BONUS WTF Collections - Andy Kaufman
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 got to talk for an hour.
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:Might not have lasted 10 minutes.
Marc: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: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:And Andy came in.
Guest:Andy would always come in in character as a foreign man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So he never schmoozed with the other comics.
Guest:So he was one of those.
Guest:Because he was in character.
Guest:He would come in an hour before the show started.
Guest:Because you remember the old improv?
Guest:There was the bar area.
Guest:Yeah, on the right.
Guest:So you bought the ticket.
Guest:You had a couple drinks and waited for the room to empty out.
Guest:And with the rope.
Guest:Then you went in with the rope.
Guest:Get out of the aisle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Little room.
Guest:Very small room.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I'm the bartender now.
Guest:Chris is the night manager.
Guest:And Albrecht, I mean, Kaufman would always come in in character.
Guest:This is amazing.
Guest:And let me just go digress a little and just give you the first time I saw Andy.
Guest:I go into the improv, 1974, 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,
Guest:Now, I usually don't do this, but I don't know if you saw.
Guest:Was Bud hosting the shows?
Guest:Yeah, Bud would always be the host, the emcee.
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.
Guest:Be performing at the improv.
Guest:We have auditions once a month on a Monday night.
Guest:So don't tell your friends to come and do this.
Guest:But he's a nice.
Guest:It's up to you.
Guest:Doing him a favor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You want to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So let's get him up here.
Guest:So he comes up and Andy goes, thank you very much.
Guest:You know, and you're just watching.
Guest:I'm watching this.
Guest:And he starts with the jokes and impression.
Guest:And, you know, I'd like to do the Archie Bunker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You meathead, get out of me 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 – For the wrong reasons.
Guest:Yeah, and I saw girls hitting their boyfriends 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.
Guest: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:In 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.
Marc:Someone said that to him.
Guest:The 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:And he turns around and all of a sudden the Elvis music starts 2001.
Guest:The lights change.
Guest:He puts on the jacket and you go, what?
Guest:And he turns around, you know, and he turns around, drop dead fucking Elvis.
Guest:And he goes in and people are like, you're dead.
Guest:This guy fucked you up big time.
Guest: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.
Guest:So he never came on the bus.
Guest:He used to have his dance car.
Guest:He has his trunk up.
Marc:His dad's car.
Marc:How old is he at this point?
Marc: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 he had a 16 millimeter projector which was big heavy fucking thing you know he had you know he had magic as he had puppets symbols all kinds of crap and i'm carrying this stuff i'm putting in the trunk of his car and i no sooner get the last thing in the trunk of this car that he turns to me he goes thank you very much sucker and then he jumped and he pulled it that was it 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:Yeah, the guys knew him.
Guest: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 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 dell'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 they'll 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.
Guest:Yeah, fuck them.
Guest:If you had a job, you were square.
Guest:You were a dork.
Guest:Got it.
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:You know, his dad was in the jewelry business in Great Neck.
Guest:Classic Jewish upbringing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and he rebelled against it.
Guest:He left the house when he was about... 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.
Guest:Just because.
Guest:So he was an upper-middle-class rich kid.
Guest:Yeah, just to fuck with the family.
Guest:Right, just to say fuck.
Guest:And the cops wouldn't arrest him.
Guest:They'd go, that's Stanley Kaufman's kid.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest: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:Yeah.
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 and to the TV department, TV production.
Marc:At a community college?
Marc:At a community college.
Marc:A two-year school in Boston.
Guest: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:Right.
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 else.
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 mice, all this kid shit.
Guest:Where'd you get this information?
Guest:He told you?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:yeah yeah of course my best friend you know and and so what happens so he then at graham june council this girl saying this to him and she says well wait a second you you had an actually he said he said no this is something i did when i was 11 years old he's a kid she said please please please please and she's coming on to him a little says okay i'll be there tomorrow night so he goes to the coffee club the next night and
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.
Guest:He really thought this would get him laid?
Guest:Yes, that's the only reason he did it.
Guest:How is that going to get you laid?
Guest:Because he was helping this girl.
Guest: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?
Marc:I mean, like, if you were sitting there talking to him, I mean, was his, like... Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Marc:Well, yeah, but just naturally.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, he had no, you know, never wanted to be a stand-up or anything like that.
Guest:But he was a funny guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah, of course.
Guest:All day, 24 hours a day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it was a, life was a cosmic joke to him.
Guest:That's why he could comment on it, you know.
Guest:And so what happened, he then goes, okay, this is what I want to do with my life.
Guest:So he drops out of college, he drops out of this school and
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.
Guest:He has no money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He doesn't care to see the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wants to meet Elvis himself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he knew everything about Elvis.
Guest:He knew that Elvis was at the time was fucking everything that moved.
Guest: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.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
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:Or that, you know.
Guest:But the old Vegas stuff.
Guest:Smaller 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 floor.
Guest:off the kitchen knowing that elvis is going to go through yeah so about a quarter to eight elvis and the memphis mafia red and sunny west are coming down and andy steps out of this thing and andy described to me he said he said bob it was like i was sir hen or sir sirian or something yeah i stepped out you know he's here's this thin little you know skinny uh little jewish boy you know that the offered you know the west brothers went for the guns right away yeah
Guest:But Elvis went, whoa, whoa, whoa, because he could see this kid was no threat.
Guest:And I'm telling you, this would change everything in Andy's life.
Guest:And he stopped, and Elvis stopped and looked at him.
Guest:He said, Mr. Presley, I just want you to know that I am your biggest fan.
Guest:Thank you very much.
Guest:And he said, I'm your biggest fan, and someday I want to be famous like you.
Guest:And Elvis Presley looks Kauffman straight in the eyes and says,
Guest: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.
Guest:Two and a half years later.
Guest:Andy goes back to New York.
Guest:Now he goes to see Bud Freeman.
Guest:I feel like you're a blind Homer telling me about Odysseus.
Yeah.
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:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, you know, a made man like in Goodfellas or something.
Guest:He said it just charged him so.
Guest:He went to New York.
Guest:Two and a half years from that meeting with Elvis, Andy Kaufman was the hottest cabaret act in New York City.
Marc:Sam Simon, I'm at your house.
Marc:You look good.
Marc:I've never met you before, but I know that you were diagnosed with cancer.
