WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Somewhere in the world there probably exists a sound that Michael Winslow cannot re-create with just his mouth, a microphone and that creatively subversive thing that allows him to perfectly imitate car horns, opening doors and sea mammals.
He just can't think of what that might be.
"Not yet!" says Winslow, who first astonished moviegoers as "Police Academy's" Lt. Larvell "Motormouth" Jones and bills himself as "The Original Voicestrumentalist."
The Orlando resident, currently seen in a Geico commercial approximating the sound of a car accident, appears at Jupiter's Atlantic Theater on Saturday for an evening of comedy, music and doing his "job to make everyone forget about the rent."
He recently answered some very silly questions, with appropriately silly answers.
Question: You're so good at sounds that when the phone beeped to signal that you were coming on the line, for a second I thought it was you.
Answer: I get that all the time - "Was that you?" There are certain things I'm not allowed to do anymore, like the stewardess call button sound. That's an easy felony. Jonathan Winters taught me that, so it's his fault. It was a mistake to let us be on the same aircraft. At first everyone thought it was funny for the first 30 minutes, and the stewardesses kept coming back and forth. But after that, Mrs. Winters didn't think it was amusing. She just kept reading her book and looking like "You guys...."
Q: So no more freaking people out?
A: I'm nice now. I don't use (my talent) for bad things, nothing for evil. So no more "talking" food in Chinese restaurants ... Even though that was funny.
Q: They must have a picture posted of you like at the post office.
A: "In case of Winslow, break glass."
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I'm going to Ireland with Chris Rock, and I want to do some U2 noises for Bono.
Leslie Gray Streeter writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: lstreeter AT pbpost.com