Episode 274 - Bob Zmuda
Guest:Lock the gates!
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:WTF?
Guest:And it's also... Eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck tuckians?
Marc:What the fuckalos?
Marc:And what the fuckstables?
Marc:All of yous.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for joining me.
Marc:Thank you for listening to my show.
Marc:Did you guys hear about this thing?
Marc:Did you hear about this thing we're doing?
Marc:Did you hear about the first 100 episodes of WTF available as MP3 files on DVD that is now available from AST Records?
Marc:Yes, it's out.
Marc:It's here.
Marc:Go to astrecords.com slash WTF.com.
Marc:Or you can go over to WTFpod.com to order a copy.
Marc:Nice gift box, two DVDs, and on one of them is a live video WTF with Artie Lang and Ira Glass.
Marc:Enough with this plugging.
Marc:I just know that a lot of people who have come to the show late are constantly asking, how do I get the first 100?
Marc:How do I get the first 200?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You can get the app, obviously, but this is a way.
Marc:You're going to have the files now.
Marc:Here you go.
Marc:Reasonably priced.
Marc:$49.99 for like over 100 hours of entertainment.
Marc:100 hours audio, couple hours video.
Marc:Enough of that.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Let's move on.
Marc:Let's talk about what's going on on the show today.
Marc:Bob Zamuda, the raconteur, the legend, the creator of Comic Relief and famous...
Marc:partner of Andy Kaufman through all of it you looking for Andy Kaufman stories step right up the carnival starts here we'll get to that in just a second I uh I never saw Andy Kaufman but I'll tell you when I saw that uh Carnegie Hall concert for the first time changed my fucking life in a way that it was just one of those guys where you're like oh my god uh he really pulled that off and
Marc:Unbelievable.
Marc:But I know you Kaufman heads out there are going to dig this.
Marc:It's a great talk.
Marc:And it goes on for a while.
Marc:Had this weird experience where it happens occasionally.
Marc:I wouldn't call myself a celebrity.
Marc:I don't know that I'd call myself a star by any stretch of the imagination.
Marc:But I am a known quantity, kinda.
Marc:I've sort of talked about this before, but I was at dinner recently with the lovely Jessica.
Marc:The cats stayed at home.
Marc:I don't take them out to dinner.
Marc:And we're just sitting there eating our dinner.
Marc:And as people will, they intrude upon my private time in space to say things like, do we know you from somewhere?
Marc:It was a family at the table next to ours.
Marc:There was a mom and a dad and maybe a teenage daughter.
Marc:And I'm looking at them and they look over at me.
Marc:I could tell there was a little huddle, little family huddle about they were playing the who is that guy game.
Marc:So she turns to me and she goes, we know you from somewhere, right?
Marc:You're an actor.
Marc:And I go, I don't know.
Marc:I'm a comedian.
Marc:She goes, right.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:But I could tell she wasn't convinced.
Marc:I could tell she was still scrambling to put me into some context to surround my face with a memory that she had of me.
Marc:But it wasn't coming.
Marc:And then the father was like, oh, right.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Comedian.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know.
Marc:I've done Conan O'Brien.
Marc:They're like that.
Marc:That must be it.
Marc:But I knew that it wasn't.
Marc:I knew that that wasn't it.
Marc:And they knew it wasn't it.
Marc:So now I should just let it go and eat my dinner.
Marc:But now I can't I can't get it out of my head.
Marc:Like, and I start summing them up.
Marc:I'm like, where would they know me from?
Marc:And then it dawns on me, here I am having dinner with my lovely girlfriend.
Marc:I can't focus because I'm playing the Mark Maron quiz game with his family across from me.
Marc:I'm trying to get the answer to the question that they didn't even ask.
Marc:Ridiculous.
Marc:So I say, I lean in.
Marc:Now I'm interrupting their dinner.
Marc:Now I'm intruding.
Marc:I'm like, real time with Bill Maher.
Marc:They're like, that's it.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:And I'm like, did I get it?
Marc:Did I win?
Marc:Did I win the Mark Maron quiz game?
Marc:Because I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:And it should have been enough.
Marc:I should have been an answer just sitting here.
Marc:But I'm not at that level of celebrity.
Marc:I still had to go ahead and get involved in playing the what's that guy's name and where do we know him from Mark Maron quiz game.
Marc:I'm glad I came up with it.
Marc:Everybody was very relieved.
Marc:Bob Zamuda in the garage.
Marc:We're talking about the price of fame.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The costs.
Marc:You know, I got to be honest with you, man.
Marc:And this is just my bullshit.
Marc:Here's how self-involved and grandiose I am.
Marc:I thought, like, there's an outside chance that Andy's coming.
Yeah.
Marc:Like, I thought, man, that would be the greatest WTF episode in the world if you came up with a 60-year-old Andy Kaufman.
Marc:Well, invite Tony Clifton, and maybe he'll take off the makeup, and who knows what's underneath.
Marc:I didn't know.
Marc:When I saw you were coming on the show, I didn't know who I was going to interview or how we were going to do it.
Marc:I was thinking of sending Tony, but I said, no, no.
Marc:No, it would have been too crass.
Marc:We've got to talk for an hour.
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:Might not have lasted 10 minutes.
Guest:Yeah, Tony wouldn't have left his car in this neighborhood.
Marc:He would have sat out there with, what, a hooker and the driver?
Guest:Absolutely, absolutely.
Marc:So now, as a guy who, like, I know you've been doing Comic Relief, and that's your brainchild, and that's a huge thing, and it does a great service for the world.
Marc:It's been going on for how long?
Marc:26 years now.
Marc:Now, when does it happen?
Guest:We do, you know, we do it every few years.
Guest:It depends.
Marc:So it's not a regular thing.
Guest:It was a regular thing?
Guest:It was more of a regular thing when my buddy, my ex-comedy team partner, Chris Albrecht.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, him and I had a comedy team.
Marc:Chris Albrecht, who was the head of HBO.
Marc:He was the head of HBO.
Marc:And I think he believed he, well, he managed a club, too.
Marc:Didn't he manage the improv briefly?
Guest:He managed the improv for a while, yeah.
Marc:He was a comedy team with you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We started out, I met him in summer stock.
Guest:And this guy, hey, guys, folks.
Guest:Without this name, this Chris Albrecht, this is the guy that brought the nation, the Sopranos, Sex and the City, Oz, Six Feet Under, everything on Instagram.
Marc:Isn't he over at Starz now?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I met him in Summer Stock.
Marc:Where?
Guest:Mansfield, Pennsylvania.
Marc:You went to Carnegie Mellon?
Marc:I went to Carnegie Mellon.
Guest:For the theatrical parts?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm at Carnegie Mellon.
Guest:I see a thing on that for Summer Stock.
Guest:I go there, and I meet this other guy.
Guest:And Albrecht was kind of a put-on artist like myself.
Guest:And I thought I was the star of this stupid fucking musical we were doing at the time.
Marc:You were in Summerstock doing a musical.
Guest:Summerstock, yeah, doing The Drunkard, the musical verse.
Guest:And Chris came up to me.
Guest:I didn't know him too well.
Guest:It was kind of competition with the broads and stuff.
Guest:And he came up to me and he said, you know, Bob, I didn't know.
Guest:I heard about your acting villain and everything, but...
Guest:I must tell you, you really blew everybody away.
Guest:And you see that beautiful girl that's standing over the corner there?
Guest:There's a little party out there.
Guest:She is so intimidated to want to come up to you.
Guest:She's just like blown.
Guest:I just want to let you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hey, thanks, dude.
Guest:Thanks, dude.
Guest:Thanks for the heads up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I go up to her.
Guest:No clue.
Guest:You made the whole fucking thing up.
Guest:The girl's kind of like, get away from me.
Marc:And then he walked up to her and says, is that guy bothering you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:just about but you know it's so funny what so then what happened i went to uh so him and i became real good buddies and i said look what let's become stars we're either gonna go to hollywood or new york now were you along here then like i'm trying yeah yeah my hair has not changed beard the whole thing like you know yeah yeah pretty actor did a little shakespeare yeah yeah trying to get laid you got it okay you got it and so uh we went to i said look so we we went to new york city
Guest:To Becoming Stars.
Guest:Thought like overnight it would all happen.
Marc:Oh, this is fucking, that's right.
Marc:So it was the original improv that Albrecht was at Doorman.
Marc:It was the original.
Marc:On 44th Street.
Marc:44th and Hell's Kitchen.
Marc:I know, I was there at the end of that.
Marc:Did you, oh, you walked in?
Marc:Yeah, when Silver had it.
Marc:I worked there at the end when it was just a ghost.
Guest:So I came in with Albrecht, you know, we didn't see the place yet.
Guest:We went to New York and we starved to death and we actually lost our apartment and had to live in a theater, you know, dressing room.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:For quite a while.
Guest:And then one day I made a left turn.
Guest:I knew nothing about fucking comedy clubs.
Guest:I made a left turn in front instead of a right.
Guest:And I walked into the improvisation.
Guest:The original improv.
Guest:First comedy club in America.
Guest:The original brick wall.
Guest:The original, still there.
Guest:Not the club anymore.
Guest:Now it's a Greek restaurant.
Guest:It's like an Italian, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, something.
Guest:But anyway, I walked in there.
Guest:And you have to realize, before the comedy thing takes off, this is the only place.
Guest:There's nothing else.
Marc:And it was a bit of a cabaret then, right?
Marc:I mean, they had singing acts.
Guest:Well, it was called the improvisation because Silver Freeman, Bud's wife, was a dancer on Broadway.
Guest:And so she convinced Bud that there was no place for these actors to go and hang out afterwards.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So the idea, that's what was called the improvisation.
Guest:So the actors are supposed to come there and improvise.
Guest:But what started to happen is the stand-up guys started coming there, because there was no place to go.
Guest:There was the Bosch belt, the cats go.
Marc:Right, it was a new generation of guys who wanted to do it, that were inspiring.
Marc:Because you still had the Bosch belt, but the rest was just fragmented.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So when I walked in, so I walked in, and it was Freddie Prinze, Jimmy Walker, and Gabe Kaplan, and they were the first tier, and they all moved out to the West Coast because they all had the TV shows.
Guest:Quickly.
Guest:Quickly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So something in me at 19 or 20 years old since that, hmm,
Guest:I think something's happening here.
Marc:And was Rick Overton there at the time?
Marc:Yes, he was.
Marc:Rick Overton.
Marc:Yeah, Overton.
Marc:John Mendoza, or was that later?
Marc:Dom Irera, were they there yet?
Guest:Yes, yes, yeah.
Guest:Well, Dom's a little later.
Marc:Dom's a little later.
Guest:But here's what it was.
Guest:So I went back to our abode.
Guest:The dressing room?
Guest:The dressing room.
Marc:With Albrecht.
Guest:And I said, fuck this acting bullshit.
Guest:I said, we need to put together, and this is Chris Albrecht, one of the gods of comedy.
Guest:I said, we need to put together a comedy act.
Guest:And he's, well, what's that?
Guest:It's Albrecht, right?
Guest:The guy that would do more spring, more comedy to HBO.
Guest:And I said, well, it's just like you, you know, it's not, we won't do standup because we're actors.
Guest:So we'll be both on stage and we'll do sketches, you know, we'll do characters.
Marc:There was a precedent set for that.
Marc:There was a lot of sketch groups around.
Marc:I just talked to Fred Willard in the seven, you know, like the.
Guest:Well, there was not just the two guy thing.
Guest:right five guys yeah and those were always later on those never worked out right you know unless it was uh second city in chicago right you know because it was just too costly to keep that many people together and egos and everything else so him and i threw an act together we went to the improv we got accepted so what so this is the gang of kids and we were all kids it was me chris albrecht larry david
Guest:Jay Leno, Elaine Boosler, Richard Lewis, Joe Piscopo.
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:Piscopo was around back then?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Joe Piscopo was around back then.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Yeah, before he got picked up from Saturday Night Live.
Guest:That's where they saw him, over at the improv.
Marc:Yeah, but he wasn't picked up from Saturday Night Live till the 80s, right?
Marc:Yeah, but he was in the club.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:I had no idea.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because you're talking about... What are you talking about, like 74?
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:74.
Guest:And so what happened is that...
Guest:And I'll never forget this.
Guest:You know, talk about how crazy things get.
Guest:There was one guy, that one comedian there, and he had this broken down motorcycle.
Guest:He always had grease on his head.
Guest:And the guy, this was his main form of transportation in the winter even.
Guest:To drive a motorcycle on the streets of New York in the winter is pretty fucked up.
Guest:Was that Jay?
Guest:It was Jay Leno.
Guest:He had no money and his hands were always greasing.
Guest:I remember Bud Freeman kept a big jar of...
Guest:lava or something to get grease off your hand.
Marc:The grit soap, that pumice soap.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, right.
Guest:That was underneath the sink, always at the impry for Jay.
Marc:It was like pink.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:That's the stuff, yeah.
Guest:And now Jay's got, in Jay's bedroom, he's got a private elevator that goes down to three underground floors
Marc:Of machine shots.
Guest:Of over 180 vintage cars.
Marc:I thought you said he had it in his bed.
Marc:Right over his bed, he had that soap.
Marc:That's kind of nasty.
Guest:Lather up, my dear.
Guest:Gritty.
Guest:So what happened is that ICM realized there's this thing called stand-up comedy.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:So Hollywood decided that, you know what, instead of hiring writers and to write a show and design a character that may or may not work, build it around a guy's act that fucking works.
Guest:That's all they were doing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:What was your act with Chris?
Guest:It was just, you know, it was just topical stuff that went on grandma jokes, you know, any kind of improvisational stuff we did.
Guest:right you know movie themes but it was not your bag necessarily it wasn't uh yeah no actually people you know i mean we laugh about it now because we always say that's a shit act and i was uh a couple years ago at some party and larry david came up to me and he said i heard you on the radio saying that you and albrecht sucked that's not he larry got really offended it wasn't even his act yeah
Guest:He said, you shouldn't be telling that.
Guest:You guys are pretty good.
Guest:But anyway, to cut to Chase, Bud, instead of that, said to Chris, offered him this job to manage the place.
Guest:So the act was over.
Guest:He couldn't be the manager and also have him back there.
Guest:I became the bartender at the comedy.
Guest:The original improv?
Marc:Was Uncle Dirty hanging around?
Marc:Yes, Uncle Dirty.
Guest:Bob Altman.
Guest:Yeah, all those guys.
Guest:And then what happened is that ICM said, hey, this stand-up, we need to know who these young comics are and sign them up now.
Guest:Well, who knows that?
Guest:Well, the guy that manages this young kid, Chris Albrecht, who manages the improv in New York, he knows who all these cats are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so they pull him away from Bud.
Guest:They go, hey, Chris.
Guest:And Chris, overnight, becomes like this super agent for ICM.
Guest:Super agent.
Guest:Huge.
Guest:Because he's signing everybody.
Marc:That's what broke open stand-up.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Modern stand-up.
Guest:And then the next thing that took place is that HBO...
Guest:was just identity with sports, was mainly the... Sports and movies.
Guest:Yeah, and the boxing with Don King, remember that?
Guest:So they said, hey, you know what?
Guest:I think this comedy thing can work for us.
Guest:Michael Fuchs, yeah.
Guest:So Michael Fuchs and a woman named Bridget Potter decided, hey, you know what?
Guest:We need to know...
Guest:Who's on the cutting edge of comedy?
Guest:So we could sign these guys and give them TV shows.
Guest:And they said, well, there's this hot agent over at ICM, Chris Albrecht.
Guest:So Chris goes from managing a night manager of the shithole comedy club.
Marc:The original shithole.
Guest:The original shithole.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Just a huge, huge, huge career.
Guest:And then, of course, once he gets implanted over at HBO, he starts doing dramas.
Guest:And like I said, he's the guy.
Marc:Sure, he was great.
Marc:There'd be no Sopranos.
Marc:We just sort of went through about 25 years.
