Andy Kaufman

by Bob Zmuda

  So what were we fighting for? Freedom. Artistic freedom. Freedom from the constraints of commercial entertainment. Freedom from the shackles of the pre-recorded laugh track. (Did you know those people are dead?) Freedom from the tyranny of the punch line. Freedom from the fourth wall. Freedom from cue cards. Freedom from the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. Freedom from the Jewish stand-up industrial complex. Freedom from laughter itself, if need be. It’s exciting that today there is a whole new generation who don’t even watch TV anymore. It’s all Internet now. Thousands of young people around the planet uploading their own homemade videos, creating whole new worlds, new ways of looking at things, no longer being driven by mindless consumption. Exciting times. That’s why Kaufman is more relevant today than ever before. He’s become a role model for today’s disaffected youth that sees no worth in a broken-down economic model that no longer works. Andy revolted against the entire entertainment industry. He’s basically the Che Guevara of the Borscht Belt.

  ***

  Lynne

  And there is my argument why Andy couldn’t be alive; he wouldn’t be able to resist having his own Internet TV show! The Internet was made for Andy; if it had existed in the early ’80s, Andy would have had a camera in his house and recorded his every movement. He would have invented reality TV. In 1983, when no one except David Letterman would have him on their shows after all the trouble he had caused, he was very excited about having an all-night cable TV show in San Francisco. He would play all the stuff he liked, and in between, when you cut back to the host of the show (Andy), he would be asleep on a couch and the camera would hold on him for however long the break was.

  ***

  Actor Paul Giamatti, who played me in the film, was beginning to figure out some of it: “I think Andy was onto the idea that adulation for celebrities can be very close to despising them. There is a really fine line there, and he and Zmuda were playing around with that. The weirdest thing about him was that a lot of his stuff wasn’t funny. He was just forcing people’s minds to open wider.” Chris Rock said, “Andy Kaufman was like Miles Davis.” Bob Odenkirk added, “Andy thought everything was a fucking joke, because the bottom line is we’re all fools, idiots, and jackasses.” As Dana Carvey once said, “All roads lead to Kaufman.”

  There’s always a price paid for “bringing in the new” and Andy was only human. He did at times worry that he might end up a has-been with his pushing of the envelope. Still, he’d rather be true to his art than play it safe doing Taxi, which he felt was “somebody else’s playground.”

  ***

  Lynne

  That was the beauty of Andy’s work. If he really did become a “has-been,” well, he had already glorified has-beens in his work! So perhaps being a has-been was all part of the act. He also thought he would become a wrestling manager. Now, most Hollywood stars would be appalled at the thought of lowering themselves to the level of professional wrestling, but to Andy, being a wrestling manager would have been the epitome of greatness, the culmination of his career. Fuck movies, fuck Taxi. He didn’t care how much money he made, he was in it for the purity of his art. And to have fun, of course.

  Could George Shapiro have done more to support Andy’s artistry? Perhaps. He tried because he knew Andy was original and at times brilliant. But Shapiro is a Hollywood manager in the traditional sense. It all gets down to making as much money as possible for his client and his agency. He knew Andy was ahead of his time, but George and his partner Howard West lived in the present. I hope that today George takes pride in the many accolades and praise that Andy is receiving. Andy and George both deserve it. George backed his friend and it cost George. After all, it was George who got the phone calls of rage from producers and club owners when Andy got into his “destructive mode.” As George said, “I suffered more than Andy, because the backlash came directly to me.” In one particular incident, Andy had George book Tony Clifton on The Dinah Shore Show, a homogenized effluent of mindless patter and less-than-trivial guests, all contrived to give its target—stultified, mid-life housewives—something to watch in the afternoon. During a cooking segment with Dinah, she said something that set Tony off. Clifton picks up a bowl of freshly whipped egg batter and pours it over her head. Picture the film Carrie with the bucket of blood. Bedlam breaks loose. Clifton is once again unceremoniously escorted out of the studio by security. George apologetically sent cases of champagne and flowers to Dinah and the producer of the show for two weeks in a row. It’s funny. Nowadays George himself has taken up TM, along with his client Jerry Seinfeld. I guess if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

  ***

  Here’s an interesting insight that Andy shared with his manager George Shapiro:

  It used to be my playground, George, and now I feel it’s somebody else’s playground. I need to feel that it’s my playground again. And by doing routines like The Great Gatsby and wrestling—even if nobody likes it—it’s necessary to feel it’s my playground again. This year has been a very commercial year for me with Taxi and everything and that’s great commercially. It gets more people out to see my live show. But I’ve been feeling down artistically. I want to start having integrity in what I do again, or else I’m just like everybody else.