Marc:Yes, I have terminal cancer.
Guest:And we're having a cigar, and you look well.
Guest:Well, I actually...
Guest:You know, cancer is a battle.
Guest:I have good days and bad days.
Guest:People tell me that I look great and I don't have looks cancer.
Guest:I will be a good-looking corpse.
Guest:I've always been good-looking.
Guest:My noble features will not be affected by this horrible disease.
Marc:So you wrote for Taxi, and then they hired you on that script.
Marc:And then they put me on staff.
Marc:And they put you on staff, and you moved, you were already here, so you just go, you're writing, you're in the staff, third season, and when do you get to run the show?
Guest:Fifth year.
Marc:I mean, how crazy was it?
Guest:not crazy at all wait like with andy and andy that i gotta say is a complete fiction it is uh well complete 90 of it is fiction you know he did enjoy to put you on a little bit right but that's the that there's a guy named bob zamuda yeah i interviewed him i do it i have a two hour two and a half hour interview with bob zamuda
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Well, he has a vested interest in keeping that myth of Andy alive.
Guest:And he's the go-to guy.
Guest:They made the movie about Andy based on his book.
Guest:And Andy was completely professional.
Guest:He told you Tony Clifton was him.
Guest:I mean, it's just, you know.
Guest:So that's also a motive.
Guest:And a little bit of press and hype.
Guest:And I'm sure Andy loves it.
Guest:You know, he would love that.
Marc:You said he loves it.
Marc:So is he still alive?
Marc:Are you hiding?
Guest:Is he here?
Guest:No, but, you know, at his service, someone got up and went, ladies and gentlemen, Andy Kaufman, and every head...
Guest:turned to see whether it was him.
Guest:But no, Andy, he was dying a long time.
Marc:Did you spend any time with him when he had cancer?
Guest:No.
Marc:No, you weren't friends with him?
Guest:No, I think he kept it a little secret.
Guest:He was going to...
Guest:psychic surgeons and, you know, really like, even I won't do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't even know what that is.
Guest:It's like a carny thing where they reach in, they palm a chicken liver and they reach into your stomach and pull it out.
Guest:That still happens?
Guest:People still... Oh, absolutely.
Marc:bud friedman is on the show today bud friedman was the owner proprietor and uh raconteur entrepreneur of the original improvisation uh on 44th street new york the original back in the late 60s early 70s where it all started where modern stand-up comedy started this is the guy
Marc:When did Calvin come in?
Marc:What was that like?
Marc:Was that the most amazing thing ever?
Marc:What was it?
Guest:Let's start.
Guest:Andy Calvin came to me through a guy named Epstein who owned a rock place, a rock coffee house thing it was, in Great Neck where Andy was from.
Guest:And he calls me up.
Guest:I know him slightly.
Guest:He said, listen, I've got this guy.
Guest:You should take a look at him.
Guest:Very funny guy.
Guest:And I didn't ask.
Guest:I never asked questions.
Guest:I said, fine.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Send him down.
Guest:Comes in.
Guest:Mr. Friedman?
Guest:I said, yes.
Guest:He says, I am Andy Kaufman.
Guest:I look at him.
Guest:I said, where are you from, kid?
Guest:I am from an island in the Caspian Sea.
Guest:And he's doing The Foreign Man.
Guest:And I'm biting.
Guest:I'm hook, line, and singing.
Guest:He's got me.
Guest:So I said, okay.
Guest:If he says you're funny, go on.
Guest:We'll put you on.
Guest:He goes on.
Guest:He's doing The Foreign Man.
Guest:Everyone's looking at him.
Guest:They don't know what to do.
Guest:The nervous Twitter, the whole thing.
Guest:And then he does Elvis.
Guest:Now,
Guest:And singing Elvis was no big deal for me because when I was in the Army in Japan, the Japanese women could sing the American songs perfectly.
Guest:Couldn't speak a word of English.
Guest:So I figured this is the same thing.
Guest:And then he finished the song and he goes, well, thank you very much.
Guest:And I go, I fell off the chair.
Guest:I knew I had been had.
Guest:And I loved it.
Guest:And we had adopted Andy.
Guest:And I used to stay in the back of the room, particularly out.
Guest:I brought him out here for a month.
Guest:when I opened the club because all my guys had already moved out here and they were playing in the company store.
Guest:And it was Jay Leno and Freddie Prinze and Jimmy Walker.
Guest:Well, Jimmy never came back.
Guest:The ungrateful fuck.
Guest:But anyway, so Mitzi says to Jay, you can't play both clubs.
Guest:And he says, well, if that's the case, since Bud used to manage me, I'll go to the improv.
Guest:Oh, okay, you can play both clubs.
Guest:And of course, Freddie Prinze, he wouldn't dare say anything to him.
Guest:Andy came out.
Guest:Andy comes out, and he's wrestling women and the whole thing.
Guest:I became an expert on body language from behind because I'm watching the guys' shoulders because they want to go up and beat the shit out of Andy on the stage.
Marc:Because he's notorious for this.
Guest:With the women and all.
Guest:And, of course, it was all set up.
Marc:But when you were looking at people, I imagine the reason you put people on was because they did well with the crowd, right?
Marc:I mean, even at the original club.
Guest:Went over with the crowd?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely, Mark.
Guest:It was, you know, it was my taste and the crowd's taste.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, I mean, Andy sometimes would push the limit.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But I knew Andy, and I didn't give a shit, you know.
Guest:Sometimes, you know, doing Gatsby got a little tiring, you know, about that, right?
Marc:Reading Great Gatsby, yeah.
Guest:And now it's a hit Broadway, off-Broadway show.
Guest:Do you know that?
Guest:No, I didn't know that.
Guest:There's a company called the Something Elevator Company.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And they do it.
Guest:And the guy reads the book, the whole book.
Guest:But they have people acting out the parts, too.
Guest:It's hilarious.
Marc:Let's talk about our guest that we're going to enjoy right now.
Marc:Mary Lou Henner wanted to do the show.
Marc:I ran into her in a theater recently.
Marc:And she saw me and she was very excited and she wanted to come on the show.
Marc:So today's her day.
Marc:So Taxi, the show that kind of made her, first premiered 41 years ago this month.
Marc:And what about Andy?
Guest:Andy.
