Best known for his buttoned up professionals with no sense of their own cluelessness, actor Fred Willard emerged from the 1960s improv scene to become a critic’s favorite and an admired comedy veteran. After earning an initial cult following as the dimwitted sidekick of talk show host Martin Mull in the cutting-edge parody "Fernwood 2-Night" (Syndicated, 1977-78), Willard fans generally caught glimpses of the actor in character roles as self-assured and wildly incorrect authority figures in unremarkable film and television comedies. But his supporting roles in the “mockumentary” style films of