Guest:Pretty good, huh?
Marc:Pretty quickly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But getting back to the original improv, I mean, when did your relationship with Kaufman start?
Guest:Well, this is interesting.
Guest:Kaufman, so I'm the bartender there.
Guest:uh and and and and and andy came in andy would always come in in character as foreign man yeah so he never schmoozed with the other comics so he was one of those he was in character he was a he was a he would come in an hour before the show started because you remember the old improv there was the bar areas on the right ticket you had a couple drinks and waited for the room to empty out the rope then you win it with the rope get out of the aisle yeah but
Guest:little room very small room yeah so but so i'm the bartender now chris is the night manager and albrecht i mean uh kaufman would always come in in character this is amazing and let me just go digress a little and just give you the first time i saw andy i go into the improv
Guest:1974.
Guest:And I see this guy in the corner arguing with Bud before the show starts.
Guest:He's got his suitcase.
Guest:He's in the foreign man character, but nobody knows.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think this guy's real.
Guest:Take me, please.
Guest:Can I please go on the stage?
Guest:He's saying that to Bud.
Guest:He's saying that to Bud.
Guest:And they're not doing a real big presentation like they're doing a bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's done.
Guest:You almost got to eat.
Guest:But you know something.
Guest:And there are people waiting to go on the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you know something's going on.
Guest:So you kind of put your ear by.
Guest:I'm always looking for an accident to happen or something.
Guest:I love that shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I'm listening to this shit.
Guest:I'm going, this poor son of a bitch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Bud's going, no, we can't put you on.
Guest:And so then you see the whole show.
Guest:You forget about this guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Bud at the end of the night would go, ladies and gentlemen, I'm
Guest:Now, I usually don't do this, but I don't know if you saw one.
Guest:Was Bud hosting the shows?
Guest:Yeah, Bud would always be the host, the MC.
Guest:And he said, I don't usually do this, but there's a guy here, a very nice guy, and he just got off the bus from the Greyhound Buzz for his night, and he thinks he's going to be performing at the Improv.
Guest:Please, we have auditions once a month on a Monday night.
Guest:So don't tell your friends to come and do this, but he's a nice, it's up to you.
Guest:Doing him a favor.
Guest:Yeah, so let's get him up here.
Guest:So he comes up and Andy goes, thank you very much.
Guest:And you're just watching, I'm watching this.
Guest:And he starts with the jokes and impressions.
Guest:And I'd like to do the Archie Bunker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You meathead, get out the meat chair.
Guest:And it's just terrible impressions.
Guest:And people are going, oh, God.
Guest:This is really bad.
Guest:But it's really bad.
Guest:It's not like a guy trying to, you really believe this poor son of a bitch.
Guest:And people, but you're laughing so hard.
Guest:And there were guys.
Guest:For the wrong reasons.
Guest:Yeah, and I saw girls hitting their boyfriend saying, quit laughing.
Guest:I'm not going to go out with you again.
Guest:That poor man.
Guest:I'm actually sitting there, and a guy gets up, and Bud would always be in the back with that little control desk, and he had the lights and the mic.
Guest:There wasn't much shit.
Guest:Two lights, I think, two spotlights or something.
Guest:And the podium.
Guest:And a guy came up to him and said, you said, Bud, I said, you should call 911 because this guy's going to kill him.
Guest:I said, this is awful.
Guest:This is just awful.
Guest:Someone said that to him.
Guest:To Bud, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And now Kaufman, foreign man, realizes that the audience is not laughing with him but at him.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he crashes and burns and breaks down with terrible sobbing.
Guest:I mean, you felt so fucking bad.
Guest:I mean, really, the people who were laughing felt so fucking bad because you could see this kid's dream is out the window.
Guest:And then he said, I'd like to do the last impression.
Yeah.
Guest:turns around and all of a sudden the elvis music starts 2001 the lights change he puts on the jacket and you go what and he turns around you know and he turns around drop dead fucking elvis and he goes in and people are like you're dead this guy fucked you up big time yeah and then after the elvis
Guest:Instead of just like, hey, how you doing?
Guest:He goes, thank you very much.
Guest:Back to that character.
Guest:So you are so confused and amazed.
Guest:I'm like, what the fuck?
Guest:Is this guy for real?
Guest:That's always the question with Kaufman.
Guest:Is this for real?
Guest:And he kind of carried that mantra throughout his whole career.
Guest:And so finally, this is the first time I saw him.
Guest:So I go outside because I wait until the club's closing.
Guest:And he's got a car out there, so he never came on the bus.
Guest:He used to have his dad's car.
Guest:He has his trunk up.
Marc:His dad's car.
Marc:How old is he at this point, 19?
Guest:No, no, maybe about 22.
Guest:But what happens is that he sees me on the side, and he had all kinds of props, and he says to me, he says, I have bad back.
Guest:Can you help me, please?
Guest:He's got, so I'm loading Congress.
Guest:He had a 16 millimeter projector, which was big, heavy fucking thing.
Guest:You know, he had, you know, he had magic as he had puppets, symbols, all kinds of crap.
Guest:And I'm carrying this stuff.
Guest:I'm putting in the trunk of his car.
Guest:And I no sooner get the last thing in the trunk of this car that he turns to me.
Guest:He goes, thank you very much, sucker.
Guest:And then he jumped and he pulled it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That's my first meeting with Andy Kaufman.
Marc:So when he came into the club at that time, I mean, my image is just from being in comedy for as long as I've been in, when you meet somebody that's sort of uniquely talented and socially awkward, I don't picture him with a lot of friends.
Marc:I picture that people don't really know what to do with him.
Guest:Well, like I said, when he came in, he'd always be in character.
Guest:But did he have friends?
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah, the guys knew him.
Marc:But did they know him as the weird guy?
Guest:No, no, they knew the real Andy.
Guest:But Andy was kind of like Foreign Man, but without the accent.
Guest:So he always tapped into a little, you know, Andy was awkward.
Guest:Andy was a real womanizer.
Guest:The only ones he would really talk to in the clubs were like the waitresses.
Guest:That's where him and Elaine Boosler became lovers.
Guest:But the guys, and it was, Jay Leno said it best.
Guest:He said, when somebody asked Jay, did you ever get jealous early on of Andy?
Guest:He said, no, none of us did because what he was doing was so foreign to what we were doing.
Guest:It was like we're speaking English and he's speaking Chinese.
Marc:Well, he sort of cut out this, like, it's weird because now I don't know how much comedy you watch anymore, but like having been in the clubs for 25 years, that there are sort of archetypes.
Marc:It's almost like Comedia Della Arte, that there seems to be forms of stand-up that repeat themselves, you know, every 10 years or so, that there's a model.
Marc:And Kaufman, you know, created this zone, this model, and there are people that are going to try to honor that, which means it's a free-for-all, do whatever you want, fuck with the reality, and, you know, go in and out of characters so no one really knows what's really
Marc:going on exactly and it's it's rare that somebody can do it well yes you're a lot of guys call me up and they'll say and i want to say names and say i'm doing i'm doing leno you got to watch it it's just like what andy would do and i watch it and go oh brother because yeah because the the balls necessary to do that are so uh deep i mean it and he sort of kept that through his entire career that there was really no fear of the audience completely fucking hating him
Guest:Because, like I said, it goes back to the 60s.
Guest:This is what we were talking about earlier.
Guest:It goes back to the 60s.
Guest:Andy Kaufman came out of the 60s.
Guest:Like I said, we were just talking about it.
Guest:On Wall Street now, they're complaining, give us the jobs.
Guest:Back then, you were doing well if you didn't have the job.
Guest:Fuck the man.
Guest:Yeah, fuck them.
Guest:If you had a job, you were square.
Guest:You were a dork.
Guest:You weren't part of what was happening in the youth movement, counterculture.
Guest:So Kaufman was a product of that.
Guest:Kaufman came from a rich family.
Guest:He had a black nanny.
Guest:His dad was in the jewelry business in Great Neck.
Marc:Classic Jewish upbringing.
Guest:Yeah, and he rebelled against it.
Guest:He left the house when he was about.
Guest:Andy Kaufman used to have hair longer than me, a big beard.
Guest:You should see the early pictures of him.
Guest:And he was a real hippie, and he left his house, and he moved into the city park and slept on a park bench.
Marc:Just because.
Marc:So he was an upper-middle-class rich kid.
Guest:Yeah, just to fuck with the family.
Marc:Right, just to say fuck with him.
Guest:And the cops wouldn't arrest him.
Guest:They'd go, that's Stanley Kaufman's kid.
Guest:And Stanley was well-known in the community.
Guest:He had money.
Guest:So they just left him alone.
Guest:But Andy used to take every kind of fucking drug there was.
Guest:He was a teenage alcoholic.
Guest:Didn't he knock some woman up?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:And yeah, he got a girl pregnant when he was 18.
Guest:She was 18.
Guest:Of course, the parents did the right thing and decided they put the kid up for adoption.
Guest:And here's what's so weird.
Guest:of how these careers take place.
Guest:And his is one of the weirdest.
Guest:So he goes to Graham Junior College.
Guest:Okay, which is a shit college.
Guest:It doesn't even exist anymore.
Guest:It's in Boston.
Guest:He goes to Graham Junior College into the TV department, TV production.
Marc:At a community college?
Marc:At a community college.
Marc:A two-year school in Boston.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:And so his parents are disappointed in him.
Marc:No, they're happy.
Marc:At least he's doing that.
Marc:Right, okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And he's there, and he's taking TV classes and whatnot.
Guest:And a girl, and one day in the cafeteria, this hot-looking chick comes up.
Guest:She's walking around the cafeteria and asking people if they have any talent because she's supposed to put on a talent show the next night at the student union.
Guest:And she obviously doesn't have any talent gathering anyone.
Guest:So she comes up to Andy.
Guest:He says, no, no.
Guest:He says, no, I don't do anything like that.
Guest:But she's really hot.
Guest:So he goes, well, there was something.
Guest:When I was 11 years old, I used to put on these children parties.
Guest:He'd put a sign up at the food store for $4 for your kid's part.
Guest:He would entertain.
Guest:The cow goes, moo, mighty, mighty, all this kid shit.
Guest:Where'd you get this information?
Guest:He told you?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, of course.
Guest:My best friend.
Guest:And so what happens?
Guest:So he then at Graham June Council, this girl's saying this to him.
Guest:And she says, well, wait a second.
Guest:You had an action.
Guest:He said, no, this is something I did when I was 11 years old.
Guest:She said, please, please, please, please.
Guest:And she's coming on to him a little.
Guest:Says, OK, I'll be there tomorrow night.
Guest:So he goes to the coffee club the next night.
Guest:He has a guitar and that's when he has the record player.
Guest:Here I come to save the day.
Guest:Now, these are adults, college kids and adults sitting in the audience.
Guest:It was like wine and they're smoking and everything else.
Marc:He really thought this would get him laid?
Guest:Yes, that's the only reason he did it.
Marc:How is that going to get you laid?
Marc:Because he was helping this girl.
Marc:I know, but it was terrible.
Guest:Well, he just thought, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But what happens, he starts doing this kid show, and it takes off like wildfire.
Guest:People are on the floor.
Guest:It is so different.
Guest:And afterwards, he's thinking to himself, because he had no idea what he was going to do in his life.
Guest:But he knew one thing.
Guest:He could see people rolling in the aisles.
Guest:He had never performed.
Marc:Before that, he had only performed it for kids.
Marc:Was he an innately funny guy?
Guest:i mean like if you were sitting there talking to him i mean was his like like yes yeah yeah yeah yeah of course well yeah but just naturally right yeah he had no you know never wanted to be a stand-up or anything like that but he was a funny guy oh yeah of course all day 24 hours a day yeah you know it was a life was a cosmic joke to him that's why he could comment on it you know and so what happened he then goes okay this is what i want to do with my life so he drops out of he drops out of this school
Guest:And he says he's now going to become he knows what he wants to do in life.
Guest:He's now going to become a star.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But before he does, he's a huge Elvis fan.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But before he does this, he needs to go and see Elvis Presley.
Guest:So it's 1969.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He hitchhikes.
Guest:He has no money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He hitchhikes from Great Neck all the way to Las Vegas.
Guest:He goes to see Elvis.
Guest:Now.
Guest:what i mean here is he's not going to see the show he has no money yeah he doesn't care to see the show yeah he wants to meet elvis himself yeah and he knew everything about elvis he knew that elvis was at the time was fucking everything that moved so elvis always carried out like a gun in his boot because like he figured like pissed off husbands and boyfriends wanted to kill him right
Guest:So Ellis never went down the, he only went down the service elevator from his room.
Guest:Sure, okay.
Guest:And back then, you know, in those days, Mark, you know, they had the kitchen.
Guest:Because then for those Vegas shows, you ate and you saw the show in the same room.
Guest:They don't do that anymore.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, but the old Vegas stuff.
Marc:Small hotels, Lion Jacks.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So Andy knew this about Elvis, that Elvis was going to come down.
Guest:So he was obsessed with Elvis.
Guest:So he sneaks into about two in the afternoon over into the Hilton Hotel.
Guest:He brings a gallon jug, empty jug, that he could piss in.
Guest:And he hides in a closet off the kitchen, knowing that Elvis is going to go through.
Guest:So about a quarter to eight, Elvis and the Memphis Mafia, Red and Sonny West, are coming down.
Guest:And Andy steps out of this thing.
Guest:And Andy described it to me.
Guest:He said, Bob, it was like I was Sirhan or something.
Guest:I stepped out.
Guest:Here's this thin, little, skinny, little Jewish boy.
Guest:The West brothers went for the guns right away.
Guest:But Elvis went, whoa, whoa, whoa, because he could see this kid was no thing.
Guest:threat yeah right and I'm telling you this is this would change everything in Andy's life and he stopped and Elvis stopped and look and he said he said Mr. Presley I just want you to know that I am your biggest fan thank you very much and he said and I'm your biggest fan and someday I want to be famous like you and Elvis Presley looks Kaufman straight in the eyes takes his hand and puts it on his shoulder Andy's shoulder and says I believe that will happen
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:And he walked away.
Guest:Now, get this.
Guest:This is true.
Guest:I believe that will happen two and a half years later.
Marc:Andy goes back to New York.
Marc:Now, he goes to see Bud Freeman.
Marc:I feel like you're a blind Homer telling me about Odysseus.
Guest:Andy goes back to New York.
Guest:He goes to the improv, puts him on.
Guest:After then, he said the confidence that Elvis, he said he felt like it was like the Pope giving you the blessing or something, you know?
Guest:And he said, you know, a made man like in Goodfellas or something.
Guest:He said it just charged him.
Guest:So he went to New York two and a half years from that meeting with Elvis.
Guest:Andy Kaufman was the hottest cabaret act in New York City.
Guest:Did he credit Elvis?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Outside of just you?
Marc:Did he say- To other people?
Guest:Oh yeah, if you knew Andy in the story, of course.
Guest:He told you that Elvis put the juice in him?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:But what's interesting, so now Andy is over at Bud Freeman's Improv.
Guest:There's Jay Leno, there's Lane Boozer, there's Richard Lewis, all these other guys.
Guest:And everybody now is going, because now remember, there's just that one comedy club.
Guest:So the only place you get to work now-
Guest:is in the Catskills or in the Playboy club circuit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So people don't realize.
Guest:Hefter did a lot for stand-up comic.
Marc:Oh, no, he did a lot for a lot of counterculture acts.
Marc:The transition from the sort of Eisenhower mentality to the new mentality, like he was sort of there because he was all about the- Very important figure.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:With music and everything else.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Now he's old and they joke and everything.
Marc:No, he was like the- Powerhouse.
Marc:First Amendment warrior.
Guest:Lenny Bruce, the whole thing.
Guest:Mort Saul, all that shit that came down.
Marc:Well, now, in terms of your relationship with him, because when he was doing the improv, he was doing the Mighty Mouse thing.
Marc:He was doing the Elvis bit.
