Comedians Share Heartache Over Louie Anderson’s Death

at
Share This Post

It’s been a brutal year. It’s been a brutal month. Our comedy heroes are disappearing and on Friday we lost a giant in the business. Louie Anderson died at the age of 68 after a fight with a form of blood cancer. He was one of the funniest to ever take the mic, making multiple generations laugh in different ways. So many people poured out love to honor Anderson, sharing stories, clips, and images all over social media.

Louie’s career had so many chapters. He started comedy being a self deprecating guy on stage who told a lot of fat jokes until one night while doing crowd work, he made a joke about his family and got a reaction gigantic enough to make a light go on. And a legend was born. People discovered Louie in so many ways. He was a Tonight Show regular, and was a part of the very first Rodney Dangerfield Young Comedian special. After that he was a star. Some people were introduced to Louie as a game show host, while an entire generation found Louie from his cartoon series Life With Louie. Immigrants throughout the United States would tell Louie they knew him as the french fry guy from Coming to America, a fact that delighted him. And a new generation discovered or re-discovered Louie from his perfect portray of Christine Baskets on the FX series Baskets.

Louie was always kind, always looking for growth in his life. He carried great empathy for others, but would be quick to try to elevate people’s moods inserting comedy into the conversation on podcasts, guest television appearances, radio shows and everywhere he went. And he loved to give credit and compliments to others, alwqys quick to tell others how their role in the world was important, especially young comedians.

When I spoke with him right before the premiere of Coming 2 America, he only wanted to point out the greatness of the people he worked with, complimenting Eddie Murphy and John Amos and the cast and crew that he got to work with.

He inspired others often, and loved to talk about inclusion. On a 2016 episode of SiriusXM’s Unmasked he told Ron Bennington that he grew up poor, but his parents always would help out neighbors who were worse off by bringing them a bag of groceries. He said his mother always made sure the children in the neighborhood were eating enough. He shared this story as well. “You know, we’re in a ‘me too’ time don’t you think,” he said. “I was talking about inclusion. My mom always included people in the neighborhood who were not doing well. If we are in a time where I see so much exclusion– in the debates and all that crap that’s on. And I go, we should just be focusing on inclusion. And we should be focusing on art. And I’m going to tell you something that’s a little serious. There’s an episode coming up on Baskets where they were shooting in France in Paris. And while they’re shooting this, a mile away or a few blocks away, people are planing on killing a bunch of people at that exact time that they were shooting this episode of Baskets. And I just find that profound.” He continued. “That one group of people are making something to relieve people. And one group of people are doing something to destroy people. And I just think that inclusion– I just really gave this a lot of thought. Are the people who are lashing out– they keep seeming to be people who have been excluded. So I just find that profound.”

“And the day they left, the next day, those attacks took place. And I’m so thankful none of them….” He paused for a moment before saying, “but isn’t that an amazing thing? Isn’t that an amazing thing when you find out in history, what had happened. Baskets is profound in so many ways and I just think oh my God we are not being inclusive enough. I always say at the elevator, lets fit another person in. I go, come on in here. And I don’t mean that in any weird way. I don’t want to rub up against you but I don’t want you to feel excluded. But that’s kind of what I think my comedy– I think it comes from that place.”

I’ll never forget that, something so easy to do, but rarely achieved.

As we often do, we gathered the thoughts of those in comedy remembering Louie this week, and will add more to this list periodically. Thanks for the laughs,

Acme Comedy Company

The Comedy Store

National Comedy Center

Paul Feig

Henry Winkler

Michael McKean

Bill Burr

Eliza Skinner

Jim Gaffigan

Jeff Ross

Solar Brothers

Mark Maron

Pauly Shore

Howie Mandel

Lewis Black

Doug Benson

John Fugelsang

Bobby Lee

SiriusXM

National Comedy Center

Doug Benson

Judd Apatow

Dan Perlman

Gilbert Gottfried

Tom Green

Joe List

Tammy Pescatelli

Wendy Liebman

Stavros Halkias

Kristen Schaal

Steve Byrne

Brooks Wheelan

Ron White

Vinnie Brand

Dante

Rae Sanni

Judy Gold

Whitney Cummings

Raanan Herschberg

Gary Gulman

Emma Willmann

Jessica Pilot

J Elvis Weinstein

Adam Sandler

Mike Binder

Jennifer Tilly

Alonzo Bodden

Stephen Falk

Iron Sheik

Eddie Brill

Kathleen Madigan

Rob Schneider

Jeff Ross

Francisco Ramos

Jamie Kennedy

Comedy Dynamics

Doug benson

Largo Los Angeles

Jason Zinoman

Nick Swardson

Tom Papa

Opie Radio

Jay Pharoah

Gianmarco Soresi

Al Franken

All Things Comedy

Carolines

Gotham Comedy Club

Read more comedy news.

Debra Kessler
Debra Kessler