My father’s laughter introduced me to the comedy of Jonathan Winters. My dad was a sweet man, but not an easy laugh. We were watching Jack Paar on “The Tonight Show” on our black-and-white television, and on came Jonathan in a pith helmet.

“Who are you?” Paar asked.

“I’m a great white hunter,” Jonathan said in an effete voice. “I hunt mainly squirrels.”

“How do you do that?”

“I aim for their little nuts.”

My dad and I lost it. Seeing my father laugh like that made me think, “Who is this guy and what’s he on?”

A short time later, Jonathan was on Paar again. This time Jack handed him a stick, and what happened next was extraordinary. Jon did a four-minute freestyle riff in which that stick became a fishing rod, a spear, a giant beetle antenna, even Bing Crosby’s golf club complete with song. Each transformation was a cameo with characters and sound effects. He was performing comedic alchemy. The world was his laboratory. I was hooked.