  George loved Andy and because of that he wanted him to be happy. So George was torn between a successful commercial career, which Andy hated, and his being true to his artistic standards, which would be a career-killer. George would harken back to the early days of Andy’s career. Before reading The Great Gatsby, which would clear the room, Andy had been doing another bit that was equally deadly, called appropriately “the Bombing Routine.” I think even today if you mention “the Bombing Routine” around George, his blood pressure will start to rise.

  “The Bombing Routine” is just as its name implies. Andy would be in his Foreign Man character and start doing terrible impressions, which sounded nothing like the person. How could it? After all, he was speaking in his Foreign Man accent. But he’d go on, impression after impression—Jimmy Carter, Archie Bunker, Ed Sullivan, etc.—each impression worse than the one before. The audience would laugh, but only because it was so bad. Soon Foreign Man would figure it out and say to the audience, “You’re not laughing with me, but at me,” and begin to cry uncontrollably. Soon, he would strike his conga on the downbeat of every sob until he created a steady rhythm. The routine would end with an incredible conga solo that would bring audiences to their feet … sometimes. If Andy didn’t like the audience or the club manager, or even if he just had a whim, he would never go into the conga beats. He wouldn’t strike the conga at all. Instead, he’d just cry. Many a club owner would bring down the curtain on this “Bombing Routine.” George would be perplexed as to why Andy would do such a thing. I believe Andy got off from the rejection of being fired and his thumbing his nose at society. It’s similar to Miles Davis, who used to turn his back to the audience altogether and face the musicians who were playing behind him.

  It’s like Pavlov and his young daughter. What Pavlov would do is have a large assortment of delectable foods laid out on the dinner table and then—making sure his daughter was ravenous—he had her sit in front of it, but he wouldn’t let her eat. She would sit there just taking it all in, and then he would have the food removed and taken back into the kitchen. He did this over and over again. He believed it “trained” his daughter at an early age to build up a “resistance to disappointment” throughout her entire life.

  A similar concept worked on Andy after his grandfather, Papu, stopped coming around. Andy withdrew into himself. Once he came of school age and was forced to be around other kids, he continued to withdraw—very shy and aloof. Kids would be mean to him and taunt him for being such a recluse. But he oddly began to find solace in this loser kind of mentality. It would eventually work for him onstage: his ineptness warranted laughter. The more abuse he could inflict on himself in the Foreign Man character, the more the audiences loved it. Self-denigration works onstage. Before he w
as famous and recognizable, I actually have watched women in the audience yell at their boyfriends to stop laughing at him. In fact, that became the inside joke. One would bring an unsuspecting friend to The Improv or Catch A Rising Star to basically laugh at this pathetic individual dying on stage. How often have I heard a customer complaining to Budd Friedman (owner of The Improv) that he was an awful person to put this sad man onstage to be ridiculed. Once Dick Ebersol and Lorne Michaels spotted him and put him on national TV, Andy began to be financially rewarded for this behavior. He too would learn a valuable lesson: rejection and hurt became kindred spirits to him. They made him who he was, empowered him like Pavlov’s daughter. Eventually he would learn to seek out situations where he would be humiliated and rejected, such as being kicked off Taxi, SNL, or the whole entertainment industry, for that matter. It’s the same kind of thrill that people who like to cut themselves get. Jeff Conaway said, “I was beating the hell out of him and he loved it.” A classic masochist if there ever was one. And now with his new “Dying Routine,” he hit pay dirt, for he could witness his own suffering and death just like the Nazarene. But in Andy’s case, live to tell about it. Remember the first rule of Fight Club? You don’t talk about Fight Club. Masochism protected by a code of ethics—the wrestlers’ code. Andy Kaufman died for our sins all right, and he is coming back to make sure we haven’t forgotten it. Is he going to show? It’s impossible for him to stay away. It just “Hurts So Good.”

  Andy’s whole life and act is built around rejections:

  His grandfather rejects him.

  Kids at school reject him.