Guest:I loved Andy.
Guest:I was so disappointed in Man on the Moon.
Guest:So, so, so disappointed.
Guest:Oh, me too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought, well, now that I've seen the documentary with Jim and Andy, it was like, well, Jim had his own thing going.
Marc:Any biopic, I mean, the problem is, is if the guy is, you know him, if the world knows him, it's already, you know, you're already working at a disadvantage.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How are you going to do that guy?
Guest:Yeah, but I also think that they made the choice to make him so crazy all the time and not sweet.
Guest:And Andy's genius was that he knew what he was doing all the time.
Guest:And he was like this sweet boy from Long Island who could have serious conversations with you and be so adorable and then do something crazy.
Guest:And the yin-yang of that was so appealing.
Marc:But you were part of the...
Marc:You were in Man on the Moon.
Guest:Yeah, Man on the Moon.
Guest:Yeah, I wore the same clothes.
Guest:I still had them.
Marc:But, like, why—I mean, there's all this mythology that I think was mostly—what's his name?
Marc:Who was his partner?
Marc:I interviewed him for two and a half hours.
Marc:Oh, Bob Zmuda?
Marc:Like, Zmuda really kind of, like, built this myth around him.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But, I mean, he was a prankster, but was he really—he wasn't—he knew what he was up to.
Guest:He knew what he was up to.
Guest:I mean, first of all, I know Zmuda since I'm in grade school.
Marc:What?
Guest:Because we did—
Guest:Zmuda is like—my life is like a Dickens novel anyway.
Guest:People kind of wander in and out.
Guest:But Zmuda and I—I was in eighth grade going into freshman year.
Guest:He was a junior going into senior year, and we ended up at the same Loyola University—
Guest:High school thing.
Guest:We did the boyfriend together.
Guest:And then all of a sudden I go to school and he ends up in my show in high school.
Guest:I was a freshman and he was a senior and he ended up playing a part in the Unsinkable Molly Brown.
Guest:Then I run into him in New York when I'm doing Grease and he's good friends with somebody in the show.
Guest:And then I come out to Hollywood and there he is.
Guest:Andy's a right-hand guy.
Guest:So I've known Zmuda a very long time.
Marc:That's crazy.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Crazy, crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I think you're right.
Guest:He had this mythology.
Guest:But Zmuda has that Chicago sort of, let's see what we can get away with thing.
Guest:The hustler.
Guest:The hustler.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in the best way, you know.
Guest:And Andy was just, he'd come up with the craziest things.
Guest:I mean, that whole Tony Clifton thing was insane and did happen the way it was, only it was even crazier than you saw in the movie if you saw it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It was crazier?
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:I mean, imagine that you're working with someone, you really like them, you're working together three months, and then all of a sudden your producers say to you, okay, the guest star next week is going to be Andy.
Guest:Well, it's not Andy, but just play along.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It was like...
Guest:Oh, OK.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then he shows up with this fake chest, you know, like padded out with the ruffled tuxedo shirt and the, you know, ice blue tuxedo jacket with a mustache, orange fake nose wig and chain smoking.
Guest:You know, and it's like, hey, pretty lady.
Guest:Hey, let's get to work here.
Guest:And.
Guest:He was such a bad actor.
Guest:Tony Clifton was so bad playing a part.
Guest:He was going to be playing Louis De Palma's brother.
Marc:And the episode— And it was Andy or was it Bob?
Marc:It was Andy.
Marc:Oh, it was totally Andy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, it was always— Well, Bob is done Tony later.
Marc:I know, but that's—
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Later.
Guest:To sort of carry on this myth that maybe Andy's not dead.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But so you all had to play along.
Marc:It came down from the top.
Guest:We played along until Tuesday and then went to the run through.
Guest:And it was so horrible.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I remember some of the lines because it was about Louis de Palma negotiating with his brother who was going to get stuck with their mother for the holidays.
Guest:And the way he said the lines was like this.
Guest:You know, ma, sometimes she's glad.
Guest:Sometimes she's sad.
Guest:As Jim Brooks said, you can't have a man playing a man playing a man playing a man.
Guest:It's like I believe in artist painting, but they can't paint on other artists.
Guest:They can't paint on the other actors.
Guest:And so they fired him, but he said he would only get fired.
Guest:They called Andy at night and said, Tuesday night and said, it's just not working out with your friend Tony.
Guest:We're going to have to fire him.
Guest:And he said, can you do it in person?
Guest:So the next day we came in.
Guest:Jim Burroughs said, who's directing, he said, you, you know, just play along.
Guest:We don't know what's going to happen, but here he is.
Guest:He's going to, you know, this is the new guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he starts, and we're like, okay, finally we can have a show this week.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then after lunch, out of nowhere, here comes Andy with the two, here comes Tony with the two hookers that he was hanging out with all weekend in his trailer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay, where's the director?
Guest:Let's go.
Guest:Let's get to work and all this.
Guest:And then Judd turns to me.
Guest:He says, the man wants a psychodrama.
Guest:He wants a psychodrama.
Marc:The man being Andy.
Guest:Andy.
Guest:And they started punching each other until the Paramount guards pulled him apart.
Marc:But my question is, why did everyone feel like they had to play along with this?
Marc:Why would, you know, if Jim called Andy...
Marc:That's a good question.
Guest:Ask our country right now.
Guest:It's like what you know, you play.
Guest:People are fascinated by bad behavior.
Guest:And I think that I get it.
Marc:But like if everyone knew it was Andy and, you know, and they why did they indulge Andy Kaufman to that degree?
Guest:I think they loved what he was doing as latke so much, even though he only had to come in Tuesday afternoon for the run through.
Guest:They wrote this in the script.
Guest:It said what he was saying, but didn't have the language.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Andy, I always use this line.
Guest:I said, Andy made up a country I wanted to visit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because it was so rich in culture what he brought in terms of the language and the history of, you know, Latkaland, whatever it was called.
Guest:And so they loved what he was doing so much they didn't want to lose him.
Guest:So that was a threat?
Guest:No, when he signed his contract, he said, my friend Tony Clifton has to be a guest star.
Guest:And he wanted three.
Guest:And they said, we'll sign him for one.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So...
Guest:It was like, oh, let's see, you know, we'll play along.
Marc:But they were, you know, he had enough leverage to kind of do that.
