Fred Willard RIP

I saw Fred Willard once. They were filming a scene for How to Beat the High Cost of Living about a block and a half from my house. Someone asked if I wanted to go down and watch. I said, naw.

Later, I walked down to Wendy's to get something to eat. It was across the boulevard from the gas station where the scene was shot. I was walking back, carrying my food home. I was going to take a shortcut through the parking lot of the Taco Time. There was an RV parked there. I froze in my tracks.

In the window of that RV was FRED WILLARD. He was eating a taco. Seemed to be talking to someone. I stood frozen for a moment. Then I realized there was really nothing I could do. There was no one around I could excitedly tell. So I kept walking.

The movie came out in 1980. If it was filmed in 1979 or 1980 I must have been sixteen or seventeen.

The last thing I heard about Fred Willard was on the Thought Spiral podcast. Andy Kindler was neurotic and afraid to phone people, but he phoned Fred Willard and had a nice conversation.

Fred suggested that Andy watch Svengoolie on METV. It's a guy hosting old horror movies. The host of Svengoolie--Svengoolie himself--got word of it and tweeted how happy he was to know that Fred Willard liked his show.

The other host of Thought Spiral, J Elvis Weinstein, tweeted:

I worked with Fred Willard on a show for the "Ha!" network shot in Mpls. A couple years later, in L.A., he got me a job simply by recognizing me and saying hello in front of someone important. I was suddenly funny by association.

Fred Willard has passed away at age 86.