only ran for 100 episodes overall, but it had Williams hooked from the very start.
It follows an FBI agent, played by Anna Torv, a genius, though rather esoteric, scientist, played by John Noble, and his troubled son, played by Joshua Jackson. The unlikely trio is all tapped up to be in the Fringe Division of the FBI, where they must confront a series of unexplained, paranormal occurrences which may or may not be related to a parallel universe. Think Stranger Things, with less of a budget.
As cool as it sounds, as an actor who has “made it” in the eyes of the general public, admitting that you want to feature in a television show is like admitting that you still like a bedtime story read to you before you sleep. Hollywood is a step up, and beyond, the grimy world of cold coffees and TV production.
However, Williams was more than happy to share his enthusiasm for Fringe, sharing with TV Line that he thought the show was “amazing”. Further still, when asked if he would be down to clown on the set behind the camera full-time, the late icon almost jumped for joy: “Fucking A, yeah, I’d do it…. If it was fun,” he added quickly.
In many ways, this was Williams acknowledging his roots; the Aladdin voice actor first found fame as the alien Mork in a 1978 episode of Happy Days. Back in those days, Hollywood moved fast, and that same year, he had a hit sit-com of his own, Mork & Mindy, which lasted two joyous years.
Williams made the confession about Fringe in 2012, and it seems he was trying to tell us something: By 2012, he starred in the CBS sitcom, The Crazy Ones, in which he played a larger-than-life and highly unorthodox advertising genius. I bet that part wasn’t hard to pull off.
Plus, fans wishing to catch just a little spark of his magic elsewhere on the television circuit can find him appearing in the coveted Central Perk cafe on Friends, or as a criminal manipulator in Law & Order: SVU, or even as a cooky, fictionalised version of himself in Louie.
Unfortunately, Williams only bagged a single year on The Crazy Ones before succumbing to suicide at 63 at his home in California. If the parallel universe logic of Fringe‘s whacky storyline were true, we’d certainly opt for a timeline where the bright star didn’t fade way before his time.