Guest:And they were fascinated.
Guest:I think our guys were fascinated.
Guest:I think that they thought, like, well, this is kind of funny, this is kind of cool, let's see what... But then when they realized it was not going to work.
Marc:So Danny DeVito is here, who I love.
Marc:Who doesn't love Danny DeVito?
Marc:How can you not love the guy?
Yes.
Guest:And I see Tony all the time.
Marc:You do?
Guest:Yeah, Mary Lou once in a while and Carol Kane and Chris.
Guest:Oh, Carol Kane.
Guest:Chris and I see each other in New York.
Marc:Lloyd is great, huh?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He lives in New York?
Guest:He lives in New York, yeah.
Marc:And Jeff passed away.
Guest:Jeff left.
Marc:Yeah, and Andy left.
Guest:And Andy's gone.
Guest:Yeah, Andy, my boy.
Marc:Good boy.
Marc:How was it working with Milos on that?
Guest:It was a complicated shoot.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:But I love Milos.
Marc:Oh, because I saw the documentary about Jim, too, so we all know it was complicated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But we had a good time.
Guest:I mean, everybody was smiling.
Guest:We had a good time.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Do you think it honored the story?
Guest:I think it wasn't exactly Andy, but it was damn close.
Guest:The spirit of...
Guest:Yeah, he was, he was like really, I think more childlike Andy was more like, there were simpler things about Andy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when you, I guess when you do a movie, you're only going to the extreme stuff.
Yeah.
Guest:But there was some simple things.
Guest:Andy would be like sitting in his dressing room eating sushi during the day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you could go in and talk to him and hang out with him without having to worry about becoming part of his art project.
Right.
Guest:Which most of the time you were, you know, like there were a couple of times that I was in the first met and I'd be in the hallway hanging out and he's there and he'd come out of his dressing room and all of a sudden some woman would come in with a package like delivering.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, a UPS person or a postal worker.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he would start on her.
Guest:And they go, what are you doing?
Guest:Taking a job away from a man.
Guest:You know, you should be in the kitchen.
Guest:You should be doing blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And then she'd get pissed off at him.
Guest:And then we would all come out.
Guest:I'd be out in the dressing in the hallway for what's going on out here.
Guest:And they would be rolling up their sleeves and wrestling.
Guest:And they would get on the ground and they would wrestle.
Guest:Now, here's the thing about that.
Guest:I didn't think about it until many years later.
Guest:I bought it.
Guest:And everybody else bought it.
Guest:But I suspect that that woman was on the payroll.
Guest:Okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's how fucking crazy Andy was.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:She came in, dressed in a uniform.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To put on a show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Okay, well, maybe I'm a little slow.
Guest:He did the thing really well, and we all bought it.
Guest:Like, what are you doing?
Guest:A little slow took years.
Guest:Took years.
Guest:Yeah, a little slow.
Marc:Carol Kane is a sweetheart and a great actress and a legend.
Marc:I don't like to use that word.
Marc:I don't like when people use it about me, and I just did it about her.
Marc:But I was so thrilled to have her on.
Marc:I really am.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I was only on taxi, I think, a year and a half, actually.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I got brought in, or maybe it was a little longer than that.
Guest:Maybe it was two seasons.
Guest:And I got brought in in the first season.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I was gone for a while.
Guest:And then I came back and became Andy's girlfriend and then his wife.
Marc:What was your relationship with Andy like?
Guest:So complicated and strange and wonderful.
Marc:That sounds like everyone's relationship with Andy Kaufman.
Guest:That might be true.
Guest:Although, you know, Andy had some very good friends, but we at Taxi were not one of them.
Guest:We were work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and Elaine, and yeah, and a lot of people.
Guest:The comics.
Guest:We were at work, and he separated Taxi from his other life, you know?
Guest:And the thing about Andy and I, and I did love him, is that...
Guest:I came from the theater, so I like to rehearse.
Guest:Andy came from, well, you could say stand-up or you could say performance art.
Guest:Right, sure.
Guest:But in any case, he hated rehearsing, and he said it was bad for what he did.
Guest:Is that true of most stand-ups?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, that was Andy's feeling about it, is he wanted it spontaneous.
Marc:Yeah, I understand that, yeah.
Guest:So he had it in his contract that he would only come two days a week.
Guest:He'd come for the read-through, and then he wouldn't be back till Friday when we taped the show.
Guest:And there'd be a fake Andy all the other time for rehearsal.
Guest:A guy named Jeff, lovely guy.
Guest:And so every time...
Guest:Every Friday, I would have gotten so angry during the course of the week because I wanted to rehearse with him, you know.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:And so I would come to his dressing room, or he mine, and I would say, look, Andy, I have to talk to you.
Guest:Because I understand, you know, that you can't.
Guest:But for me, it just means everything.
Guest:And then he'd say, I understand.
Guest:I understand completely, but I just can't do it.
Guest:And we'd have a talk like that.
Guest:And by the end of that talk, we would be able to be in love and be.
Marc:So you got what you needed.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I think it was good for Andy, too, because we had a relationship privately just then.
Marc:Right, discussing why he can't do what you needed him to do.
Guest:Yeah, and why I can't do what he needs to do.
Marc:So you were able to emotionally connect with him in a genuine way.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Enough to work the performance.
Guest:Go out there and do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Judd Hirsch is on the show today.
Marc:Judd Hirsch, you know who Judd Hirsch is.
Marc:He was, I think, best known for playing the role of my father on the show Mary.
Marc:Uh...
Marc:And then you deal with Andy Kaufman, who was willing to go to the extreme for improvisation.
Guest:Not only the extreme, but he did a part on Taxi.
Guest:He had two contracts in Taxi.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One was for a character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The lounge lizard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tony Clifton.
Guest:Tony Clifton.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he came in and was Tony Clifton.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, he did not.
Guest:We had to promise that we would not call him Andy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had to promise that we would be faked out by the fact that he wanted us not to know.
Guest:All right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We did this before he arrived.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And a couple of the actors in Taxi went, oh, bullshit, I'm going to go do that.
Guest:You know what I'm thinking?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course.
Guest:Okay, all right, all right, we'll do that.
Guest:I think he gave it away with the voice.
Guest:I don't even like the character.