Marc:He had a few set pieces, correct, that would either go long or short.
Marc:Was he reading F. Scott Fitzgerald at that time?
Marc:Or The Great Gatsby?
Marc:The Great Gatsby.
Guest:yeah yes so but there was only when bud bud wanted him to clear the room because some people would sit there and they want to uh you know like a few people the club would be losing money because you know it's like three four people left it's like three in the morning but they're drinking they're not leaving and you don't want to say you got to go you know so he would send that bud would just send coughing up and he'd go up there with the book with the book and then after a while even if you were drunk fuck i'm out of here
Marc:So Kaufman and Bud had a real understanding.
Marc:Yeah, it was like father and son.
Marc:And Bud really... Yeah, he loved him, loved him, yeah.
Guest:When Andy died, Bud was crushed.
Marc:He's a difficult guy, Bud.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But when it came to Andy, it was, you know... You know what it was?
Marc:It was probably a talent that he couldn't wrap his brain around.
Marc:I think that Bud can see things in people, and he can see how comics behave, and he's got a real sense of that.
Marc:But I bet you Andy was just off the board.
Marc:But you know what?
Guest:This thing would happen with Bud.
Guest:Bud never was able to make the move of taking any of those guys and running with them.
Guest:He tried a few, but he always stayed that club owner.
Marc:Well, there's something about that.
Marc:The industry would not let him move further than that.
Marc:But then he went ahead and built an empire right under their nose.
Marc:So he was essential.
Guest:He had that, but I think he always wanted to be more than that.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:I know he did.
Guest:He wanted to be a Broadway producer and everything.
Guest:He did some off-Broadway.
Marc:Now, when did the collaboration start?
Marc:Because I know you've become the sort of the keepsake of a legacy in the oral tradition.
Marc:Oh, yes.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:But when did the actual collaboration start between you two?
Guest:Well, like I said, Andy wouldn't be talking to many guys at the improv or anything.
Guest:And then what happened is I, and I wasn't making much money at the improv.
Guest:So Chris Albrecht was managing.
Guest:He was making money.
Guest:He was doing okay, but he was creating a career there.
Marc:Did he always know that he was creating that career?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:I don't think anybody knew anything, and I don't think anybody was really thinking career-wise.
Guest:I don't think that was the idea.
Marc:But I just love the idea that this is the gutter of show business, and then all the people that were in that gutter transcended and integrated.
Guest:It was Hell's Kitchen.
Guest:Yep, I know.
Guest:It was Hell's Kitchen.
Marc:Nobody had shit.
Marc:And that meant something then, because that was a fucking war zone.
Marc:in the early 70s.
Guest:Yeah, but people did it because that's all they could do.
Guest:That's what they did.
Guest:Nobody in a billion years ever thought that they would probably even scratch out a living from it, let alone become the Jay Leno on those people's names that I named.
Guest:The Larry Davids.
Guest:It's unbelievable.
Guest:When you saw Larry in those days, was he... He was so neurotic, Larry David, that if you sat...
Guest:If you were just in the back and you talked to somebody, a comic, you talked to another comic, you weren't even watching him or anything.
Guest:He thought you were talking about him.
Guest:He'd get so fucking neurotic and so upset and come up to you afterwards and say, what were you guys saying?
Guest:Hey, man, you know?
Guest:And Larry, we weren't even talking about you.
Marc:But was that the time where he couldn't quite stay on stage if he didn't think that they were appreciating him?
Guest:Oh, he was.
Guest:The first line on stage didn't get a reaction.
Guest:He just wanted to leave.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was the craziest.
Guest:And Jay was pretty slick from the beginning.
Guest:Jay was Jay.
Guest:Jay has not changed at all.
Guest:Jay was because Jay's really the stand up joke, you know, stand up punch.
Guest:Jay's Jay's, you know, Jay is Jay's not stream of consciousness.
Guest:Jay's Rodney Dangerfield, you know, and a young man.
Marc:So, okay, so you're not making money.
Marc:No one's making money.
Guest:So Chris then says, he calls me one day and I'm going, oh, shit.
Guest:And he says, Zamuda, I got the greatest job for you.
Guest:There's a very famous screenwriter, right?
Guest:By the name of Norman Wexler.
Guest:In my book, I call him Mr. X. Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And he needs an assistant and he's going to pay you $2,000 a week.
Guest:I went, what?
Guest:What are you talking about?
Guest:It's $2,000 a week.
Guest:You've got to jump on this right away.
Guest:And he's going to teach you how to write screenplays.
Guest:Now, Norman Wexler wrote a movie called Joe, a big film in the 60s.
Guest:With Peter Boyle.
Guest:Peter Boyle.
Guest:That's insane movie.
Guest:He wrote Mandingo.
Guest:He wrote Saturday Night Fever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wrote Serpico.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The list goes on.
Guest:This is a major guy.
Guest:But he says, but I just want you to know.
Guest:You'd be perfect for this, Muda, but he is a little eccentric.
Guest:I said, okay.
Guest:I said, well, how can I meet this guy?
Guest:He says, tomorrow at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, it's like Wednesday afternoon, he's going to be at the improv here in the afternoon and meet him, talk to him right away before he hires somebody else.
Guest:I said, okay, great, great.
Guest:So the next day comes, and I'm sitting there, and...
Guest:I get to the improv about an hour early because I don't know anything.
Guest:Chris is in there cleaning up the floors.
Guest:But the place was open because Bud would have drinks open for a lot of the riffraff off the street.
Guest:There's some homeless guy in the corner.
Guest:Remember this homeless guy in the corner?
Guest:He had no shoes on and his feet were black.
Guest:Bud's giving him a bowl of soup or something.
Guest:And I'm sitting there, and I'm sitting there, and 2 o'clock comes.
Guest:The guy doesn't come in.
Guest:2.15, 2.30, you know.
Guest:And I'm going, fuck, this is bullshit.
Guest:And I call Chris up.
Guest:I said, hey, the guy didn't show up.
Guest:Norman Wexler didn't show up.
Guest:He said, are you sure?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, are you sure he's not there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, well, describe him.
Guest:And I said, no, there's only some old bum here with his shoes in, black feet and everything.
Guest:He said, thank you.
Guest:that's him.
Guest:No, come on.
Guest:That's him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I go up to introduce myself and I'm going to give my Norman Wexland impression.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I say, I go, I said, uh, hi, Mr. Wexland, Bob's murder.
Guest:You are an asshole.
Guest:Are you looking for a job?
Guest:Okay, here's the test.
Guest:He says, can you keep your fucking mouth shut for five fucking minutes?
Guest:Let's start with that.
Guest:So I'm sitting across from the guy, and the guy is literally, he has no shoes on.
Guest:This is winter.
Guest:He has no socks on.
Guest:His feet are black from walking around the streets of New York, right?
Guest:Now, of course, he had a limo sitting out there because he's very rich, totally eccentric.
Guest:He has this outfit with kind of like medals that he's designed his own military outfit for.
Guest:Norman Wexler.
Guest:And so I'm sitting there and he says, and then he says, and so after five minutes, you know, and I'm sitting there and he's timing me.
Guest:He's got these rollers and he's timing me.
Guest:And after five minutes, he looks and he says, okay.
Guest:one question what nationality are you now in wix i know he's jewish yeah right and i'm going here i go i'm going to say polack yeah i'm i'm getting this job you know i put his relatives in the ovens yeah you did it your family my family did it you know you know so i said uh polish he goes polish
Guest:He says, you're hired.
Guest:I always felt the real reason Hitler wanted to destroy the Poles is because they were developing extraordinary powers of ESP.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:This is what the guy says.
Guest:Now we go out to the limo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Limo waiting for us.
Guest:We go inside.
Guest:My job, which lasted about three weeks, was...
Guest:Every morning, we'd get up.
Guest:When the bank opened, we'd go in.
Guest:I'd go in with a suitcase, and we would pull out anywhere between $25,000 to $30,000 a day to have in the suitcase.
Guest:This money would be used.
Guest:We'd go through that money every day would be used to pay people off, not to throw him in jail or not to try to beat him up.
Guest:I'll explain what he was doing here.
Guest:Wexler Serpico, Saturday Night Fever.
Guest:He was known as, besides those films, he was known as the doctor.
Guest:In other words, if you had a screenplay, if you were doing a movie and you had a screenplay that took place out on the street and you needed real street dialogue, there's only one guy that could do it, write it.
Guest:And it was Wexer because when people get upset and everything, they don't talk like guys write things.
Guest:They breathe differently.
Guest:And he had this ear for it.
Guest:And the reason he had the ear for it.
Guest:It's because my job was he'd hire assholes like me, and my job was to follow him around all day with a Panasonic tape recorder going 24 hours, okay?
Guest:And then what I would do is then he would continually all day get in confrontations with people.
Guest:I mean big-time confrontations where people wanted to kill him, okay?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I would record this after every about every four days.
Guest:I would take all those tapes and send it to a stenographer who would break it down.
Guest:And this is how he would get his dialogue for the motion picture.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:This is Wex.
Guest:Now I'm waiting for a fucking punchline.
Guest:Well, wait.
Guest:And now on my back, I have another tape recorder.
Guest:OK, and that is playing back.
Guest:I got my watch.
Guest:I got this all timed out.
Guest:Every hour it goes off.
Guest:I had the 60 and 90-minute cassette tapes to put in.
Guest:And in the back, I am playing back.
Guest:to the second of what we recorded 24 hours previously.
Guest:And one day I said to Norman, I said, Norman, let me ask you, why are we playing that?
Guest:He said, it's because I want to hear if my brain has grown any in the last 24 hours.
Guest:But we would record these things, and now we would hit the streets of New York and get in all these confrontations.
Guest:Example, he'd rent limos.
Guest:He didn't have his own limo.
Guest:Every other day, he'd rent a limo, jump in a limo.
Guest:One night a day, it's like snowing like hell in New York.
Guest:And a lot of time, the limo driver...
Guest:He wants that window down because he wants to hear who this guy is and listen.
Guest:So Norman rolls down his windows and the snow's blown in on us.
Guest:Now, this limo's costing him an arm and a leg, but you might as well be on a fucking bicycle.
Guest:The snow is... We're driving there and the snow's coming in.
Guest:Well, the limo driver, he puts his window up.
Guest:He doesn't want this cold air coming in there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:put that window down put that i'm paying you put that window put your windows down so we're driving around new york and the car is just filling with snow at the limo in the front and you know and finally the guy says i can't take he says i don't care what you're paying me i'm freezing my ass get out of my fucking limo yeah but he'd be and he said what are you you fucking jew hater and he'd get at these fucking fights and whatnot i mean it was fucking nuts one day we go down to the the to the village this is fucking nuts we go down a little we go down to little italy yeah
Guest:We go down to Little Italy and there's one of the Italian restaurants and the signs on it says closed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's like a Mafioso guy sitting in front of it.
Guest:We see people going inside though.
Guest:It's a party for one of the Mafioso's moms who's like 85 years old.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:So this is literally when it was really little.
Marc:When it really was.
Marc:The clubs were there.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And so he sees this line and people going in.
Guest:So he stops the limo.
Guest:And we get out.
Guest:And he looks filthy in long air and everything.
Guest:But he walks in.
Guest:And they said, excuse me, this is a private party.
Guest:He's a private party.
Guest:He says, oh, no, I was good friends with her.
Guest:I'm good friends with her.
Guest:So they let us in.
Guest:So we're sitting there, and there's maybe about 18 people.
Guest:This is big time.
Guest:The old lady's up there.
Guest:They got a birthday cake and everything.
Guest:I'm sitting next to Norman.
Guest:With your microphone?
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:I'm 24 hours recording.
Guest:I just changed things.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:It never stops.
Guest:And so what happened?
Guest:He puts the tape in.
Guest:And at one point, Norman, and I don't know, I think he knows these people.
Marc:He didn't suspect anything.
Guest:No, I don't know.
Guest:No.
Guest:And he's I know.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You know, I even knew about this thing was going on.
Guest:And he opens up.
Guest:He always had this crazy suitcase that he carried, a little suitcase.
Guest:We had ninchucks in there and porno, you know.
Guest:And he stands up and he takes the National Enquirer.
Guest:It was that famous shot on the National Enquirer of JFK.
Guest:uh uh dead dead yeah on that's on the slab yeah that famous picture yeah and national inquiry ran it on the cover yeah and the title was was mafia kills jfk and he stands up and he holds this newspaper up in front of everyone and he says hey granny look what your son's been up to
Guest:they grabbed us i'm telling you and they take us in the back of this fucking i thought we are dead i mean the old lady's crying these guys these are mafia guys that this is her fucking birthday they're so fucking upset yeah you know they're gonna kill us yeah and the only thing that that i did luckily i was smart and i told him i lied to the guy whose mother it was who was beside himself i said you have to realize norman's
Guest:Norman's mom died last week.
Guest:He wants to die.
Guest:And that's the only thing that affected him.
Guest:And they threw us out of there.
Guest:But this is what would take place continually.
Guest:Now, I got one.
Guest:This is the killer.
Guest:So one day, we are driving now in great...
Guest:A little Serbo outside of New York.
Guest:I can't remember what it was.
Guest:And we're in the limo once again.
Marc:Westchester or something?
Marc:Yeah, something like that.
Guest:And there's a little bakery.
Guest:It's about 3 in the afternoon.
Guest:And there's a little bakery.
Guest:And he says, pull over.
Guest:He says, I want a donut.
Guest:So we get out.
Guest:And I go inside.
Guest:I think, OK, it's just going to be a fucking donut.
Guest:And we'll go in.
Guest:You know, he says, your tape running?
Guest:I go, yeah, yeah, of course.
Guest:He goes inside.
Guest:And the little bell rings, right?
Guest:And there's like maybe three or four old ladies lined up behind their stuff.
Guest:But he walks in.
Guest:He says, I want a glazed donut, you know?
Guest:And the woman, I think her name was like Flo or something like that, behind the counter, she looks at him.
Guest:And she says, excuse me, sir.
Guest:You'll have to take a number like everyone else.
Guest:Now, you don't say this to Norman Wexner.
Guest:And this is what really scared me.
Guest:He takes the number and he waits.
Guest:And I'm thinking to myself, you have no idea.
Guest:The devil has just walked in.
Guest:You have no idea of any waits.
Guest:And finally, the other woman done it.
Guest:She says, yes.
Guest:She says, okay.
Guest:He's been a good boy now.
Guest:She says, okay, what was that?
Guest:A glazed donut you said?
Guest:No, I've changed my mind.
Guest:Says, I want those and these.
Guest:And he starts pointing to everything in the cases and whatnot.
Guest:And I want that.
Guest:I want all those cakes and all those breads.
Guest:And he's going on like this.
Guest:And she realizes he doesn't like her.
Guest:She doesn't like him.
Guest:She says, sir, we're not here to waste people's time.
Guest:What is it you want?
Guest:She says, I'm not fooling with that.
Guest:He says, Zmuda, tell her.
Guest:I say, Miss, trust me, he wants to buy it all.
Guest:Open the case.
Guest:And I open the case.
Guest:$30,000, right?
Guest:And we start counting and whatnot.
Guest:So he starts buying everything.
Guest:Well, now the other women who are working, they go back and they get the baker who owns the plates and he comes out.
Guest:And Norman sees him and gives the guy $1,000 just because it's his place.
Guest:So the guy just thinks this is like Monty Hall from Make a Deal.
Marc:Where's Alan Funt?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he's buying every fucking thing in the front.
Guest:And then once he does all that, we go back into the kitchen area.
Guest:And now he wants to buy what's in the walk-in freezers and everything.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:tons of everything and you got the bakers there yeah and he decides now he not only wants to buy the whole place out he wants to go through every ounce of sugar every ounce of flour every cup of milk so the he's gonna have them making this stuff and everything else i get on the phone i get a u-haul truck to come and pick this shit up yeah
Guest:We're there for hours where this is going on.
Guest:And he says, Mona, go get beer for the guy.
