I never made the Jonathan Winters connection and it is so true--very much the original. Williams has, IMO, a kind of comic genius, but it comes wrapped up in that painful shtick--I can't watch him. So un-funny to me.
Now--Eddie Izzard=pure genius. He is amazingly funny and smart--his humor is based on eclectic and scholarly thoughts, but he asks the right question to elicit crazy funny routines. Buy the DVD's:--F***ing brilliant:
"cake or death?"
"They have never understood, and no reason that they should.
But if anybody could . . . " --SS