Guest:But the character that he has has to be hated, has to be the biggest pain in the ass in the world to be even on stage.
Guest:He's playing a character in Taxi, by the way.
Guest:He's been hired to play the brother of Danny DeVito.
Guest:This is the episode.
Guest:He never said a line.
Guest:He never did anything to do the shot, the character.
Guest:He just fooled around as the character.
Guest:And we're all standing on the side.
Guest:And I was standing to the producer and I said, we're shooting on Friday.
Guest:This is Wednesday.
Guest:What the hell are we going to do?
Guest:He said, we work from Monday to Friday.
Guest:I said, we got a camera rehearsal tomorrow.
Guest:He said, what do you want me to do?
Guest:And I said, what do you mean?
Guest:We don't have a show.
Guest:He said, what do you want me to do?
Guest:So I just walked away from him and walked up to Andy and I said, get out of here.
Guest:And he had set an argument with me.
Guest:He said, I have a contract.
Guest:I said, my contract is bigger than yours.
Guest:Now get the fuck out of here.
Guest:And as far as I'm concerned, and I believe it's on tape, maybe I shouldn't say this, but I actually threw him out off the stage.
Guest:While I was doing it, I knew he wanted me to do it.
Guest:That's the end of his character.
Guest:That's where his character has to go.
Guest:He has to get thrown off stage.
Guest:Tony.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No matter where he does it, they have to throw things at him, tell him, boo, get him out of here.
Guest:So I played the part he actually wrote.
Guest:He set you up.
Guest:He set me up.
Marc:So, as I said before, Laurie Anderson had a profound impact on my life.
Marc:Just hearing her in my headset while I talked to her was kind of mind-blowing.
Marc:It happens sometimes on this show.
Marc:And you'll be surprised.
Marc:She mentions a comic icon in a very personal way that she had a relationship with.
Marc:And I was sort of like, holy shit, what?
What?
Marc:It seems to me that from the beginning, despite the intention of art, that comedy was always sort of part of what you were doing.
Guest:Well, I was a straight man for Andy Kaufman for a while.
Guest:That was really fun.
Guest:Where'd you meet him?
Guest:A friend of mine said, and this was also right around that time, she said, there's this guy who's got to go out to Queens to this comedy club.
Guest:In the 70s?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Comedy club.
Guest:Early 70s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you got to check him out.
Guest:So I went to this club and really squalid little place.
Marc:Was it like Pips or something?
Marc:It probably didn't even have a name.
Marc:It probably had a name, but it was in Queens?
Marc:It wasn't even a comedy club.
Guest:It was just a club.
Guest:So there was a guy playing bongos in this place.
Guest:And he...
Guest:It was a really long set.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And bongos, you know, I don't know.
Guest:They get a little tiring after a couple of minutes.
Guest:Just solo bongos?
Guest:Solo bongo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then as he's playing these bongos, he had about maybe four different bongos, different pitches, and bongo, bongo, bongo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And as he's playing, his head sort of falls and some tears start rolling down his cheeks and he starts crying and then he's playing a little faster and he starts crying and he's sobbing and then he's like...
Guest:And everyone in the club was like, what the hell?
Guest:What's wrong with this guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, this is the greatest guy ever.
Guest:This is the funniest thing I have ever seen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I just said, who are you?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I did some stuff with him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would go to Coney Island and, you know, we would...
Guest:Do stuff like stand around that test your strength thing with that sledgehammer.
Guest:You hit it and the meter goes up to like... So he would... We'd stand around.
Guest:He'd make fun of people who were doing it.
Guest:Like, what a... Provoke them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm supposed to like...
Guest:Andy, could you get me a bear?
Guest:And he's... So finally these guys get really sick of him and go, okay, pal, you give it a try.
Guest:So he just... And it goes up like not even one...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the try again weakling level.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he's going, I want to see the manager.
Guest:This is fixed.
Guest:This is an outrage.
Guest:We have to go see the manager.
Guest:Anyway, it was just so much fun.
Guest:And he was a...
Guest:Real genius.
Guest:He was really a genius.
Guest:He just did all of these projects.
Marc:And this is before anyone knew him.
Marc:Like, it's before he really started doing it.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Was he part of the scene or he's just this weirdo who lived in Queens?
Guest:I mean, did you... Well, the scene, what was the... There wasn't a scene, really.
Guest:But it was like... These were experiments.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, okay, so then eventually we did do stuff in some real, like a comedy club.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that would be... So other things were just things like we would go to also...
Guest:Rides at Coney Island, you know, the one with the centrifugal force and everyone, the bottom drops off.
Guest:Sure, the Tilt-A-Whirl or whatever?
Guest:Yeah, it might be called Tilt-A-Whirl.
Guest:Anyway, so just as people are getting strapped in, he'd just go, I'm not confident about this ride.
Guest:I really have a very, very, very bad feeling about the ride.
Guest:And everyone's starting to sweat.
Guest:And they stop it, you know, because everyone's freaking out.
Freaking out?
No.
Guest:And other things, we would go to Madison Square Garden.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this was before there were metal detectors or anything.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You'd just show your tickets when you got inside.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he had no tickets.
Guest:So he would just go tell the usher.
Guest:We would sit down, you know, just courtside.
Guest:Basketball games or wrestling things.
Guest:Just downtown right where the action was, first row.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they'd come and go, tickets, please.
Guest:And he'd go, oh.
Guest:I just have a piece of paper because a guy on the street sold me for $200 ringside tickets.
Guest:He said I could sit here ringside.
Guest:And the guy is going, you just paid $200.
Guest:Yeah, I've just paid $200.
Guest:You just get this guy to pity him.
Marc:You let him stay there?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you go to wrestling too?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, what we did in clubs was he would part of... Then he just started developing his act.
Marc:Right.
Guest:He was also writing this really beautiful book, which I don't know what happened to, because he would come over and read it to me.
Marc:What was it?
Guest:A novel.
Marc:Really?
Guest:A crazy, crazy novel.
Marc:How old was he?
Marc:How old were you guys?
Marc:Like 21, 22?
Guest:In the 20s.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:You know, something like that.
Guest:And so then...
Guest:he got these things in clubs and then he would just stand around saying, women just, you know, I just don't respect him.
Guest:You know, I just have to say, on a physical level, let's say, too, you know, because I'll respect a woman when she can come up here and wrestle me down.
