gary colemans wife asked the doctors if bret michaels suffered from the same issue. he said "no, just different strokes"
He was a brilliant little kid. I never watched his program (I don't waste much time on TV), but a year or so earlier I saw his TV debut on Johnny Carson. While Johnny was introducing him with childlike gentleness, he bounded out from behind the curtain top speed and flopped into the seat pell mell. He kept responding to Carson's every crack with one of his own, making the audience laugh hysterically in amazement. It was shocking to see this kid aged about 8 one-upping Johnny's every joke. Then Johnny said to the audience "They slipped in an adult on me" and Gary immediately opened up his little jacket and tie to show he was a kid, and the audience laughed and laughed. He was already a professional comedian with instant reactions. After producers saw that show, they gave him his show and made him a star. But many child actors can follow a script. He was much more talented than that and could have done standup, where you have to think on your feet and react to the audience.
There were many moments like that on the Tonight show that you could never forget, even 35-40 years later. Carson lost his sharpness around 1980 when he no longer had to compete with Dick Cavett. But this is about 1976 or 77. Johnny started out treating him like a kid with kid gloves, and soon realized he was in a duel with a tiny adult. Johnny quickly shifted to trying to outdo him as he always did with adult comedians, and they competed for laughs from the audience. Half of the humor came from the simple phenomenon that Johnny was having to work so hard to keep up with the kid's quick reactions. Johnny kept looking at the audience for sympathy, his face looking like, "What have I gotten into? I thought this would be a simple interview of a kid." And we laughed at him.
