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Jonathan Winters says he doesn't tell jokes.

"I have always classified [myself] as an actor/comedian, a humorist," he says. "I started out as an artist and what I do is verbal paintings. I paint a picture. Hopefully you'll see the characters and what they're doing and what they're saying."

Take the proprietor of the Used Pet Shop, a character from Winters' 1960 comedy album The Wonderful World of Jonathan Winters. In the album, Winters introduces the proprietor in one of his patented rural voices -- thick with the Ohio countryside -- as an apocryphal uncle who offered customers a real deal.

"I can give you that kangaroo over there for 10-and-a-half," Winters has the uncle say. "Come all the way from Australia, as most of them do. I got him as far as Muncie but he fell off a flatcar and broke his tail. You know, most of them set back on their tails like this. But this one, you have to lean against something."

There's a sense of danger in the idea of slightly imperfect bargain animals, and that danger is present in many of Winters' routines. According to him, that's the way it should be.

"I am dangerous," he growls with pride.

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