Guest:And that was my cue.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To come up and, hey, I'll take you on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm sitting there in the club just trembling, drinking four whiskeys in a row.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I have to do this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He would really fight, too.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wasn't just, I mean, he wasn't going to kill me, but he was really twisting my arm.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He didn't show you any wrestling moves?
Guest:I knew a few moves, you know.
Marc:So you guys were friends for a while, huh?
Guest:Yeah, we were.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:I loved him.
Guest:I loved Andy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's interesting to talk to somebody that knew him before he became what everyone else knows him as, whether as a comic or as an actor.
Marc:I mean, you knew him when he was basically just starting this weird stuff.
Guest:He was dangerous.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And do you think that his sort of courage around that stuff influenced you?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:That was crack for me.
Guest:I was like, yeah, who are you?
Guest:He did some really great stuff.
Guest:And did you stay in touch with him?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:Once he started doing TV stuff, I was kind of like, no, no, no.
come on.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:No, I didn't like that stuff.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Not really.
Guest:I didn't think it was funny, you know?
Guest:It was kind of a, it became such a sort of shtick.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was like, all right.
Marc:Like the laska stuff?
Marc:Yeah, you know.
Guest:I mean, it was sort of charming, I guess, but it wasn't, it wasn't like menacing.
Guest:Oh, I like the menace.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:uh mike roe is here michael roe i knew him as mike i'll call him mike he wrote a book a few years ago called this a funny thing how the professional comedy business made me fat and bald you can get that wherever you get books and this was it was kind of fun to catch up with mike because i really don't think i've sat down and talked to him since we were at the comedy cellar in the early 90s
Marc:You moved down to New York.
Marc:Now, what year is that?
Marc:1979.
Marc:Oh, so you're there.
Marc:There's still a lot of big hitters around from the 70s.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Before they all split.
Guest:Who was there?
Guest:I was mostly at the improv, so it was, remember Mark Wiener?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:Mark Schiff.
Marc:Neither one of them would work on Saturday.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:You named the two Orthodox Jews.
Guest:Piscopo was like the emcee most of the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Glenn Hirsch.
Guest:Yeah, I remember him.
Guest:Bob Shaw was there.
Guest:Bob, Michael Patrick King, and I wrote on the Carolines thing together.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Michael Patrick King.
Marc:See, I never saw him do stand-up.
Marc:I don't think a lot of people know he did.
Guest:It was brief.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He started in a group and then had a partner.
Guest:Then there was just two of them.
Guest:Andy Kaufman was there.
Guest:Was he still?
Guest:He came back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This was around the wrestling time.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And he kind of befriended me.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I got to referee some wrestling matches on that little tiny stage at the improv.
Marc:So tiny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In the corner.
Guest:It was, I mean, it was, it was scary because it was really a woman, a real woman from the audience.
Guest:It wasn't set up.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he would flip her around on that little stage, you know, and it's like, I felt like I had some responsibility because I was the, the, the quote unquote, you know, referee.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the women would get so worked up and they would just crowd the stage.
Guest:It was like a, a Thunderdome.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:They would pile on top of each other because he's, you know, you should be home cooking and cleaning and doing the ironing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I was just looking for the right moment to call it at those times.
Guest:Yeah, before it got too crazy?
Guest:And then the women would want to kill him, and then they would go up to him at the bar and want to fuck him.
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:But he was a star already.
Guest:Yes, he was a star.
Guest:I got to play drums for his Elvis a few times.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It was fantastic.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:And as a guy, what was he like?
Guest:He stayed in character all the time, but I felt kind of... Which character?
Marc:The heel?
Marc:The wrestler character?
Guest:The wrestler.
Guest:He had the neck brace on just in the bar and going on stage.
Guest:And I feel kind of privileged because he confided in me a few times.
Guest:And that's like, you know... About what?
Guest:Like, he went on Letterman...
Guest:He was talking about, on the show, he was unshaven and sniveling and talking about how he got fired from Taxi.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's like, if you have any money, ask a new audience.
Guest:And they're throwing change at him.
Guest:And he got worked up and security had to pull him out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I saw him the next night and he's like, they really thought I would.
Guest:They needed money.
Marc:To me, I felt this was like a privileged moment.
Marc:Yeah, it's like learning the trick.
Marc:The magician telling you the trick.
Marc:He was so excited, though.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know what, Mr. Lawler?
Guest:I've heard all these things you've been saying about me on television.
Guest:You want to wrestle me?
Guest:You want to wrestle me, my infestyle?
Guest:All right, fine.
Guest:I'm not afraid of you, Mr. Lawler, because let me tell you something.
Guest:True, I only wrestle women, but I've wrestled women that are a lot bigger and stronger than you.
Guest:Matter of fact, they're probably smarter than you because you don't have any brains.
Guest:You're from Memphis, Tennessee.
Guest:All you do is plow the fields and farm and the farm and the loo.
Guest:Is that how you're talking, Memphis, Tennessee, Mr. Lawler?
Guest:Boo.
Guest:See, Mr. Lawler, you don't have any brains.
Guest:I am from Hollywood.
Guest:I have the brains.
Guest:I was already like an Andy Kaufman kind of voracious fan.
Guest:Like I wanted to know everything about him.
Guest:Was it Taxi or was it the wrestling?
Guest:I mean, I knew of him from Taxi, right?
Guest:And I knew that when I remember when I was a kid, we'd see reruns of Taxi and I would say things to my parents like, who is that guy?
Guest:Where is he?
Guest:And they'd be like, oh, unfortunately he died.
Guest:So we can't see it.
Guest:He's not going to be in anything else.
Guest:And then, you know, because he was dead and he didn't really know anything about him, I would pick up little bits here and there.
Guest:And I would remember like comedians talking, like if they were on a late night show or something and it was a comedian I admired, a lot of times they'd bring up Andy Kaufman and they'd say, you know, oh, but he's the guy who taught me, I learned everything watching Andy.
Guest:And oh, okay, that guy from Taxi.
Guest:And so I was backfilling a lot of info.
Guest:And then once I saw the footage of him doing the wrestling and I was already a big wrestling fan.
Guest:Oh man.
