Before They Were Stars: Robin Williams in “Can I Do It Till I Need Glasses?”


It’s very common for a lousy movie that features an early performance from a future big-name star to prominently feature the star’s face on the cover art when it’s re-released on video, even if their part in the film isn’t even that big. It’s a whole new level of chicanery, however, when an actor’s entire role is originally deleted from a film, but after said actor becomes famous, the film is given a full theatrical re-release with the actor’s scenes put back in there! Such was the case with a lame 1977 sketch comedy film called Can I Do It Till I Need Glasses?, where an unknown comedian named Robin Williams made his film debut before being left on the cutting room floor. It wasn’t too long after that when Williams made it big on Mork & Mindy, so, lo and behold, Glasses was re-released with Williams’ scenes restored into the film and his name all over the advertising… even though the combined total of his screen time was only about 90 seconds! Williams and his people actually threatened a lawsuit over this nonsense, so the film was re-released AGAIN with his scenes cut back out! It says something about the quality of your film when Robin friggin’ Williams thinks it’s so awful that he wants no part of it!

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