Guest:So I go, you know, and these little, you know, bakers, they're drinking.
Guest:Everybody's high as a kite.
Guest:And now he starts with the women there.
Guest:He says, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what.
Guest:He says to the baker, he says, you know, it's so hot in here.
Guest:And it was really hot.
Guest:And they had those ovens blazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Things were coming out.
Guest:They're going hot right into the fucking truck.
Guest:So what happens is that they come, I'll never forget this, is that he says to the baker, he says, it's hot.
Guest:He says, hey, Luigi, tell you what, 500 bucks, take your pants off.
Guest:You got underwear on?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, okay.
Guest:It's hot and take it off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he gets these guys just to their underwear and their shirts off for like $1,500.
Guest:They're all laughing.
Guest:They're drinking.
Guest:They got their dagle tees on.
Guest:These are old guys, old bakers.
Guest:And then he starts with the women who are working there, who are the ones, the cashiers and everything.
Guest:He says to them, he says, I'll tell you what, it's not in.
Guest:You don't have to take, keep your girdle, because the old lady says, keep your girdle and bra on, but I'll tell you what, you take that blouse off.
Guest:And Zmuda here is going to give you $1,500.
Guest:Count it out, Zmuda.
Guest:And they're all, you know, they're going, what the hell?
Guest:You know, it's all big ones.
Guest:Except this Flo, the one who couldn't stand him.
Guest:And I'll never forget it.
Guest:He focuses on her at the end, and he focuses on her.
Guest:And she won't do it.
Guest:He's always, he said, let me ask you this, Flo.
Guest:What does your husband do for a living?
Guest:She won't talk.
Guest:Another woman said, he's a truck driver.
Guest:It was a truck driver.
Guest:So let's say maybe he makes, and back then it was maybe like $18,000, $19,000 a year.
Guest:This was fucking years ago.
Guest:And he says, he's on the fucking road.
Guest:He's popping pills to stay fucking awake.
Guest:$18,000.
Guest:I'm offering you $5,000 to take off that blouse and to take off that skirt.
Guest:And you can't do it!
Guest:And the other people around say, Flo, dude, he gets up to about $15,000.
Guest:That woman is sitting there.
Guest:She won't undo one fucking button.
Guest:Her brain will never be the same.
Guest:I can see it in her eyes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She hates him.
Guest:She's tearing at everything else.
Guest:She won't do it.
Guest:And I'll never forget walking out of the place.
Guest:Finally, he went through everything.
Guest:Everything was done.
Guest:There wasn't anything left in the place.
Guest:Everything was in the U-Haul truck.
Guest:We were leaving.
Guest:And this is when I realized the guy was fucking...
Guest:Total genius.
Guest:We walk out of the place and I'm the last guy, right?
Guest:Everybody else is counting their money.
Guest:They're all drunk.
Guest:They're in their underwear and bras and girls.
Guest:Flo's sitting there dressed perfectly.
Guest:Those will never be the same.
Guest:And I walk out and I look back and then I see the genius of it all.
Guest:He left one thing.
Guest:One glazed donut.
Guest:True fucking story.
Guest:Come on, Zamuda.
Guest:That's Norman.
Guest:Well, anyway, so now he would, Wexler would come.
Guest:I have to believe that?
Guest:Ask anyone.
Guest:Ask anyone.
Guest:Ask Bud Freeman.
Guest:Ask anyone.
Guest:All right.
Guest:He was known in New York, so he would come to the improv at times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he always would start such trouble, but the next day he'd always give Bud like a couple thousand dollars or five.
Guest:So Bud went, fuck.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:So when Norman would come in, because the guy really would start fights with people and everything, Bud would just walk out and leave it to Albrecht or all of us to have to deal with this guy because he was out of his fucking mind, right?
Guest:Well, so he became so famous.
Guest:So Andy knew about him.
Guest:Andy is fascinated by a character like this.
Guest:there's a lot of tony clifton a lot of norman wexler in tony clifton bigger than what biggest ego you've ever fucking seen in your life and he says and what and and and so now andy knows i'm working with wexler where's moody he says to chris he's oh you got a job with norman wexler really oh my god so now when i would come in andy who wouldn't give me the time of day
Guest:Hi, Bob.
Guest:He wants to hear the stories.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I have tons of it, because I work for three weeks.
Guest:I mean, every day was insanity like this.
Marc:For three weeks of your life.
Marc:Three weeks.
Marc:Changed your life.
Guest:Not only that, I'm getting paid $2,000, and I'm probably grabbing another $2,000, if not more, out of the suitcase, because he doesn't give a fuck.
Marc:And this is all movie money.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is all movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's one of them.
Marc:And he's just, but was there ever a time where he was on the level?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:This, yeah.
Guest:He'd go off his medication.
Guest:Oh, he was married, had kids, you know?
Marc:No, he was bipolar.
Marc:So this is like some Howard Hughes crazy bullshit.
Marc:Well, not Howard Hughes, but he was bipolar before people really knew what it was.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So he's probably on lithium or sodium pentothal.
Guest:Who the fuck knows?
Guest:This is when he would become creative and nuts like that, but that's when he would write.
Guest:If he was clean and so, and if he wasn't, he was normal, he couldn't write a fucking word.
Guest:Because he wouldn't go, but he discovered this technique of going on the street and hiring somebody.
Guest:I should have known, because when I first went to get the first panel that day, to get the tape recorders of his and his tapes, he said, we'll go up to the fourth floor there.
Guest:We're going up.
Guest:And we knock on the door, and I hear a guy's voice, and this is the guy who had my job last.
Guest:Who quit on him too.
Guest:Yes, who is it?
Guest:It's Norman.
Guest:I hear every stick of furniture being pushed against the fucking door.
Guest:Norman, get out of here.
Guest:I'm going to call the police.
Guest:But this guy was fucking crazy.
Guest:So this is the reason, long story short, but this is why Andy then started talking to me.
Guest:you know and said oh my god and we were we'd just laugh about this wexler how crazy life is yeah and aren't these wonderful characters you know and he was fascinated about that uh we became friends um i went back working as a bartender you know after norman back at the improv and i'd watch his act and i'd say and and i'd say hey and you know we're buddies you know and uh
Guest:You know, and I'd say, Andy, you know, you know, that's great what you're doing.
Guest:You know, you think maybe if you did this in the end, he'd go, you know, I thought maybe it's going one out the other.
Guest:And then I'd say, he'd try it.
Guest:So after a while, we formed this kind of relationship.
Guest:And, you know, we spoke from, you know, we got it.
Guest:We both...
Guest:but you understood that tone and you understood that you know he was willing to push it out as far out as as he would so so i came out of chicago i came out of days of rage i was a 60s radical right okay my my gods were jerry rubin and abby hoffman you know uh steal this book and yes and just really fucking with the system right so this is exactly what he was doing and not a political bent
Guest:No, without a political event.
Guest:You were fucking with the heads.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I came from a family of a lot of practical jokers that would go out of their way for these huge practical jokes.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Oh, like, well, I had a little theater group before I left Chicago, before I went to New York.
Guest:It was called the No Name Players I put together.
Guest:It's an improv group.
Guest:So a great one that we did, there was the CTA bus in Chicago would get on.
Guest:So we had maybe about 25 people in the troupe.
Guest:All different ages.
Guest:I had kids and whatnot.
Guest:And I'd say, get on.
Guest:This was on Foster Avenue.
Guest:Those of you who know Chicago, Foster Avenue.
Guest:And the bus line there.
Guest:And we'd have, for about a mile down, I'd have two people here at one bus stop.
Guest:It's like we didn't know each other.
Guest:We'd all get on the bus.
Guest:We didn't know each other.
Guest:Like 25 people.
Guest:And we start coughing.
Guest:Some kind of fumes or something on the bus.
Guest:Be opening the window.
Guest:Well, the driver's there.
Guest:And be there.
Guest:and people really and the little kids are coughing and everything and what's so amazing is that the real people on the bus they're coughing too because it's like brain you know what I mean it gets them nuts you know the guy pulls the bus there's some obviously some kind of exhaust leak this is terrible
Guest:And we're on the bus.
Guest:They have to pull the bus off, and they have to send stuff.
Guest:That night, we watched it on the news.
Guest:We're laughing our ass off, you know, whatnot.
Guest:Or another one.
Marc:So you're media jammers, in a way.
Guest:Yeah, and just fucking with people.
Guest:We'd go to the Lincoln Park Zoo.
Guest:There'd be about a dozen of us.
Guest:At different times, we'd just start running them.
Guest:And people were running and just crazy.
Guest:Well, Andy would hear these stories.
Guest:He goes, that's what I want to do.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:So we just bonded.
Guest:And then when we just got together, every fucking day for years was just put on.
Marc:Like, what was, like, all your work came to fruition with what?
Guest:Probably the Carnegie Hall show.
Marc:That thing is fucking amazing.
Guest:Yeah, the Carnegie Hall show.
Marc:That is just fucking crazy.
Marc:So he was a huge act at that time already.
Guest:Well, no, but here's what's weird.
Guest:He was the hottest cabaret act in New York City, Andy.
Marc:He was not doing TV, though.
Marc:No taxi.
Marc:No, but he would hire him.
Marc:Right.
Guest:No, even, like, because then comics opened for, like, the singers, Sonny or Sheriff.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:That's what they did.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So guys like Leonard, all those people started opening for musical acts.
Marc:But they couldn't trust Andy with that.
Guest:Because nobody had a big comedian that would do that.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Andy, he'd go there and he'd start crying or something and people would call his manager and say, this is bullshit.
Marc:You can't get him off.
Marc:He's crying.
Guest:Yeah, this is bullshit.
Guest:This is disturbing the audience.
Marc:He's not doing his job.
Guest:Sonny and Cher fired him.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They said this, you know, Sonny sure just, when he was on stage, said, get the guy off.
Guest:This is awful.
Guest:Yeah, they didn't get it.
Guest:They didn't get it, you know.
Guest:No one got it except for the people that got it.
Guest:So for years, he was the hottest act in the club, but everybody else was getting work.
Guest:Boozler, Leno, everybody else was working but him.
Guest:And it really...
Guest:was weird it really kind of hurt him because it was like jesus but he knew what he was doing he knew that it was like above and beyond the understanding he knew he wanted he needed that fame yeah so that he could then play bigger places and do his app so other people could see him yeah it wasn't so much for the money it's just so people could come and see what he did right you know and it wasn't until
Guest:Dick Ebersole from Saturday Night Night.
Guest:It wasn't Lauren Michaels.
Guest:It was Dick Ebersole who came into the club and saw him and then went back and told Lauren.
Guest:And Lauren, so in fact, this relationship between Ebersole and it was Ebersole who finally kicked him off of Saturday Night Live.
Guest:So it's like, I make you, I could also break you.
Guest:And so that's what happened.
Guest:It really was Ebersole who got him on Saturday Night Live.
Marc:Season one, right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:People don't realize Andy Kaufman was a semi-regular on Saturday Night Live.
Guest:He wanted to be on more and more and more.
Guest:And Lauren says, I can't.
Guest:I can't do it.
Guest:So finally, Andy said, by now, Andy has... It was...
Guest:Carl Reiner was George Shapiro, Shapiro West.
Guest:George was who's had Carl Reiner as a client.
Guest:And and he said, you've got to see this kid.
Guest:And then Carl Reiner was friends with Dick Van Dyke because they had done the Dick Van Dyke show.
Guest:And Dick Van Dyke had that summer series.
Guest:that went on and that they, they flew the kid out.
Guest:He started to be, they started to be singing like that.
Guest:And soon he was then offered, uh, he did a little, some little pilots here, but that when they brought a taxi together, they offered him once again, that they wanted to buy that role from him and do it.
Guest:And he did not want, and he went and he went and he begged Lauren.
Guest:He says, look, I got an offer on the table.
Guest:Uh, and this was back then.
Guest:Nobody wanted to leave New York for the weirdos on the West coast.
Guest:Remember that when that took place and now,
Guest:That's all gone, you know.
Marc:So it's still a little bit of residue.
Guest:A little bit, you know, for the ones that, you know.
Guest:But then it was really strong.
Guest:So he said, Lauren, I really don't want to go to the West Coast and be in a sitcom.
Guest:And Lauren said, Andy, a sitcom is the worst fucking form of entertainment on the planet Earth.
Guest:You don't want to be in one, you know.
Guest:And he said, well, please give me more time on this.
Guest:He says, I can't.
Guest:It's not designed like this.
Guest:You're good for it every three, four weeks I could bring you on.
Guest:I can't put you on every week.
Guest:And Andy says, well, if that's the case, I got to go and take this.
Guest:He says, I understand.
Guest:If you have to take it, take it.
Guest:So Andy signs for a taxi.
Guest:He had, in his whole career, he had never seen one episode of Taxi.
Guest:Hated it.
Guest:He didn't hate it.
Guest:It's just he just thought...
Guest:This wasn't his, you know, he knew this was going to get him out there, his name and everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he just thought this was a form of entertainment that was just so crap.
Marc:Yeah, it was predictable.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that started a little hostility with the cast of Taxi, too.
Guest:Because they're going, gee, who does this guy think he is?
Guest:But it gave him that name recognition.
Guest:So now, you know, now we could go out and do these shows across the country.
Guest:And then we played the college circuit and we had a hell of a lot of time.
Guest:Great time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the Carnegie Hall show was really as perfect of a show as you can.
Marc:Well, that was a signature thing.
Marc:That was the defining thing of you two in terms of collaboration.
Guest:Yes, it was.
Guest:Because I produced the show, and we just went for it.
Guest:We lost a lot of money on it.
Guest:We didn't give a fuck.
Marc:Because I watched it not too long ago.
Marc:I came to Andy later.
Marc:And the device of things was beyond anything that anyone can really wrap their brain around even now.
Marc:I mean, the thing that stands out for me the most.
Guest:Even fucking now.
Guest:Every day I learn something new.
Guest:Way ahead of his time.
Guest:Well, it's just beyond his time.
Marc:Beyond his time is better.
Marc:From another planet.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But the thing where you show the old clip of the movie and you bring her out and have her do that thing, that to me was one of the most brutally funny, horrendous things I'd ever seen in my life.
Marc:And the fact that when he's just going, faster, faster, and then she drops dead and you come out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Very seriously.
Guest:We had somebody from the audience, a doctor from the audience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then people were stunned in the audience.
Marc:They had a cover here with a... Now, the feeling in the audience was like they didn't know whether it was real or not.
Guest:Oh, no, no, no.
Guest:Well, at this point, you don't know what the hell is going on.
Guest:And let me do the setup for people to know what we're talking about.
Guest:Andy shows an old clip from like 1923 of these early cowboy movies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The cowboy musicals that ran like 15 minutes in a movie theater or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he brought out, and he showed this clip, and I think that was a song, We've Got Spurs, that jingle, jingle, jingle.
Guest:And he shows this clip, and he says, ladies and gentlemen.
Marc:But there's women.
Marc:The thing is, is that there's these women dancing around on little stick horses.
Marc:Yeah, with horses, right.
Marc:And they're doing a dance number with stick horses that you ride between your legs.
Marc:Gene Autry, if somebody's playing this shit in the background.
Guest:And so anyway, so he says, ladies and gentlemen, we have our special guest.
Guest:We have, you saw this clip, and these girls were beautiful, but it was like 1920, and he says...
Guest:We're going to bring out now a woman who is still alive.
Guest:She's 89 years young.
Guest:Please welcome Margaret Edith Gould, the last surviving member of the girls that you saw.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:And she was very frail, and she came out and everything.
Guest:And Andy was very polite to her and asked how it was working with, I think, genealogically and whatnot.
Guest:And she said, oh, the boys were nice.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he said, well, you know, he says, I got to tell you.
Guest:He said...
Guest:You know, can you do something for us?
Guest:And, well, what's that?
Guest:And he says, Bob, bring out, and I brought the horse up.
Guest:Right, the little stick horse.
