Robin Williams: Live at the Met

Some skits and jokes are hysterically funny, some fall quite flat. Part of the problem is Robin Williams' stream-of-consciousness delivery: it is hard to keep up with the joke his mind is moving so fast. Generally this is a good thing, but he does lose you, and himself, at times, I think.

By far, one of the greatest stand-up performances ever captured on film. It showcases Robin at the peak of his stand-up career. If you enjoyed his more recent "Live from Broadway", it pales in comparison to this film. This should place Williams on the same level as Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, and Richard Pryor, when looking at stand-up legends.

How does a performer like Robin Williams get to the Metropolitan Opera House? "Money. Lots and lots of money."

In all honesty,this has to be one of the best,if not the best stand up special by a well known comedian.Outranking even Eddie's Delirious and Chris Rock's latest,"Bigger and Blacker",you can be sure that you will have a pain in your side when this is over;and don't be surprised if you feel the need to immediately rewind it and watch it again. Robin's talent comes shining through,with impressions and observations that will have you crying in your seat. Trust me on this,if you are a Robin Williams fan,and you haven't yet seen this performance,you really don't know what you are missing.

This was recorded at the Met in 1986 and from the very beginning Robin Williams has his audience by the throat and never lets go - even when a heckler in the first five minutes begins to taunt him he manages to make a joke out of it on the spot and continues on.

He careens from one topic to the next with free abandon and none of it really makes sense if you stop and think about it - for instance he goes from discussing sex and male genitalia to suddenly discussing why women would never create nuclear weapons, and from there he jumps into female presidency, which then leads in to Ronald Reagan, then Nixon, then Disney...it just keeps going and going.

It's almost exhaustive to listen to and if I didn't know any better I'd say he was still on drugs when he recorded it. He wasn't, though - he quit coke after John Belushi's death. However, this doesn't stop him from joking about alcohol, drug abuse and other risqué topics - all in all it's a really hilarious performance and it's a pity we wouldn't see anything this good from Robin again until his 2002 stint on Broadway (which is even better in my opinion, and more frantic).

If you love comedy, give this a go. If you love Williams, this is a must-own. If you don't like Williams, you've got to see or hear this because it might change your mind about him - he really did have talent once; it's just a shame he gave so much of it away to appear in lousy movies.

The fact that Robin Williams was once producing comedy of this calibre puts him up there with the greats, Bill Hicks, Ryan Stiles, and Eddies Izzard and Murphy. Around this time, when was magnificent, Williams was producing material like "The World According to Garp", "Dead Poets Society" and even "Good Morning Vietnam". It's just a damn shame he's not anymore. But "Live at The Met" is quite simply the funniest stand-up routine ever performed. It will always prove how incredibly funny Robin Williams can