  Foreign Man is rejected.

  Taxi rejected him.

  SNL rejected him.

  The TM movement rejected him.

  Finally, he decides to beat them at their own game, and he rejects himself by faking his death.

  Rejection, rejection, rejection. It’s a theme that would run throughout his entire life. If he no longer exists, he can no longer be rejected. It’s spiritual jujitsu. Use your opponent’s force against you to overcome him. Meanwhile, all the other comics are telling mother-in-law jokes. Damn right he’s a god to them.

  ***

  In the last couple of years alone, three well-respected art houses in New York—MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), Maccarone Gallery, and Participant Inc.—have all launched retrospectives of Andy’s work, along with major articles in both The New York Times and The Huffington Post, thanks to the gargantuan efforts of fellow artist and curator Jonathan Berger. Today Kaufman is considered as important as Warhol. Add to this the release of his first comedy album in thirty-five years (thanks to Lynne), along with this book, and it’s easy to see that Andy Kaufman gets more popular as the years go on than Frank Sinatra does. This new infusion of interest is directly tied to the film, and Danny DeVito, Ron Meyer, Stacey Snider, Jim Carrey, Milos Forman, Michael Hausman, George Shapiro, Howard West, Stacey Sher, Michael Shamberg, Lynne Margulies, Scott Alexander, and Larry Karaszewski should be applauded for keeping Andy alive today.

  We need more renegades like Andy in all walks of life, willing to put principles before their wallets. Andy threw the gauntlet down, drew the line in the sand for every artist who has come since. Ask major comedians out there today and they’ll all tell you how important Kaufman was and is in their development.

  Let me give you an example of one of them: comedian Dave Chappelle. In 2005, Comedy Central announced that Dave Chappelle had quit, leaving behind his top-rated show on Comedy Central along with a $50 million contract. The industry was shocked. Who in his right mind would walk away from that kind of cash? And yet he did. Just got up and left. Obviously he had to be mad as a hatter or he made an ethical decision, but making an ethical decision over money in Hollywood means you are mad as a hatter. Why did he do it? Nobody knew.

  Cut to the Aspen Comedy Festival, where the who’s who of comedy royalty would meet every year for four days. One of the top events in 2005 was a fundraiser for the American Film Institute hosted at film producer Jon Peters’s Aspen estate. About 150 guests attended and rumor had it that Dave Chappelle would make a rare appearance. I, like all guests, was transported to the party on a horse-drawn sleigh that briskly traveled up and down the snow-laden countryside while we were snugly wrapped in alpaca fur. The bells clustered around the neck of the Clydesdale announced a new visitor had arrived at the door, where we were greeted with a hot mug of cider. The interior of Peters’s mansion was decked out for the Christmas season with a Christmas tree in every room. It was quite impressive to say the least.

  Chappelle was on everyone’s mind but was nowhere in sight. I was beginning to think that he was a no-show when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was a tall, lean, no-messin’-around black man. He whispered in my ear, “Mr. Zmuda—Dave Chappelle would like to see you.” I was led through the mansion to a section that had been shut off to the rest of the guests. I followed this stranger up through a series of stairways and turns culminating at a closed bedroom door. I could hear the sound of voices inside. The stranger knocked on the door with a special code and then opened it and gestured for me to step inside. There were only about four or five people in the room, most sitting on the edge of the bed smoking the wacky. One of them was Dave Chappelle. “ZMUDA! OK, everybody, here’s the man I’ve been telling you about!” He got up and gave me the “soul brother” handshake. Another member of his entourage passed me the joint. I took a quick hit.

  “Folks, listen up,” Chappelle continued. “It was because of this man and Andy Kaufman that I quit my job!” For the life of me I didn’t know where Chappelle was going with this. $50 million down the drain because of me. I wasn’t sure this was such a good thing. I winced. “I did?”