Guest:oh this is all part of that of his act and oh okay and I would start to kind of piece it all together and then I just wanted to absorb any information that I could get about Andy Kaufman so by the time Man on the Moon came out I actually was disappointed in that movie because I didn't think it got me over the hump
Guest:of where I already had been as an Andy fan and the kind of new information I wanted to get.
Guest:And I always took that as a me problem, not a movie problem.
Guest:I didn't hold that against the movie Man on the Moon.
Guest:I held it more against me being like, oh man, I was way too into Andy Kaufman and this movie was unsatisfying for me.
Guest:Well, fast forward to this book called Is This Guy For Real?
Guest:The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman by Box Brown.
Guest:Now, Box Brown is an illustrator, cartoonist.
Guest:I think he'd be fine if you called him a comic book writer.
Guest:He writes these graphic novels that are, I would call them like biographical or non-fictional.
Guest:He's got one on Andre the Giant.
Guest:He's got ones that are about things other than wrestling.
Guest:He has one on Vladimir Putin.
Guest:But Box Brown is the name he goes by.
Guest:His real name is Brian Brown.
Guest:And I knew about this Andy Kaufman book.
Guest:I knew that it was written in his style as a graphic novel.
Guest:And I finally got my hands on it and read it.
Guest:And it is, I would say, the definitive Andy Kaufman book.
Guest:It really tells you everything you need to know, not just about Andy, but about how wrestling integrates with comedy.
Guest:And wrestling is the foundational drive behind Andy Kaufman and everything he ever did.
Guest:This is a well-researched book.
Guest:He really nailed it.
Guest:And so when I saw that Andy Kaufman was going to be in the Hall of Fame, I reached out to Brian Brown, Box Brown, who I actually know from back in the Air America days.
Guest:We're going to talk to him a little bit about that.
Guest:And he said, yeah, come on.
Guest:I'd love to talk about Andy Kaufman.
Guest:So why don't we do that now?
Guest:We'll take a listen.
Guest:And I want to preface this by apologizing ahead of time that I, for my whole life,
Guest:have called this guy Andy Kaufman.
Guest:And only like in recent history, do I know that his name is Andy Kaufman, like cough, but I still call him Kaufman all the time.
Guest:So apologies in advance.
Guest:You're going to hear me saying Kaufman a whole bunch.
Guest:And it's not out of disrespect.
Guest:It's just my brain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Pronouncing stuff is hard.
Guest:I don't know how Mark does it all these years.
Guest:Talking is hard.
Guest:Why would anyone want to just talk all the time?
Guest:It's crazy to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Unfortunately, that's what we've decided to do here every Friday.
Guest:But we'll take up some of that talking with, at this point, Brian Brown, author of Is This Guy For Real, the unbelievable Andy Kaufman.
Guest:And he's talking to us from Philadelphia.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:BAM BAM BAM
Guest:Before we start talking about your books and before we start talking about Andy Kaufman and wrestling and anything else having to do with your work, we know you from way, way back when we were doing the Break Room Live show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you remember how that all came to be?
Guest:Were you just a viewer of it or did somebody hip you to it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:No, someone told me about the show.
Guest:I remember when it came out and they were like, oh, this is the best show.
Guest:political show at the time because it was like you guys were just doing commentary and they're like i remember them being like oh yeah it's in the break room at air america and uh i was like what and then it's funny because it really was in the break room like people would come in and get their lunch and stuff like yeah in the middle of the microwave yeah yeah yeah yeah um so yeah i started listening that's when i got into like mark and uh sam both of them uh sam cedar yeah yeah yeah
Guest:And they were doing something back in the day.
Guest:It was just after the 2008 financial crisis.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they were doing something called the Unemployee of the Month.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Guest:I had been unemployed for a long time.
Guest:Not that long, but I quit my job right before the downturn and then moved to Philly.
Guest:And so I had a regular job, quit my job, moved to Philly, then the...
Guest:the financial crisis happened.
Guest:And then I had, I was working data entry at like a porn company.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And they were like, if you have, if you've recently like, you know, are unemployed or taking like a lower paid job, like, you know, call us.
Guest:And that's, that's what I did.
Guest:I just talked, I got fired from that job actually.
Guest:Also after you got fired from the porno job.
Guest:The Fortnite job, yes.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Because they had taken on too many data entry people and I had the, like, the worst numbers.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:The most errors, I think, yeah.
Guest:They had blown their load and they had to get rid of you.
Guest:Yeah, they were like, there's too many people, so you're out.
Guest:It was fine.
Guest:That was kind of like when I was just starting to make comics, too.
Guest:Well, yeah, I remember that was part of the personality profile we did of you.
Guest:You were a cartoonist, at least.
Guest:That was how I think we ID'd you at the time and that you were illustrating.
Guest:And because of that appearance on Break Room Live, I've definitely followed you throughout.
Guest:I think you're probably one of the first followers I have on Twitter just because I think I got on Twitter around that time, 2009 or so.
Guest:And I was I've always been following what you do and then noticed, OK, writes about wrestlers.
Guest:I saw the Andre the Giant book that you put out.
Guest:And then Andy Kaufman, which is now in the news, very relevant for us to talk about because he's being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Guest:And I will say this.
Guest:I was, in my teenage years, kind of obsessed with Andy Kaufman.
Guest:I think I came to it mostly because of the I'm from Hollywood documentary.
Guest:So I was already a huge wrestling fan.
Guest:And then I saw that I'm from Hollywood thing on Comedy Central or something.
Guest:They would replay it all the time.
Guest:This is like the exact...
Guest:method like the same way i came to know about andy kaufman oh yeah i i would guess most people our age because you know i i knew taxi from when i was a kid i saw the reruns and whatnot and then what i wound up doing was just kind of there wasn't a way to go find that jerry lawler clip on letterman right yeah so when you saw it on that documentary and saw him actually get smacked in the face it was like oh wait a minute and then they're showing i knew about the story of it but i didn't know all the stuff in memphis i didn't know oh
Guest:That he was doing all of these television hits and sending tapes and the, you know, I'm from Hollywood tapes and all that, the promos.
Guest:So backfilling it became like this fascination for me.
Guest:And I was kind of devouring everything I could on Andy Kaufman.
Guest:And I don't know if you had this experience too, but I remember reading a bunch of books on him.
Guest:One was by Zamuda and I found the books to be all pretty lousy.
