Memiors

BATTY KODA

Once when my daughter was around 3-4 years old, we took a trip to Seattle and were having lunch at our favorite French Cafe there, Le Pichet. There was this annoying French guy sitting at the table next to us. He was telling a weird, stream of consciousness, Robin Williams-y type story and verbally dominating half of the small café. Loudly. I did not look over not wanting to give this loud jerk the satisfaction of my attention. Those overly testosteroned French guys are the worst! Then my wife, Wendy, start chuckling occasionally which really pissed me off. This French guy is doing the worst Robin Williams impression. 

When a woman at the loud table got up to go to the rest room, I used the movement of her body to cover my glance over to the table. My look of disgust dropped. It was Robin Williams - in character as a French guy for about 30min because it was a French Café. The weird thing is - as if he was waiting for me to turn and look(possibly I was the last in the Café to notice his celebrity) he stopped with the accent. 

He then turned to my daughter and was truly sweet to her trying to make her laugh. Doing impressions of Northwest animals like beavers and otters. He was a little too much for her so eventually, in retreat, she leaned against my wife, waited a perfect comedy beat, and while looking directly at Robin very distinctly raised her hands … and placed them over her ears. Robin W. gasped in acknowledgement of the diss but took it well. Then the woman returned from the restroom and his party left. In hindsight and in an acknowledgment of a small world it would have been nice to tell him that, years ago, I animated a scene he voiced. Batty Koda in Ferngully.

Years later, in Hollywood for the Oscars(Coraline was nominated), I went to an art show opening at a gallery there. Robin Williams was there with his daughter who was a HUGE Nightmare Before Christmas fan. Since Henry the Coraline director and myself both worked on Nightmare we engaged in conversation with Robin and his daughter. The woman who had gone to the bathroom at the French cafe was also there. I told them that we had meet before briefly at Le Pichet in Seattle and he was doing animal impressions for my daughter. He lit up and laughed, “Oh! The little girl who put her hands over her ears!” 

A year or two later he was dead. ( :^((>

I’m glad to have met him because one of the first shots of professional animation I worked on was voiced by him. But I never got a chance to tell him that. 

The End