Guest:And he says, do you think you could just do a little, you know, just relive that moment for all of us here?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, well, I don't, you know, but she's old.
Guest:This woman's old, so she puts the thing between her legs there.
Guest:You know, and it's very awkward, this old lady.
Guest:And he says, well, let's have a little music.
Guest:You know, so he starts, we.
Marc:Isn't there a symphony there, too, in my memory?
Marc:Yeah, we had orchestra.
Guest:Yeah, orchestra.
Guest:Yeah, we had, you know, Greg Sutton was Andy's musical director.
Guest:We had a good, maybe about eight, nine pieces.
Guest:And so they started.
Guest:We got Spurs, and he says, come on, dance a little.
Guest:Dance, dance.
Guest:Yeah, okay, yeah.
Guest:And then, of course, it was worked out.
Guest:And he grabs the baton from Greg, the musical director.
Guest:come on faster come on dance dance and he's and this old lace is come on you can do it dance dance he's in her face and she's dancing and then the fucking old lady gets a fucking heart attack yeah and she falls down and collapses what we're talking about and she falls down and it is and if you saw this woman in her age even if you thought you this was staged you can't put an old person that age through this yeah i mean she was fucking huffing him you know when we
Guest:We never even rehearsed it.
Guest:It's real.
Guest:She's down.
Guest:And I mean, it put everything, you know, and it was and Kaufman and I pushed him away.
Guest:The house lights went up.
Guest:We had to get a doctor who came up on stage who actually was Andy's sister's husband.
Guest:And Kaufman's beside himself and people in the audience going, this sucks.
Guest:This is bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The old lady.
Guest:And then finally, they just, they talk and the producers come out and blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And we just cover her up, you know, because it's bad and just cover up.
Guest:And some people are crying and whatnot.
Guest:And all of a sudden he leaves the – and he's just distraught.
Guest:His big nights at Carnegie Hall, he killed somebody.
Guest:Oh, this is great.
Guest:And he goes off and he puts on this – and he comes on back on stage with this Indian – Headdress.
Guest:Headdress, yes.
Guest:And he's got the –
Guest:medicine dance yeah he goes over the woman he's moving and she starts sitting up like from the dead and whatnot the best is at the end of the show oh now and and and this is probably the highest moment uh when i think of that when you ask me what's the greatest moment where it all came together
Guest:And it's the end of the show.
Guest:Now, Andy had actually had his real grandma when he started the show.
Guest:He brought his real grandma out because from Hollywood, Florida, Jewish community for my mother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so she was there, you know, retired woman, a Jewish woman living there.
Guest:And he said to her, so he said, and she was like in her 80s, and he said, you know, Grandma Pearl, and he brought her out, and he said, ladies, and he said, you know, he said, when I was a little boy, I told my grandma someday I'm going to be famous, I'm going to play Carnegie Hall.
Guest:This is a true story, and I'm going to give her the best seat in the house.
Guest:And so he says, so here I am.
Guest:And he brings his grandma out.
Guest:And she's there.
Guest:And this is a big thing for his real grandma that here he is.
Guest:And he said, now, Grandma, you really thought I wasn't going to amount to anything or anything.
Guest:She said, come on, be honest.
Guest:She said, well, it's true, Andy.
Guest:You're a good boy.
Guest:You're a good boy.
Guest:He said, can you believe this?
Guest:I'm really here.
Guest:I told you.
Guest:Remember what I told you?
Guest:He said, he did tell me.
Guest:He said, someday I'm going to play Carnegie Hall.
Guest:And what did I say?
Guest:He said, you're going to play.
Guest:But what else did I tell you?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:And I said, I'd give you the best seat in the house.
Guest:Remember I told you that?
Guest:She said, yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Ladies and gentlemen, not only did I fly out my grandma, I flew out her sofa.
Guest:And we got this sofa, and this is true.
Guest:Did she know it?
Guest:Yeah, no, she didn't know.
Guest:No, she didn't.
Guest:No, no, we flew her to New York, and then they grabbed us, so we worked it out with Stanley Kaufman, and we shipped her sofa.
Guest:It's her sofa.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:from her house you know and and so we put that on and he put it stage left a little off to the side and he says and you sit here and watch the whole show this was beautiful so she and we had a little table for some tea and whatnot but now here's the moment at the end of the show he says thank you very much ladies and it's been a great show he's done a great performance he says ladies and gentlemen i want to thank you all and i want to thank uh
Guest:the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes.
Guest:And just then, the Rockettes, we had the real Rockettes come out.
Guest:It's like 40 of them.
Guest:21 side of State, 20 on.
Guest:They come out, they start kicking their legs.
Guest:This is the end of the show.
Guest:He said, I'd like to thank the Rockettes.
Guest:He said,
Guest:I also want to thank my other guests, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Guest:The doors open at the back of Carnegie Hall.
Guest:240 members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir come down the aisle.
Guest:We captured a little of this in the movie, Man on the Moon.
Guest:Then he says, I'd like to also thanks around Christmas.
Guest:I'd like to thank...
Guest:santa claus and we had it wired and we had the sleigh come from the ceiling and we had it snow through i'm not just on stage so whoo they're singing the girls are kicking and whatnot the santa claus is there everybody just can't believe this and he says i'd like to thank my special guest my grandma played by
Guest:And you're going, what?
Guest:Played by, and also that little old lady who you've been watching on stage gets out of her chair.
Guest:She walks towards the footlights with all this bedlam going on.
Guest:He says, played by Robin Williams.
Guest:And the grandma pulls the face off, just like Mission Impossible.
Guest:And it's Robin who does one of these big Shakespearean bows after that.
Guest:I had never seen an audience leap forward.
Guest:to their feet it was hysteria and at this point people are going anything is possible in Kaufman world yeah anything is possible here yeah so at that point he says everyone settle down settle down he said this is just act one of the show and now it's late yeah he says for act two
Guest:We're going to take the entire audience.
Guest:There's buses outside.
Guest:And we're going to take the entire audience for milk and cook.
Guest:Well, of course, they're going, this is bullshit.
Guest:But some people are going, who knows?
Guest:Anything's happening.
Guest:And George Shapiro was Andy's manager.
Guest:And George said, Zmuda, the guy's going to go broke.
Guest:Just order up like two buses.
Guest:Nobody's going to go.
Guest:They've been here all night.
Guest:It's New York City.
Guest:Ain't going on buses.
Guest:And I'm talking to John.
Guest:And there's a big, this went on for weeks of discussion.
Guest:And I said, and Andy says, no, trust me, George.
Guest:They're gonna go.
Guest:They're gonna go.
Guest:And he goes, I'm telling him.
Guest:And George is mad.
Guest:And he says, why don't you tell him this crazy shit?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's going to break us here.
Marc:He's losing money.
Guest:No, he's losing money on this shit.
Guest:He's going through his bank account to find this fucking crazy show for people.
Guest:That's what it's all about.
Guest:That's really what it's all about.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He didn't give a fuck.
Guest:He didn't give a fuck.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:So I order up 24 buses, school buses.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:Every fucking person went on it from Carnegie Hall.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we took them to the New York School of Printing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where I had rented, I got small little kids from kindergarten tables and chairs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so the people that came here had to sit on that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:like little kids and they became little kids and we gave them that was the famous milk and cookies that everybody had the milk and cookies and then there he had magicians and and then he he had mats and he wrestled women you know the night went on until until about two in the morning george comes up to me he says he says we got to get these buses back we're gonna have overtime he's enough enough enough this is fun everybody had a good time so i i even agree and i'm getting tired yeah you know yeah
Guest:And I say to Andy, I said, Andy, this is good.
Guest:He said, well, what do we do next?
Guest:And just off the top of my head, I don't know why I said it, Mark.
Guest:I said, tell them to go to sleep.
Guest:Get a good night's sleep.
Guest:And the show, Act 3, Act 3 will continue tomorrow on the Staten Island Ferry.
Guest:Tell them to go to the Staten Island Ferry.
Guest:Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Guest:so he tells people this and they're like you know kids i mean adults it was so fucking magical yeah it really was and these are new yorkers yeah it was magical yeah you know you were a kid again you were and he made you a child yeah so they go home now we are staying we go back to the one i had been working my i was up for a big production yeah big for all this shit whatnot and not only that him and i both got lucky with two of the rockettes
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we are staying.
Guest:I know that's Sherry Netherland.
Guest:We have stayed in a nice fucking place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and and so I remember in the morning and I'm with this babe.
Guest:Now, he's at my door knocking.
Guest:Bob, Bob, Bob.
Guest:He knows I'm in there, I gotta do not disturb on anything.
Guest:And I go, so I get up and go out of the bed, the chick's in the bed, Andy, Andy, Andy, and I'm still sleeping, what, what?
Guest:He said, do you think anybody's gonna be at the same?
Guest:Maybe we should go there, maybe we should go there.
Guest:I go, Andy, trust me, nobody's gonna, and as soon as I close the door, I'm thinking, what if there's one press person there?
Guest:So I said, honey, come on, get dressed.
Guest:We're all going down.
Guest:So we jumped to the cab.
Guest:We go to the Staten Island Ferry.
Guest:There's about 250 people.
Guest:This is the workday.
Guest:Oh, this is a true story.
Guest:I just talked to a guy the other day that was there.
Guest:He said he was one of the guys.
Guest:He was there.
Guest:And about 250 people.
Guest:And Andy bought them a ticket on the Staten Island Ferry to go there and back.
Guest:And on the way there, he bought them all an ice cream cone and wrestled any woman who wanted to wrestle them.
Guest:True story.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And when we did the movie, Man on the Moon, Stacey Scheer, who was one of the producers, wanted to add that scene, but we couldn't do the budget of the next day.
Guest:But they did a pretty good job of capturing what we did at Carnegie Hall.
Marc:So that's a fucking amazing story.
Marc:What was the fascination?
Marc:I mean, I know that Andy was a fan of wrestling and that the wrestling was a shtick, but how come it went on so fucking long?
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:I mean that the shtick kept going, that the wrestling thing sort of became his thing.
Marc:Well, here's what happened.
Guest:When Andy... Andy's grandma, the same grandma who... Were they happy with him in the big picture, his family?
Guest:Oh, no, they thought... Yes, they're a very loving family, but they really thought...
Guest:he he he went they were sending to a psychiatrist at like seven eight years old right but who sends a kid to a psychiatrist at eight years old rich jews exactly so exactly so but in the overall scheme of things you know once he became famous they were well now now this insanity this weird lifestyle yeah and the way he looked at life ka-ching ka-ching
Marc:So they thought he's making a living.
Marc:He's successful.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:He's rich.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't understand it.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I don't understand it, but he's happy.
Guest:He's making money.
Guest:And Andy never, none of the checks from Taxi or anything ever went to Andy.
Guest:They always went to his dad.
Guest:Until the day he died, he wasn't on allowance.
Guest:He did not want money.
Marc:He didn't trust himself with it?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:he just didn't want it he just thought money was the root of all he just not not that he was he just so is that why he would bust tables and stuff well no that's that's a little different no he had money at the time and and what was that thing about was it what did you find because i know that when he was doing taxi he would sometimes where was he here's what happened where'd he go juniors or uh where'd he used jerry's jerry's jerry's delhi here's what happened
Guest:This is how crazy he was.
Guest:So one day, and now we're doing okay.
Guest:He's on taxi.
Guest:We're out on tour.
Guest:And I'm doing a little writing for Universal.
Guest:So we got a little capital.
Guest:We got a little money.
Guest:And so I would drive up to Santa Barbara a lot.
Guest:And there was a great little place that was a commercial of an old somebody's house.
Guest:But it was commercialized.
Guest:And I went, this could make one of those where they take an old Victorian home.
Guest:They turn it into a restaurant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought, hmm, this is a good idea.
Guest:I think this would be great.
Marc:So now you're going to be a restaurateur.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Crazy idea.
Guest:But I need some money.
Guest:So I talked to Andy about it.
Guest:And I had this girlfriend who worked at Jerry's Deli, Shelly Miles.
Guest:And she worked at Jerry's Deli.
Guest:And I said to Andy, I said, you know, Andy,
Guest:I need a partner on this.
Guest:You need to have some money.
Guest:But we got to think, if this crazy showbiz stuff, this could be over tomorrow.
Marc:This is so nuts.
Marc:We got to get into the crazy restaurant business.
Guest:Well, yeah, but something, yeah.
Marc:Well, I didn't know that.
Guest:I thought it was solid.
Guest:I didn't know that.
Guest:That's like the worst business to get in, you know?
Guest:So he says, well, you know, he says, that's not, I wouldn't want to be partners with you.
Guest:He says, but I got to be honest.
Guest:He says,
Guest:I don't know anything about the restaurant business.
Guest:I wouldn't know where to start, what to do.
Guest:I managed a few restaurants before, so I knew a little.
Guest:So as a joke, I said, well, Andy, well, listen, I said, why don't you learn?
Guest:He said, well, what can I do?
Guest:I said, why don't you become a busboy somewhere?
Guest:I just like that, right?
Guest:I just throw it out like that.
Guest:Two days later,
Guest:i'm home my phone rings and it's my girlfriend shelly miles who's working at jerry's deli as a waiter she says you ain't gonna believe this what she said andy they just hired andy as a busboy here i said what no and i thought okay maybe this is something we'll do just did they know who he was yeah of course he's a star on taxi yeah of course they knew he was yeah of course the guy hired him he wasn't even a good terrible busboy the guy didn't care how long do you do that for
Guest:He did it religiously for about four months.
Guest:He couldn't wait to leave his job, a taxi, and get in his car and go work for like 82 bucks a week as this buzz sport.
Marc:Do you think it somehow grounded him?
Guest:Yeah, well, it did.
Guest:And that's, I think at first he did it as a joke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it grounded, and people would sit there, I'm telling you, and we show this in the movie Man on the Moon a little bit, but I'll never forget, I'd go...
Guest:go in there and people would sit there and, you know, he had the hat on and everything, you know, and he'd be cleaning people's table and people would say, his girlfriend would say, you know, I think that's Andy Kaufman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What is Andy Kaufman going to be working?
Guest:He's going to be working for a couple, some change, nuts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Look at that guy.
Guest:It looks like him.
Guest:So then they would go.
Guest:I'd sit there.
Guest:I'd sometimes just go and have a cup of coffee and watch this.
Guest:And he'd see me sitting there.
Guest:And they'd say to him, excuse me, are you Andy Kaufman?
Guest:And he'd go, oh, yes, I am.
Guest:But they'd be looking at him strange, like, come on, you can't believe it.
Guest:And they'd go, no, you're not.
Guest:And they'd said, if you're Andy Kaufman, go, dude, thank you very much.
Guest:And he'd go, okay, thank you very much.
Guest:Sir, get out of here, just get us more coffee.
Marc:They didn't think it was him.
Guest:It was the craziest thing.
Guest:Oh, no, and he did this religiously.
Marc:I bet you that really kind of was an ego leveler.
Guest:Andy was performing for himself.
Guest:What is so unique, in my book, Andy Kaufman Revealed, every chapter I have another comedian that says something about Andy.
Guest:But the first chapter, it's from Dana Carvey.
Guest:And he said, because it was one of the great lines of all time.
Guest:Oh, you trace it all out.
Guest:And Andy and Dana Carvey said, all roads lead to Kaufman.
Guest:Bobcat Goldthwait, a number of comedians over the years would come up to me and say, I want you to know that if it wasn't for Andy Kaufman, I never would have gone into this.
Guest:Because Andy showed me, I didn't want to be Sully Fields.
Guest:Oh, love me, love me, love me.
Guest:I don't like people.
Guest:But I like going on stage and speaking my mind.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:I feel the same way.
Marc:He made all of us realize there's no end to the territory we can take up there.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Very important.
Guest:And so there it brought in this real rant.
Guest:And in many ways, when I try to explain Andy's influence and where to categorize it in the world of comedy, the best example I use, I take it from music.
