Where there's Fred Willard, there's a funny way

While Willard's career dates to the '60s, when he was part of a comedy team with Vic Greco appearing on the old Ed Sullivan show, most people's memories of him go back to "Fernwood 2Nite," the '70s talk-show send-up in which he portrayed Martin Mull's dimbulb sidekick.

Willard, who received three Emmy nominations for playing the father-in-law of Robert Barone (Brad Garrett) on "Everybody Loves Raymond," also teamed with Mull (as his lover) on "Roseanne." His other recurring TV credits include "Mad About You" and "D.C. Follies." And for several years he's been doing skits on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

The only network show he ever co-hosted, "Real People," isn't well-remembered, he acknowledged, but Willard sounds happy to find out that he has a multicultural audience, citing a moment on the street when a couple of black guys asked, "Hey, weren't you in ‘How High’?"

Willard's improvisation and performance skills were honed with the Second City comedy troupe in Chicago as well as the groups Ace Trucking Company and The Committee.

But after all these years it still scares him to fly without the net of a script.

"When we start a movie now, it's `Oh, God, what am I going to say?'" he said, relaxing in his hotel suite with his stocking feet up on an ottoman. "So I don't know where it comes from, I don't know how you teach it."

In running improv workshops, he saw that students either got it or they didn't. The only instructions he offers: Get involved in the scene, stay in character, listen to the other person, and don't particularly try to be funny.

"It's like walking a tightrope. Don't try to do tricks on it. Just try to get across, and pretty soon the tricks will come."

A knack for improvising
Some of his talent stems from nature and nurture. He remembers relatives saying and doing wacky things, like his grandmother who once bought a corset that was too big but decided to wear it anyway — or the time she went to see a movie titled "Best Foot Forward," returned and said she saw "Here We Go Backwards."

"And I'm from Cleveland, which a lot of funny people seem to come from. Because it's sort of no-nonsense — I found my aunts and uncles would just see right through any pretense," Willard said. "My mother used to have a saying when she came out to visit us; she'd see someone dressed kind of fancy and she'd say: `Boy the things you don't see when you haven't got a gun.'"

Which sounds about as wonderfully jarring as the comment from Willard's mayor in the 1987 Steve Martin movie "Roxanne": "I would rather be with the people of this town than with the finest people in the world."

Or as hilariously mind-blowing as his news director in "Anchorman" telling the son who's always in trouble at school over the phone: "Put down the gun, and let the marching band go. We'll play it off as a prank."

It's gotten to the point now that his improv skills are expected.

"I've found in the last two years usually the producer — (or) whoever is the head person — will say, `Listen, feel free, you know if you want to put something in.' Which puts an extra burden on you, because when you're given free rein, from my experience, actors tend to kinda get off the track and get self-indulgent," Willard said. "So I usually say, `I kinda like what's written here.' I guess it's from going to Virginia Military Institute. I'm a good person to follow orders."

Before he attended VMI — a fact about Willard that may surprise people — he went to a military prep school because he was getting in minor scrapes ("things today that would almost be laughable").

Now a military school alumnus, Army veteran, Middle American and husband for 35 years with a 33-year-old daughter and 9-year-old grandson, Willard lives the part of the solid citizen that he at least looks like on screen.

That disparity between his stalwart appearance and his nutty comments serves as classic comedy.

"He kind of looks like a clean-cut Midwestern guy," Guest said, "except that he's actually from Mars."

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