  “Damn straight, my brother,” Chappelle said. “It was your book [referring to Andy Kaufman Revealed!]. I love that book. Everybody should read it,” he said, then proudly announced to the others, “Him and Kaufman told the entire entertainment industry to fuck themselves! I did just what you and Andy did!” Everyone around agreed with Dave and looked at me as if I was some sort of white Eldridge Cleaver, high-fiving me and giving me more ganja. Dave continued, “Really, man, that book inspired me. Truly did. That show [he was referring to Chappelle’s Show on Comedy Central] just wanted me to keep that same old step-and-fetch-it bullshit going. I wasn’t going to do it! I don’t care how much they paid me. I got to do my own thing, like Andy did!” I joked and said, “Now Dave, let’s not be too hasty! Fifty million dollars.” Everyone laughed. I continued, “So how you doin’?” “Great, man. Really, Bob, that show was killin’ me. Now I know how Andy was feeling having to do Taxi.” There was a knock on the door. A voice said, “They’re waiting for you, Dave.” “Oh, yeah. I’m coming.”

  We all followed Chappelle as he left and proceeded back through the maze of halls until we got through to the main party. When the guests spotted him, the place went up with spontaneous applause. He worked his way up to a makeshift stage in front of a massive fireplace where a small band of musicians was waiting for him. He was handed a microphone and immediately went to work. He was on fire and kept everyone in stitches for the next twenty minutes and then ended his set rapping with the band.

  Weeks later, I pieced together the rest of the story. It was true. Chappelle’s Show was the hottest ticket on television. It was Comedy Central’s jewel. But the audience, both in the studio and at home, was all white. They just loved Chappelle playing the “dumb street nigger” with cocaine all over his lips while he scratched himself anxiously for another fix. Funny as all hell, but to Dave’s newfound Muslim friends back in Africa (Dave would travel there a lot), it was like, “What the hell you doin’, man?”

  It took a lot of courage for him to turn all that bread down and listen to his true self. Almost overnight because of what he did, he became a hero to the black community and his street cred rose considerably. Even the whites who miss the old shtick from the show cut him slack and admire him greatly. Nowadays he works when
ever he likes, to sold-out audiences. Recently the new head of Comedy Central said, “We’d take him back whenever he wants and next time on his terms.”

  Dave sent a strong message to the rest of the comedy community: it’s not about money. It’s about what it is you want to say. Still, I must admit I miss that step-and-fetch-it stuff. Dave still incorporates it into his act but nowadays it doesn’t become the act. Just when I thought the values of what Kaufman stood for were dead, a champion like Dave Chappelle steps forward and reminds me that there is still a real vanguard out there that can’t be bought, just like Andy.

  Dave Chappelle—$50 million. That’s one heavy motherfucker! Of course, he does point out in his act that his wife is “just beginning to talk to him again.”

  Lynne

  Very interesting! Because when that happened, when Chappelle walked away from his show, I thought, “Wow, that’s so much like what Andy would have done!” Same with Joaquin Phoenix’s movie I’m Still Here. If that wasn’t inspired by Kaufman, I’ll eat pickled pig’s feet. Not to mention Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat. And Anchorman—it seems that Will Ferrell has lifted a page straight out of Andy’s “alter-ego” playbook and now promotes that successful franchise while not breaking character, à la Clifton. Don’t get me started.

  ***

  “Dick Ebersol killed my son.” These shocking and bitter words were a constant refrain from Stanley Kaufman. He was referring to the spat that Andy had with Dick Ebersol, producer of Saturday Night Live, which would lead to his being fired from the show and which subsequently, according to Stanley, is what got Andy terribly depressed, sick, and led to his death. The Kaufman/Ebersol Battle may be a case of, “I’ve made you. I can also break you.”

  First let’s go back to 1975, when two young and untried producers, Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol, are casting a new late-night show for NBC called Saturday Night Live. At the time, late Saturday night was the worst time slot on television. The only reason the show came about is that some bean-counter in the advertising department at NBC figured out that more revenue could be gotten if they ran a live show as opposed to a pre-recorded program. Other than that, the network couldn’t care less about SNL. Creatively there were no expectations whatsoever. Ebersol caught Andy’s act at Budd Friedman’s Improv. He was immediately hooked and brought Andy to the attention of his partner, Lorne, and SNL talent exec John Head. Lorne agreed and Kaufman was hired to be a semi-regular performer on SNL. Overnight, it would make him famous. Lorne, who was quite sophisticated, realized early on that Andy was so unusual in what he did that it was almost impossible to give him notes on whatever it was he was doing. After all, giving Andy notes would be akin to telling Picasso that perhaps his choice of colors wasn’t correct. At best, Lorne could say, “Andy, make it longer” or “make it shorter.” Other than that, Andy was totally left alone, safe in his own bizarre world.