Guest:I say...
Guest:Just what punk was to the music scene, Andy was like punk comedy at the time.
Guest:Came in there, take no prison.
Guest:And not that he was not, he wasn't Sam Kennison.
Guest:Fuck you!
Guest:He wasn't that.
Marc:No, but he created the space.
Marc:You better believe it.
Marc:Lenny Bruce created the freedom for us to speak how he wanted to.
Marc:Andy Kaufman created the space for us to do whatever the fuck we wanted to.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:no rules no rules anything goes the stranger if you can't figure out fine well that was what was great about stand-up I mean and I never really put it in that context but even when I got into it it was like I'm not an entertainer but I just know that you know I just want to be up there it's not and I want to do whatever the fuck I want that's it so he gave us all freedom to do whatever the fuck we wanted to exactly Lenny Bruce gave us the freedom to say whatever the fuck we wanted to Andy Kaufman gave us the freedom to do whatever the fuck we wanted to very important figure in American humor
Guest:No doubt.
Marc:Both of them.
Marc:I don't want to rush through anything.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:So the wrestling thing became this obsession in my eyes.
Guest:Well, here's what happened.
Guest:So with the wrestling, this is how the wrestling started.
Guest:First of all, I was saying that his grandma, Pearl, when he was a little boy, would take him to New York City, not to see Broadway shows.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But she would take him to Madison Square Garden to see the wrestlers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And this was Buddy.
Guest:Gorgeous George.
Guest:Gorgeous George, Buddy Rogers, Haystacks Calhoun, these kind of people.
Marc:So that had a profound impact on him.
Guest:As a little boy, he went in that big arena.
Guest:To him, this was theater.
Guest:It is theater.
Guest:And remember, back then, it's different.
Guest:Now you know it's phony baloney.
Guest:Back then, you believed those wrestlers were really doing it to each other.
Guest:The crowds were crazy.
Guest:And so before Vince McMahon came in there and kind of now made it like soap operas, now you know these guys.
Guest:It's all bullshit.
Guest:But back then, people believed it, and Andy believed it.
Guest:Well, look at that influence of reality on what he was doing.
Guest:So to him, his first impression of theater
Guest:is wrestling.
Guest:And if you think back, the first theater, the Greek theater, was wrestling.
Guest:That was the first.
Guest:So this was the essence.
Guest:So he had a very pure bite of the apple when he was a young boy.
Guest:Now, so he loved the wrestlers.
Guest:I mean, he was fascinated by the wrestlers.
Guest:You could be in a restaurant, and if there was Buddy Rogers there and Marlon Brando there, Andy wouldn't give a shit about Marlon Brando.
Guest:He'd go over to Buddy Rogers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:gods to him and and and he found it so funny that they could be beating each other and pulling pipes out and yeah and and in you know and bleeding and everything and acting dizzy you know and falling and when the crowd be screaming and andy just thought this like keystone cops it's ludicrous yeah so now so now he's doing taxi
Guest:And one day, I'm calling his house, and he's not there and whatnot.
Guest:We were meeting and whatnot.
Guest:He wasn't.
Guest:I'm going, what the fuck's going on?
Guest:So I drive over to his house, and I see all the curtains are closed.
Guest:And I see his car out.
Guest:And I'm knocking on the door, and I hear a little ruffling inside.
Guest:I said, Andy, it's Bob, Bob, Bob.
Guest:And I'm knocking, knocking.
Guest:And I said, Andy, I know you're in there.
Guest:What's going on?
Guest:You OK?
Guest:You got a girl?
Guest:Just tell me.
Guest:I'll leave.
Guest:and he cracks the door open and he's in this sweat he's sweating and he's got and i saw and he goes oh come in you know he comes he says i'm gonna show you something but you gotta promise not and he's whispering in his own fucking house like this you know he's like a little like somebody like you know he's hiding from the nazis or something you know and he's and he says yeah i'm gonna show you something but you gotta promise you'll never tell anybody
Guest:and he has back then this is before you had porn and with the video yeah you know he had it was like this little eight millimeter projector with a battery that had a loop of film going through that you had to just put your eye up to you know i knew i heard about something going now and he's a good friend but now i'm going now i'm going to hear about what the hell's on this thing yeah and i look through it
Guest:And it's not even porno.
Guest:It's just like these girls in bikinis wrestling.
Guest:But he's so fucking excited about this.
Guest:I mean, he's really excited about this.
Guest:It's his sexual nerve.
Guest:It's his sexual imperative.
Marc:So it's sexually turning him on.
Guest:Oh, big time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we start talking about, oh, man, these girls wrestling each other.
Guest:And we're playing the college.
Guest:He said, you know what?
Guest:We should put this in the act.
Guest:He said, it's totally self-indulgent, but it's Andy Kaufman.
Guest:Like you said, he's playing out his fantasy on stage.
Guest:So I said, that's a great idea.
Guest:I said, it's great because we're playing college audiences.
Guest:So what we did in advance, we have the press go out that come with your leotards and the winner will win $500 if they pin Andy Kaufman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the girls would come prepared to the... And we would separate.
Guest:We'd have... We'd play this on the college campuses.
Guest:You may be in the gym or in the auditorium.
Guest:And I'd have the audience separate.
Guest:We'd put the guys on one side, the women on the other.
Guest:You know, for the same... Sure.
Guest:They'd be cheering.
Guest:And they all wanted to get beat in.
Marc:Orthodox temple.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So they would have... So he'd come out, and he'd come out, and he'd wrestle them.
Guest:And it was so funny.
Guest:I would always play the referee.
Guest:I'd put my hands...
Guest:And he'd have the girl there and he'd be wrestling her.
Guest:And I'm down on the mat.
Guest:People would be screaming.
Guest:You couldn't hear anything.
Guest:But I could hear Andy and Andy would be wrestling.
Guest:He'd always win.
Guest:He was a very good wrestler, actually.
Guest:He knew all the tricks from the professional wrestlers.
Guest:These guys are really good.
Marc:And this was a character on some level.
Guest:You women.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You get back in the kitchen where you belong.
Guest:I'm a man.
Guest:I got the brains.
Guest:And it would just get people so fucked.
Guest:Oh, the woman's livers back then.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:They were crazy.
Guest:They couldn't see the joke.
Guest:They just thought this guy was like this.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:So he's on the mat and he's, what's he saying?
Guest:But he's on the mat with him and he'd go, baby, baby, baby.
Guest:He said, baby, baby, baby.
Guest:Listen to that crowd.
Guest:I said, afterwards, afterwards, come backstage.
Guest:Muno will let you backstage.
Guest:We got to get together afterwards.
Guest:He's wrestling.
Guest:And she'd go, get your hand.
Guest:She'd say, you're an idiot.
Guest:I wouldn't have anything.
Guest:This would go on.
Guest:Eight out of 10 times, he ended up scoring with those girls.
Guest:No.
Guest:Eight out of 10.
Guest:Because he broke down.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:He had this theory that when you were a kid.
Guest:But that's why he wanted to do it.
Guest:That's the only reason he wanted to do it.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:For him to get laid when we were on the college tours.
Guest:It was the only.
Guest:But it had taken.
Guest:It had capped.
Guest:It had gotten so much in the media.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because there was such anger about this by the women.
Guest:Saturday Night Live was getting... And finally, Lauren said, let's put this on Saturday Night Live.
Guest:And this is what scared me.
Guest:Because here's the one thing that I knew that nobody else knew.
Guest:Andy did this to get laid.
Guest:And it really... Remember I told you when he was sweating in his room and everything?
Guest:He would get aroused.
Guest:So that's why when you see when he's wrestling...
Guest:He's wearing these long johns.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's wearing this bathing suit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what would happen in the dress?
Guest:And I knew he would get a fucking hard on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I go, shit, now we're going to do this.
Guest:And you couldn't see it in the auditorium.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now on national TV on Saturday Night Live with the close-up cameras and whatnot.
Guest:So when we did it on Saturday Night Live, back in the dressing room, he put a jock strap on.
Guest:right and i would take a whole row of gaffers tape and i wrapped him up to keep it down then he'd put the long johns on and the bathing suit on top of that true story
Marc:And then all that stuff where he hurt his neck with the wall.
Guest:Well, that gets controversy.
Guest:Now we're getting into some areas here.
Guest:I got to watch what I say.
Marc:What does that mean?
Guest:Well, I mean, there's a lot of people who thought it was a fake and then it wasn't fake and it's not fake.
Marc:What, on Letterman when he, you know.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, no, that's a real slap on Letterman and whatnot.
Guest:And what it was was this.
Guest:So Andy's doing this wrestling stuff and it's getting a lot of attention.
Guest:And he's on Saturday Night Live and it's getting a lot of attention.
Marc:And he respects wrestling.
Guest:And he really, if Andy, anything, would be a professional wrestler.
Guest:If somebody could say, you could be a professional wrestler, he would have left the acting and the stand-up.
Guest:Forget it.
Guest:That was his dream.
Guest:Like some comics want to be really... Like Billy Crystal wants to really be a ball player.
Guest:And Billy will always look at himself as a failure because he doesn't matter where he's gotten to.
Guest:But the fact is he never became that professional ball player.
Guest:He really hates himself.
Guest:So anyway, what Andy does...
Guest:he gets a call one day from a promoter in the, in the South.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That said, Hey Andy, how would you like to come and being a professional wrestling man with Jerry, the King Lawler?
Guest:Jerry, the King Lawler was a big deal.
Guest:If you went back then to wrestling, mullet wrestling in Memphis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It was all mullets.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Andy says, Oh,
Guest:I'd love to do that.
Guest:So the promoter who has a show on Saturday mornings, you know, says, Andy, can you maybe we need a little heat to sell tickets?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Can you make can you like, you know, get people a little crazier?
Guest:Can you make some tapes and send them in?
Guest:I'll run them on their Saturday show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So he calls me up.
Guest:So we go over to George Shapiro's house.
Guest:That's when we make these crazy tapes of him.
Guest:And he doesn't live like George Shapiro by the pool.
Guest:And he's got gold chains on.
Guest:And he's got a drink in his hand with the little umbrella and all this fruit in it and all this shit.
Guest:And he's sitting there like a real asshole, you know.
Guest:And he goes, you know, and I make this tape.
Marc:This is the Hollywood thing, right?
Marc:Yes, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, hi, I'm Andy Kaufman.
Guest:You probably recognize me from the TV show Taxi.
Guest:I'm a major star.
Guest:And I'm going to be in your neck, how do you say it there, Bob?
Guest:Neck of the woods?
Guest:Is that how they talk down there?
Marc:I'm going to be in your neck of the woods.
Marc:But very detailed.
Marc:But this is a classic wrestling script, in a way.
Guest:Well, yeah, but it's driving these people nuts.
Guest:up yeah but he's going and then you could shake my hand and get my autograph you know he's going on yeah so we send this and now the ticket starts and the guy says calls and he says andy keep making those i'm telling you they're going like keep making them so then we're there in the ring and i walk in i'll never forget because it was walking you have to walk to the square circle from the uh the uh the green room in the back so you have to walk through the arena yeah to get there
Guest:People were so fucking nuts that they had the Memphis SWAT team who brought Andy in with their shield, with a plastic shield.
Guest:People were throwing all kinds of shit.
Guest:And I was in this tube walking down there with Kaufman and Shapiro.
Guest:And people were going...
Guest:Kill the Jew!
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, they were insane.
Guest:It was the scariest moment of my life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I walk in there, and it's me and Andy's girlfriend at the time, George Shapiro and Andy.
Guest:And we walked into the ring.
Guest:We're going, you know, it's going to start.
Guest:So they start.
Guest:So Andy starts banging the ring of the bell.
Guest:He starts running around.
Guest:He's being goofy.
Guest:I've seen that, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he's being goofy.
Guest:And Jerry's going, Andy, it's okay.
Guest:Come here.
Guest:Put me in a headlock.
Guest:Put me in a headlock.
Guest:So now...
Guest:Andy puts a headlock on him, and that's when he grabs him and gives him the pile driver, which is an illegal move.
Guest:People have gotten killed.
Guest:And he gives Kaufman the pile driver, picks him up again, jams his head into the mat again for the second pile driver.
Guest:Match over.
Guest:This is an illegal move.
Guest:Historically, Andy on the mat.
Guest:But he is out fucking cold.
Guest:They have to have the ambulance come in.
Guest:to back up into the they have to clear chairs and everything in the arena people are going out of their mind they're caught they're this is great the king you know they think he's dead yeah they don't give a yeah real right they move in they bring in the uh and they bring in that special stretcher uh mark you know where they
Guest:Strap you in.
Guest:Two pieces because they can't fuck up your back.
Guest:They put that under.
Guest:He's out cold, you know, and they take him out.
Guest:So now this became a big story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This became a big story.
Guest:And so much so that in a way.
Guest:Andy, who was okay, he's in the hospital and he's all right.
Guest:But now Andy's gone and now the press is... I mean, there was so much press at the hospital and people are calling AP and everything else.
Guest:It's a big fucking story.
Guest:Andy loves that, that kind of publicity.
Guest:So does Jerry Lawler, right?
Guest:So around that time is... They both then realized...
Guest:this was good for each other when and you know even so when andy was in the hospital even they told him he's okay and they said do you uh he said well do i need a neck brace they don't know you could leave and he says go can i use a neck brace yeah what are you talking about so then he wore that fucking neck brace for like about two months and he placed time he went out the thing stunk you know he had food spaghetti sauce on and everything else you know but he always fucking would put it on you know he just loved it
Guest:later don't you like this with this fucking i have the same i have the neck yeah i have the show to you sometimes and uh so he did that and then uh of course this was such a big story that when they were talking to uh david letterman yeah uh contacted saw this said this was great and called andy up and said andy this was fucking tremendous yeah are you okay he said look uh
Guest:I'm thinking of having you and Jerry Lawler on my show together.
Guest:And they set it up.
Guest:And then finally, right before commercial, just slugged him.
Guest:You've got to see the real hit.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:Swapped him.
Guest:big time knocked him and the chair over and and he fell on the floor took a letterman's hot coffee and threw it in jerry lawler's face and bedlam broke up so it was it real was it not real yeah it's real you know but at the same time i think jerry knew as far as he could take it you know yeah it's like two good actors right that say hey we're gonna go and make this look real when these cameras are rolling and they realize that if they kept it real that's right and so they he got professional at the
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So in Andy's style, in a way, you never really want to take off the mask and bow.
Guest:That's like with Tony Clifton.
Guest:We never... Tony's Tony.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now we've got an epic episode in our hands here, but I don't want to deny Tony Clifton any time.
Marc:So I want to know where did that come from, whose idea was it, and how did it become such a phenomenon?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, remember, I told you the story when Andy went in 1969 to go meet Elvis.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he didn't have any money, but he did meet Elvis and got the blessing from Elvis.
Guest:So he's in Vegas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had hitchhiked.
Guest:He had no money.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So he went to the seedy part of Las Vegas, old Vegas.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The frontier.
Marc:The frontier down there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And according to Andy, he swears...
Guest:That he had seen this lounge act, this terrible lounge act of this really obnoxious guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that the guy's name was Tony Clifton.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, so that's what Andy said, and he swears he saw that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, for years, we've researched and tried.
Guest:We've never found a Tony Clifton.
Guest:Maybe he didn't have the name right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But we know for a fact he saw somebody down there called Tony Clifton.
Guest:So he started doing an impression of Tony Clifton.
Guest:The guy he remembered.
Guest:The guy he remembered.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And call him Tony Clifton.
Guest:And what he did, it was really... At first...
Guest:and he was doing this before i met him yeah you know and he'd take some putty some nose putty and form it on his nose it was terrible he wasn't you know but he had the voice right he had the mannerism yeah oh yeah yeah yeah so the character was in place yes yes yes yeah when he'd stress out yeah i would get a call and say bob uh he said uh i'm gonna be taking a class in meditation and uh but tony's gonna be staying at my house
Guest:And I would never say, come on, Andy.
Guest:I'd go along with it.
Guest:Yeah, I worked for him.
Guest:I said, okay, okay.
Guest:What that meant is that for the next few days, Andy's gone.
Guest:He's now Tony Clifton.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This is how crazy it got.
Guest:He kept a car, a pink convertible in his garage that he only drove when he was Tony.
Guest:Andy was a vegetarian.
Guest:He never drank.
Guest:He never smoked like as a vegetarian.
Guest:Holistic medicines.
Guest:He did three hours of yoga and transcendent meditation.
Guest:Didn't he teach it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was a governor in the TM movement.
Guest:there's only 12 of them he was yeah when they first started in the 60s he was a big honcho in the transcendent but is that like he doesn't strike me as somebody that would uh you know fall into a cult of any kind well it wasn't well he wasn't so much in the cult and that's why they finally kicked him out finally he just liked the practice yeah he liked tm it really it really yeah it helped him he meditated right before he went on stage every time but it is kind of a cult in some level
Marc:Oh, I think so.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:But he liked the practice.
Guest:He liked the practice and he liked the yoga moves and the transplantation really because he was wired.
Guest:He needed to calm down.
Guest:His brain was going all over the place.
Guest:So Tony Clifton's at the house.
Guest:So now Tony's there.
Guest:Now Tony doesn't meditate.
Guest:Tony drinks heavily.
Guest:Jack Daniels.
Guest:I mean heavily.
Guest:He chain smoker, eats meat, steaks rare, totally different from from Andy.
Guest:And now it's interesting because there's a doctor, Dr. Triani out of Chicago who who was friends with Andy.
Guest:Andy used him in skits and everything else.
Guest:And Joe's the real deal.
Guest:And Joe said, without a doubt, it's a multiple personality disorder when he would get into this Tony Clifton phase.
Guest:Because you could fake everything, but you cannot fake your sexuality.
Guest:In other words, Andy would never think...
Guest:He could never get erect and driving down Sunset Boulevard, you know, in the afternoon and a chick's sucking his cock.
Guest:No fucking way.
Guest:But as Tony, he could do that.
Guest:Now, by this point, did he have the mask or was it just?
Guest:Yes, yes, yes.
Marc:Because he had all that done.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:What we did, what we wanted to do, because he really, we realized he really wanted Tony Clifton to be real.
Guest:Just like I'm telling you now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that's why I could only say so many things.
Guest:He wanted Tony to be a real entity.
Guest:And Tony is, and what it is, Tony is a real entity.
Guest:If you knew Andy and you know Tony, and when you know, it's not like he's playing a part.
Guest:You became him.
Guest:For days.
Guest:You know, for days.
Guest:And the people who worked around, we all had characters that we became because Tony didn't know Bob Zmuda, did not know him.
Guest:Tony knew a guy named Bugsy, who I played.
Guest:And then I looked different.
Guest:His secretary.
Guest:It was a whole other family, a whole other world.
Guest:And this is the kind of stuff that Andy did that in life.
Guest:You can't.
Guest:He's not just doing this on stage.
Guest:and pushing the boundaries of what performance is he's putting pushing the boundaries of what life is of the roles we play this is all to me what you know what andy was when people say well i don't consider andy that he was a comedian i don't even consider andy he was a performer i think andy was a behavioral scientist
Guest:I never saw anyone deal with behavior more fascinated by it and see how it could change.
Marc:But not unlike, what's interesting to me as we talk is not unlike the foreign guy, not unlike the wrestling character, even the busboy character, that there was some, Andy had a self, but it seemed fragile.
Marc:on some level, and that as an entertainer and as somebody that's got all this charisma and as somebody that needed when things became overwhelming to get out of that self, he could very easily become these other people.
Marc:And in a way, he's almost like a character actor.
Marc:But there's no real reason, like, I mean, when somebody, like, you know, because some people would say, like, he had this problem.
Marc:But are you going to, would you call it that?
Marc:Well...
Guest:I don't I don't think I think it's just what we're learning now about role playing people tapping into their feminine side.
Guest:You know, you hear all these things now.
Guest:Now everybody's, you know, bipolar.
Guest:Everybody's exploring these different things in themselves.
Guest:Andy was this good, polite Jewish boy from Great Nick.
Guest:right well look at it and he was polite and he was over polite you know he really was like that and really and so here's a chance to be a bad guy wrestler here's a chance to be bad tony clifton this is great freedom for him right but but but but there's a difference between saying i'm going to be tony clifton tonight and saying and then get or and getting lost in it for three days
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Well, it separates the men from the boys if you're going to get lost in it for three days.
Marc:I'm not making a judgment.
Marc:I'm just saying that it seems that when I looked at Andy Kaufman, and I don't know him, and I only know what I see of him, and what you tell me about it from the very beginning when he was trying to detach from his family's values and the thing about money and everything else is that- It's rebellion.
Marc:It's rebellion.
Marc:It's rebellion, but it's almost like there's this weird, pure self that can only take so much.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Because I do know it's associated with stress.
Guest:I knew I knew him pretty damn well.
Guest:So I knew when he was going through some stress, a lot of stress that I would get the call soon that he's leaving and Tony's coming.
Marc:And this started happening later in the career, right?
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:Tony Stark had money, he had fame, he had everything else.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:And it's interesting because not unlike the idea of becoming a busboy being relieving to him, that the idea of entering the body and mind of a failure in show business is interesting.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:There's a humility to it.
Guest:Yes, there's a humility to it.
Guest:And in a way, he saw the phoniness of the fame and fortune.
Guest:You know, I mean, listen, Mark, you've been around.
Guest:You know what I'm talking about.
Guest:We've seen them come and go.
Guest:We've seen some of them all go up the ladder and some become total assholes.
Guest:Some of them explode.
Guest:And then some explode.
Guest:And then there are some that were assholes.
Guest:And then once they get up and they become successful, they're not assholes anymore.
Guest:And then some come down.
Marc:The chip off the corner and then some come down.
Marc:Those are the ones that are the most special because they've been humbled.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And that's what Clifton has been humbled, though.
Marc:His ego will not allow him to see that.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And in a way, in a way, this this really leads to quite a problem with with Clifton, because Andy left this legacy of Tony Clifton to me.
Guest:on his deathbed said, you know, there's a few things he wanted.
Guest:He said, keep Tony alive.
Guest:So this is the last legacy we have of Kaufman.
Guest:You can look at the, he's the living legacy of Andy Kaufman as Tony.
Guest:When did you start doing him as well?
Guest:Well, Andy was doing him and we had the makeup done pretty good.
Guest:And one night we're at the comedy store and,
Guest:And Andy goes on and they said, Tony Clifton, you know, because Andy would just drop by because by then he wasn't performing at the comedy store.
Guest:He was big.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he didn't have to do that.
Guest:But he loved going there to work on things.
Guest:So he came and he said, you know, this is when he was on one of these binges, you know, where he's Tony Clifton for a few days.
Guest:He says, oh, let's go to the comedy store.
Guest:Go over to the comedy store.
Guest:He goes over to the comedy store.
Guest:And he's not on stage 30 seconds.
Guest:And people are going, the word had started getting out that Tony Clifton is Andy Kaufman.
Guest:So people go, Andy, we know it's you.
Guest:Do latke.
Guest:Do thank you.
Guest:And they're yelling this at him.
Guest:And he's trying to go on as Tony.
Guest:They don't want.
Guest:They want to hear latke.
Guest:you know that by now this taxi is the big show on tv yeah and so he walks off stage he says just a second and he walks off stage and you know that dressing room in the black in the back yeah with the mirrors yeah he took and andy was never violent he took the fucking chair and he threw it against mitzi's mirror yeah and it cracked the mirror in the back and he wasn't going to go out he said you know i hate this fucking town he says i can't even do tony clifton now
Guest:You know, I can't even have because that's what got him away from it.
Guest:He didn't have to be Andy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He'd have to be.
Guest:So they broke through the veneer of Clifton.
Guest:They broke through.
Guest:And at that point, he I never saw him this upset.
Guest:And right there in the dressing room, he says, I can't even be Tony Clifton anymore because they think because they now know it's Andy.
Guest:And he stops himself and he looks at me.
Guest:he says this is perfect i said what and i'm just his writer yeah he says this is perfect you know he says what he said they think tony clifton is andy kaufman i said yeah he said great let him think that yeah you start doing cliff and i said oh no man yeah i'm the behind the guys that i want to get some sleep and i don't want that pressure yeah he says come on bob you could do it don't be afraid you you do a good tony i'm writing for tony and stuff so i got it down you know
Guest:So he makes me fucking do it.
Guest:So Andy Harris in Reno gets a call, calls George Shapiro and said, what we'd like to do, we'd like to hire Tony Clifton for two weeks in the main room, orchestra, the whole thing.
Guest:And George is being honest with the guy.
Guest:And he says, well, listen, you understand that you're not going to get Andy
Guest:you know that it's tony yeah yeah yeah yeah we get it we get it we get it now by now we are now designing the makeup we go to the same makeup guy yeah so that the prosthetics could do that i measured the prosthetics so now and we keep going to george shapiro's office and and i would walk in or andy would walk and go nah zamuda andy until we finally perfected and he'd go
Guest:uh, Andy, it's Bob.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he goes, and this is good.
Guest:You couldn't tell.
Guest:That's why for those early ones, you'll see even because Andy had a longer, thinner, we, we, we did detail like you can't believe that's why gloves, you know, I, you know, he would have gloves on because his hands were different from mine.
Guest:Uh huh.
Guest:You know, I mean, he's taller than me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and, you know, I was heavier than him, not like I am now.
Guest:But so so he had a little punch put on.
Guest:We had the teeth.
Guest:Everything was exact.
Guest:You could not tell who was who.
Guest:So now I go get booked for two weeks at the main room.
Guest:Here is.
Guest:15 piece orchestra yeah you know it's great you know i'm scared shitless you know i'm going there and but andy you know andy was so smart andy would show up before the show he'd walk around the casino as himself you know and everybody in this and george said now i don't don't go tall and call on tony andy he'll walk out of there yeah he'll walk out off the fucking stage i'm not joking with these oh no
Guest:no respect.
Guest:We get it.
Guest:We get it.
Guest:We get it.
Guest:It's Tony, you know?
Guest:So Andy would be in the casino walking around and like, you know, you know, the casino guy would come up to this.
Guest:So Andy, what are you doing here to see Tony?
Guest:Huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm here to see Tony.
Guest:I'm here to see Tony.
Guest:Now, of course he can't be sitting there to see Tony.
Guest:Cause you know, that would give it away.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Cause he is supposed to be.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But so Andy would come in dressed as Bob Zmuda.
Guest:long hair, and it had a beard, right?
Guest:And he would sit there, you know, wouldn't look like Andy.
Guest:And he, Zmuda, really Andy, this is how fucking weird this shit gets.
Marc:It's like being a- Did he have a Zmuda mask?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:No, but he didn't look like Andy.
Guest:He had a big beard and long hair.
Guest:Okay, okay.
Guest:You know, you have glasses.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You have thick glasses on and whatnot.
Guest:You wouldn't think he'd dress differently.
Guest:You know, he'd sit there, you know, and he'd be sitting and watching the show and he'd be obnoxious and say, hey, hey, hey, Mr. Clifton, Mr. Clifton, you know, and Tony's just trying to do a show.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, what, what, what?
Guest:You know, why is it, you know, why is it you won't tell people you're Andy Kaufman, you know?
Guest:And then we have, and Tony want this man removed because he's fucking up the show.
Guest:And there's security now at Harrah's.
Guest:believe andy kaufman is on stage as tony clifton and this guy is a real asshole in the audience so they threw him out little do you know this is how crazy god that harris security has thrown out the guy they hired yeah i like how you you really talk about clifton as if he's a separate guy well i think you got to see you know we're going to have and i wanted to mention this because we're going to do uh
Guest:We did a movie, Tony Clifton, the movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Last May, Tony performed at the Comedy Store for four nights.
Guest:How many people are doing Clifton now?
Guest:Is it just you?
Guest:Well, it's just Tony.
Guest:I'm not allowed to do it now.
Guest:Not when he's doing it.
Guest:I'll do my impression sometime of it, but Tony's Tony.
Guest:Like I said, Tony does it.
Guest:The people who have done Tony Clifton, of course, Andy has done Tony.
Guest:Jim Carrey does Tony because he does it in the movie.
Guest:Paul Giamatti, who plays me in the movie,
Guest:plays tony yeah because in the scene he has to do that right in the last scene in the movie i play tony bob's winter plays tony okay uh but then you also have uh
Guest:At one time, Andy Kaufman's brother played Tony.
Guest:But now the real Tony, the legendary real Tony that you've seen on Letterman and on Merv and on Dinah Shore and all that, that is the Tony that we had at the Comedy Store last year in May, and he's recorded.
Guest:I know this sounds all weird, but you've got to see this movie.
Guest:Wait a minute.
Guest:This is the quintessential.
Marc:So no one's playing Tony.
Marc:Tony's Clifton.
Guest:who was on the green room with paul provenza that was tony clifton yeah you weren't tony clifton no no that's that's the real tony clifton after all this talk you're gonna fuck with me no i'm telling you i do an impression of tony but you could anybody who is yeah anybody who sees my impression of tony it's totally different from the real tony clifton as is jim carrey's impression of tony you know come on bob
Guest:Look, I'll tell you this.
Guest:I'll tell you this, because there is a big controversy.
Guest:Is it Bob Zmuda?
Guest:Is it this person?
Guest:Is it that person?
Guest:All I could say, Mark, and I've gone through this before with critics, people have seen the show, that have seen Tony Clifton.
Guest:You go to it, you go through that movie, and you tell me if that is not the real Tony Clifton.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I'm telling you, that's all I can say.
Marc:Let's talk about the end of Andy's wife, because despite...
Marc:Whatever may be real or not real in anything we've talked about today, part of me really thought, I had a short fantasy in my mind that you would walk up here with Andy Kaufman.
Guest:Well, I'll tell you.
Guest:And I'll tell you right now.
Guest:And me sitting here with you right now, if he walked through this door, right, I would be surprised, but I would not be shocked.
Right.
Guest:Because of the fact, and let me tell you about this, one of the most incredible controversies of all time, did Andy Kaufman fake his death?
Guest:And I'll take it through it step by step how this all came down.
Guest:It all started around the time when Elvis Presley died.
Guest:That controversy started, did Elvis fake his death?
Guest:Remember that?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:There was a little of some of that.
Guest:So we got a wind of that.
Guest:And Andy was thinking about this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one night, as you know how the comics would hang out at Cantor's, I got a call about 3.30 in the morning.
Guest:And I was on call when I was in.
Guest:He's right.
Guest:You're on call 24 hours.
Guest:My girlfriend used to go nuts.
Guest:Don't answer the phone.
Guest:Because he is a night owl.
Guest:And so he might be at Cantor's getting a bowl of ice cream at 3.30, 4 a.m.
Guest:So he called me.
Guest:He said, it's Muda.
Guest:It's Muda.
Guest:I got it.
I got it.
Got it.
Guest:This is the greatest put-on of all time.
Guest:I said, what?
Guest:He said, you got to come down here.
Guest:I'm over at Candace.
Guest:Come down here.
Guest:You know, I'm living in Burbank, so I jump in.
Guest:I said, oh, Andy, it's reason.
Guest:He says, you know all this controversy about Elvis, you know, faking his death?
Guest:I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He said, you know, could you imagine if a well-known person, outperformer, actually did that?
Guest:Do you know how big it would be, you know?
Guest:I said, so what?
Guest:Now you're thinking of faking your death?
Yeah.
Guest:He says, yes.
Guest:He says, mood of this could be huge.
Guest:I said, Andy, wait a while.
Guest:Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Guest:Stop right there.
Guest:First of all, let me tell you this.
Guest:First of all, it's illegal to fake your death.
Guest:He said, what are you talking about?
Guest:I said, people fake their death every day.
Guest:I said, you remember SAG, AFTRA, you know, Screen Actors Guild, blah, blah, blah.
Uh,
Guest:There's premiums paid on your death policy.
Guest:You've got insurances through tax and everything else.
Guest:If you fake your death, there's insurance premiums paid.
Guest:That's a crime.
Guest:You could be arrested.
Guest:And anybody who aids you could be arrested.
Guest:So I'm going to tell you this now.
Guest:I think this, you and I have been for years.
Guest:We've done every kind of practical joke under the sun.
Guest:This is brilliant.
Guest:But I must tell you right now.
Guest:I cannot be involved with you doing this.
Guest:I never want you to mention it to me again.
Guest:This is what I said.
Guest:And if you're serious about doing this, you cannot mention it to anyone.
Guest:Because this is real.
Guest:This is it.
Guest:If you're going to really fake, you can't mention to anyone.
Guest:It's interesting.
Guest:That would have really gotten him out.
Guest:Oh, get this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so then I said, oh, then I said to him, I said, besides that, if you think I'm going to sit there and lie to your parents, your mom is going to be destroyed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I can't do that.
Guest:But Andy...
Guest:Never again.
Guest:It's a great idea.
Guest:I got up and left the table.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:And he was dead set on doing this.
Guest:Now, this is where it gets weird.
Guest:So a few months go by, and he was friends with John Moffat.
Guest:Moffat Lee.
Guest:Moffat Lee and Jack Burns.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jack Burns was one of the producers on the show.
Guest:On Fridays.
Guest:So he, Andy, not heeding my call.
Guest:This is Fridays.
Guest:This was Fridays.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So he called up...
Guest:John Moffat and Jack Burns and says, I want to meet with you guys.
Guest:I got something to tell you.
Guest:And he went there.
Guest:I did not find out about this until after his death, that John Moffat told me the story I'm telling you now.
Guest:So a few months after when I dated, a few months after...
Guest:I told him, never mention, well, just don't tell me about it.
Guest:It's a great idea, just don't tell me about it.
Guest:He went to see Burns and John Moffat.
Marc:Right, and Fridays was already shooting?
Guest:Yes, yes, and he had said to them,
Guest:He said, and he came in with a Bible and made them swear on a Bible.
Guest:They went to Jack Burns basement.
Guest:He had them swear on a Bible.
Guest:He was like whispering.
Guest:I'm telling you guys, this is it.
Guest:I need you to pull this off.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I want to fake my, and he tells him the whole fucking thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To this day, John Moffat thinks he has faked his death.
Guest:To this day, you contact John Moffitt.
Guest:He'll tell you.
Guest:What was the plan?
Guest:The plan that well, the plan was he was going to fake his death and then he would make an show up on Friday.
Guest:OK.
Guest:OK.
Guest:But now by the time he's planning coming back.
Guest:But by the time he actually dies or fakes his death, Friday is long off the air.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay?
Marc:Now, at the same... No, this gets crazy.
Marc:Why are you not committing to it?
Marc:Either way.
Marc:Dies or things.
Guest:No, but I'm telling you.
Guest:I'm telling you how this truthfully came down.
Marc:Right.
Guest:This is truthfully how it came down.
Guest:Now, we had been working... Him and I had been working on a script called the Tony Clifton story for Universal Studios.
Guest:Okay?
Guest:And he came in one day.
Guest:This is where it gets weirder.
Guest:And you can go online.
Guest:You could... And this script was written.
Guest:Uh...
Guest:I think three years before Kaufman died.
Guest:And he called me up and he said, we got to change the script around.
Guest:Tony Clifton needs to die in the Tony Clifton story.
Guest:And you could, I think it's page 108.
Guest:Tony Clifton dies and he dies of cancer at Cedar Sinai hospital, the same hospital and the same disease that Andy Kaufman would die in three years later.
Guest:If you talk to a guy named Sean Daniels and Bruce Berman, who were executives at Universal at the time, they themselves who had the script will tell you when Andy Kaufman died, they don't believe it and they do not believe it to this day that he is dead because he had done these things.
Guest:What are the odds of getting so behind faking your death and then saying three years before you die that you died of cancer at Cedars-Sinai Hospital and you really do?
Guest:So that's what the controversy is.
Guest:And people are into Kauffman who know this, who do have keep that back.
Guest:Now, I did.
Guest:Did you see the body?
Guest:No, I did not.
Guest:I did not see the body.
Guest:Did you visit his deathbed?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, he was dying of cancer.
Guest:Yeah, of course, I was with him.
Guest:I went to the Philippines when he went there for psychic surgery and everything.
Guest:But you have to realize, Andy Kaufman would go through any lengths to pull off something like this.
Guest:He would not leave no stone unturned.
Guest:He'd go through chemotherapy.
Guest:He'd do anything.
Guest:He'd lose weight.
Guest:He'd do anything to look like a ravaged cancer patient to pull off that he'm faking his death.
Guest:Where were you when he died?
Guest:I was in my home at Burbank.
Guest:He was in the hospital at Cedars-Sinai.
Guest:Had you visited him that day?
Guest:Yeah, I visited him that day.
Guest:I went home to get some sleep.
Guest:You looked bad though, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I'm telling you this.
Guest:At that point in his life,
Guest:Mark.
Guest:35 years old.
Guest:Andy had it about up to here with showbiz.
Marc:He had it.
Guest:He was burnt out.
Guest:He would love if he could disappear and just be someplace else.
Guest:And he was really into other things in life like meditation and whatnot.
Guest:But it goes on.
Guest:That's the fun of it.
Guest:That's the fun of what he did.
Guest:See, so all these rules get thrown out.
Marc:Well, no, I like that.
Guest:I like the ultimate rule of faking your death or not faking it or be people.
Guest:What greater legacy for Andy Kaufman for people to think that he might still be alive?
Marc:No, I love it.
Marc:But I also he did tell you to keep Tony.
Marc:Don't be a party pooper.
Marc:I'm not.
Marc:He did tell you to keep Tony.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Whether he's dead or not, he said... Oh, no, yeah, no, no.
Guest:There's a few things he said.
Guest:He said, write a book about him, which I did, you know.
Marc:Got a little flack from the family.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did you get flack from anyone else?
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:Now, you know, I'll tell you... See, there was two books out there.
Guest:There was Bill Zamey's book.
Guest:It was a friend of mine from Chicago, Bill Zamey.
Guest:And Bill Zamey was a regular writer.
Guest:He wrote... But he did the Goldman version.
Guest:He did, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he did... No, what he did, he...
Guest:He got kind of got it kind of got away from him and he admits it but the difference is this his is a biography He talked to everybody mine's a memoir mine's just the story of me and Andy That's it from when I meet Andy at the comedy store to the day.
Marc:He supposedly died and that's my book and when the issues that the family had were around revealing sexual things and yes, right and
Guest:the intimate things that they thought was inappropriate yes but that's it yeah but i was going to give the but you know i had to because if you get into the the multiple personality disorders with the tony clip stuff you got to get into the sexuality and nowadays you know now if you looked at what you know and it wasn't even that much what i was talking about and also do they have a problem with the movie yes they do they do not like the movie why because they're not in it
Marc:Yeah, I tell you the one thing that I remember more about that movie than anything else.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I have a difficult time with biopics because it's very hard for me to see somebody else doing somebody else.
Marc:Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But the scene where he's in the Philippines and he's having the psychic surgery where there's a moment the way Milos Forman shot it where you realize that Andy realizes that it's a prank.
Marc:Yes, right.
Marc:And it's a joke.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That was genius.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It never happened.
Guest:That never happened.
Guest:I mean, he went to the Philippines.
Guest:I'm there, just like Paul Giamatti plays me in the movie, and you see Paul on the side there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when the guy's reaching in, that was the psychic surgeon of the Philippines, June LeBeau.
Guest:I knew what the guy was doing at the table.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's chicken guts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that was your point of view in the movie.
Guest:Yeah, so I saw that.
Guest:But at the same time, I wasn't going to bust Andy's bubble and say, this is all bullshit.
Marc:But he's a bright guy.
Marc:He's done enough bullshit of his own, and he's done enough illusions of his own.
Guest:Listen, when you are that desperate, and the guy would do this and reach in, and it's bloody and everything else, and supposedly go like this, and it's a chicken gutter or something.
Guest:He'd throw it in the thing, and then he'd palm another one, and so whatnot.
Marc:It's pretty basic.
Guest:Magic.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:It's pretty, you know.
Guest:But you know what's so funny?
Guest:Because Andy had tumors on his brain.
Guest:So the guy would reach in.
Marc:It had gotten all over his body.
Guest:So the guy would, yeah.
Guest:The guy would reach in through his skull.
Guest:Like this, supposedly.
Guest:That's what I'm doing now.
Guest:Reach in and pull this.
Guest:But he'd go three times a day.
Guest:for three for like three weeks so we and the guy would pull out so many tumors and and i said to lynn one day i said lynn and he'd throw it in a bucket it's a very gory thing to see and i mean this i mean it's so to be with andy and surrealistic let alone andy die and let alone going through this yeah this is this my world i was out of my mind
Guest:I mean, I was just stoned, drunk, everything else.
Guest:I was fucking insane.
Guest:It was pretty bad.
Guest:But there's a comedy side to this.
Guest:And I said to Lynn, I said, Lynn, Lynn, if this guy pulled out that, if you think about it, look at the tumors he's pulling.
Guest:Say, his head would have been this big.
Guest:It doesn't even make sense.
Marc:What was Andy like at that time with you?
Guest:So at the time, Jude LeBeau figured out that this guy doesn't have long to live and tells Andy he's cured.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Andy now goes back, goes back, comes back to L.A.
Guest:thinking he has totally cured a cancer.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he never suffered where he thought he was dying.
Guest:If you believe he doesn't.
Marc:Why do you think he didn't believe that?
Guest:Because the guy told him.
Marc:No, but I mean, but you're his best friend.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you knew it was bullshit.
Guest:Listen, Andy was way ahead of the curve, the holistic medicine stuff way before everyone else.
Guest:No, I get it.
Guest:But like you're in this position where you're like, I know this is bullshit.
Guest:And, you know, and Andy, because from my standpoint, this was it.
Guest:Do you want to be sitting there if there's no hope at all?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Isn't it nice to go out and not being screaming and yelling, you know, and in terror.
Marc:You made that choice.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So why say this is what's the gain out of it if he's going to die anyway.
Marc:So you were saying that as a friend, not as you know, you you you withheld it as a friend.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And you have to realize they also told them from Cedars-Sinai.
Guest:There's stories where people do have cancerous tumors that if you visualize the white light, that you could shrink them.
Guest:So that's why they thought when this came out, they said, look, we can't do anything.
Guest:The chemotherapy is not shrinking it.
Guest:If maybe, who knows?
Guest:And in some cases...
Guest:People do visualize.
Guest:You hear about it all the time.
Guest:People are riddled with cancer.
Guest:And sometimes that shit goes away.
Guest:How did it affect you when the day he died?
Guest:Oh, it was the worst day of my life.
Guest:But it was, you know, it was...
Guest:It was so surrealistic.
Guest:And not only that, he's my boss.
Guest:I'm his best friend.
Guest:I'm his writer.
Guest:Everything goes away.
Guest:Everything goes away.
Guest:And at the same time, there was so much...
Guest:And a lot of things happen at the same time.
Guest:I was very you get very angry and people start pointing fingers at other people, you know, because you don't know what you know how it is.
Guest:It's insane.
Guest:You just can't.
Guest:What are you going to do with death?
Guest:You know, and we don't.
Guest:It's the one thing we can't control, you know, and and so therefore we're pissed off that we can't control it, you know, unless you're, you know, maybe.
Guest:A monk or something.
Guest:And it's a nice passage.
Guest:But most people, people who's, you know, I believe people say that they're not afraid of death or just lying.
Guest:Everybody's afraid of death.
Guest:Everybody's terrified of death.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, just not to give it that much credence.
Guest:But I was more upset because I think that.
Guest:A few crazy things happened around that time.
Guest:And this is very interesting because when you're Andy Kaufman, well, let's talk about back his art again and what he did, is that I had a friend, a psychologist back in Chicago who was the head of the psych department at Northeastern University.
Guest:And I was his student aide.
Guest:And we'd discuss Andy and whatnot and how Andy was really pushing the boundaries.
Guest:And this guy always said to me, he said, mark my words.
Guest:They're going to shut him down.
Guest:They can't allow this.
Guest:They can't allow this kind of because it's getting crazier and crazier, the stuff that he's doing.
Guest:And it's beyond any standard of what show business should be.
Guest:as he lost his mind, you know, and this is how crazy it got.
Guest:To some people, oh, he was just a lunatic.
Guest:To other people, such as yourself, you know, maybe a lot of people listening to this will go, no, he's a genius.
Guest:You just got to understand that.
Guest:He just was not the norm.
Guest:It's different.
Guest:He broke the rules, you know, but to other people, they don't like when you break the rules.
Guest:And so this guy said, he said, watch.
Guest:I said, what are you talking about?
Guest:He said, I'm not sure, but I know one thing.
Guest:They're going to shut him down.
Guest:And it wasn't too long after this guy said that to me that he's voted off a Saturday Night Live, which is ludicrous.
Marc:So the point of this is that there's a conspiracy at hand, either on a cosmic level.
Guest:It's all politics, right, Bob?
Guest:It is all politics.
Guest:And so you don't know.
Guest:Hey, listen, I...
Guest:Even the problem we have now with Tony.
Guest:You'll have to get Tony here sometime.
Guest:We'll do it.
Guest:Because there's not too much access anymore to where you can put somebody like Clifton.
Guest:Before, he used to go on the shock jock show.
Guest:That's all gone.
Guest:Everybody's afraid of the FCC fines and whatnot.
Guest:And it's just... Folks, it is just so...
Marc:bullshit out there all right well maybe if we pull it together we can put him on for maybe do like a 15 20 minute one yeah well okay so he'll even stay in the room that long you know yeah okay well we can see what happens we can do that you'll have fun with him he'll come in drunk and he'll have a couple hookers with him okay i think we can try that yeah
Marc:Well, Bob, I tell you, it's amazing to talk to you.
Marc:You are managing one of the great legacies and maintaining one of the great myths.
Marc:And I think that when people listen to this, they're going to be like, I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But that's Andy, right?
Guest:Is it true or is it not?
Guest:Is it real or is it not?
Guest:That's it.
Guest:And it's gotten so crazy because of this over the years that I say things that are absolutely true and people will say, oh, that's bullshit.
Guest:That ain't true.
Guest:So at this point, who knows?
Marc:Bob Zemuda, thanks for hanging out.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:That is the man, the myth, the mouth of Bob Zamuda.
Marc:Hope you enjoyed that, you Calvin heads.
Marc:I'm sure there'll be some discourse, some conflicts, some disagreements about the myth, but he is the legacy.
Marc:He's the man keeping the myth alive, and I dug talking to him.
Marc:That was a long one.
Marc:Yeah, it went on a while.
Marc:But anyway, thank you for listening to the show.
Marc:As always, go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Get on that mailing list.
Marc:Pick up that new DVD box set.
Marc:Two DVDs, the first 100 episodes of WTF in MP3 form.
Marc:You can get that at ASTRecords.com slash WTF, or you can get it at WTFPod.com.
Marc:Pick up some Just Coffee.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Look out!
Marc:I shit my pants.
Marc:I phrased it differently there.
Marc:Check out the episode guide so you don't constantly ask me if I'll have somebody on the show that's already been on the show.
Marc:Get the app.
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Marc:Did I already say that?
Marc:Kick in a few shekels.
Marc:Do what you will.
Marc:Leave a comment if you must.
Marc:Did I mention I'll be in Phoenix, Arizona at Stand Up Live on May 3rd?
Marc:Come out to that.
Marc:Would ya?
Marc:Could ya?
Marc:Be my audience member in Arizona?
Ugh.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Where's that pen?