Guest:Like they did not capture anything.
Guest:Like this guy felt unknowable to me, even in these books that were supposed to let you know who he was.
Guest:And I'm like, wait, the whole thing is I'm trying to figure out who the hell Andy Kaufman is.
Guest:These books are not helpful.
Guest:So reading your book, Is This Guy For Real?
Guest:The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman.
Guest:This was the first time I actually think I know him.
Guest:It figures him out.
Guest:It's a great way to identify who Andy Kaufman is and why.
Guest:And I think fundamentally the wrestling persona that he adopted to be the intergender champion and that is...
Guest:foundational for everything in his life, understanding his comedy, understanding his stage shows, his just general persona.
Guest:It all comes from wrestling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, like the stuff he was doing comedy wise, you were like, is this comedy?
Guest:Like you'd get out and like insult the audience and all this stuff like the Tony Clifton.
Yeah.
Guest:Stuff and other things like, you know, the way he would just play with the audience like that.
Guest:And I remember like watching, you know, I rewatched man on the moon and I just remember being like, this isn't, they make Andy seem like he's like a complete alien, like a total space cadet maniac, like just totally uncontrollable lunatic.
Yeah.
Guest:From doing research on him and watching all this stuff and knowing what I know about wrestling and talking to the wrestling people and talking to his brother, Michael, that's not what Andy was like.
Guest:He had a weird style of comedy for the time period.
Guest:He created a character, basically.
Guest:A persona that people can't tell if it's real or not, really.
Guest:What part of him is real and what's this character that he's doing?
Guest:That's what Andy's whole thing was.
Guest:The whole thing was that it was amusing to him and the people in on the joke.
Guest:You had to be in on it or else it really wasn't funny.
Guest:If you weren't in on the joke...
Guest:You were, you know, confused, maybe insulted.
Guest:And you're like, why is this funny at all?
Guest:But if you were in on the joke, if you knew what he was doing, then it becomes like so funny.
Guest:And, you know, that stuff is all pro wrestling related.
Guest:Like the concept of like just being mean to the audience is,
Guest:And trying to get the audience to hate you seems so out of place in a comedy club, but is 100% the role of a heel wrestler and has been for 100 years.
Guest:That's totally the entire point of what they do.
Guest:And so Andy was like...
Guest:You know, applying these other ways to deal with crowds and other ways to interact with the crowd like he's like what happened in pro wrestling and brought it to his comedy and not just in his thing where he wrestled women, but also in his regular.
Guest:you know, his comedy, he'd mess with the audience.
Guest:Like when he got out and just like read the great Gatsby to the crowd, like, and they were just getting more and more mad.
Guest:And like the stuff he did with Tony Clifton was so brilliant too, where he'd have like the whole audience put out their cigarettes and be like, this is a non-smoking for Tony Clifton has to maintain, you know, the quality of his voice.
Guest:And they make it seem like real serious.
Guest:People are all mad and putting out, you know, you could smoke back then putting out their cigarettes and,
Guest:And then Tony Clifton comes out smoking.
Guest:And it was just like, you know, all that stuff is like classic, like amazing heel stuff.
Guest:I just want to know, how did you get involved with, you know, what was your first knowledge of Andy Kaufman?
Guest:Was it the wrestling?
Guest:Was it the comedy?
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:It came from...
Guest:The I'm from Hollywood stuff.
Guest:But I remember seeing like on Comedy Central, they had I'm from Hollywood.
Guest:And they also had like another special that was mostly like a stand up.
Guest:I think that was a network special NBC or something.
Guest:And then it would get rerun on Comedy Central.
Guest:I remember exactly what you're talking about because they play them back to back usually.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So this was like 96 or 97.
Guest:I was like, you know, I grew up into pro wrestling.
Guest:So I was like 16 or something.
Guest:And I knew who Jerry the King Lawler was way before I knew who Andy Kaufman was, you know.
Guest:And so when I'm flipping through Comedy Central, I'm like, what the hell is Jerry the King Lawler doing on Comedy Central?
Guest:You know, and that's when I was that's what made me like stop and be like, what's the deal with Andy?
Guest:What's this Andy Kaufman thing?
Guest:And I ever talk to my mom about like my mom, who is not into pro wrestling or comedy, really.
Guest:um, remembered this happening on Letterman.
Guest:And she was like, Oh yeah, the wrestler really beat them up.
Guest:Like she was still, it was like, you know, 2010 or something.
Guest:And she still was like, yeah, that the pro wrestler really beat up Andy Kaufman on TV.
Um,
Guest:Andy wanted to get into pro wrestling.
Guest:You know, he was a fan as a kid.
Guest:And then as an adult, he would go to Madison Square Garden and Vince McMahon Sr.
Guest:Not just Vince McMahon Sr., but it was his it was his order.
Guest:But all of pro wrestling kind of thought that celebrities in pro wrestling was like a really bad thing.
Guest:Like it would, you know, pro wrestling is fake.
Guest:And at the time you had to pretend that it was real.
Guest:And so the idea that a celebrity would come in and wrestle made it seem like if this guy could come in and wrestle, then anybody could do it.
Guest:And like, it like lessens the effect that the actual pro wrestler has when they get to the ring.
Guest:Takes away from that.
Guest:That was the thinking.
Guest:So he found Memphis, you know, he got he got in touch with, you know, he ended up meeting Bill after the photographer for Pro Wrestling Weekly is the editor, too.
Guest:And Pro Wrestling Illustrated, I'm sorry.
Guest:And he was talking to wrestling with him.
Guest:He calls up Jerry Lawler.
Guest:They set this whole thing up.
Guest:blah, blah, blah.
Guest:They set up a whole event in Memphis and they go on Letterman and they do this slap thing, this fake, you know, this fight that looks really real and there's swears in it and stuff.
Guest:And that event was,
Guest:That thing happening on Letterman made wrestling appear like the most legitimate of like anything that happened in pro wrestling in decades.
Guest:Like it added so much legitimacy to like it did the exact opposite of what they thought that it would do.
Guest:And it was the genius of Andy that did that because he made it seem so real on the Letterman show and played into the character so well.
Guest:And then he went back to Memphis and he did like an entire run in Memphis, sending in tapes, doing multiple different in-ring matches and stuff, doing interviews in the studio, sending in stuff, all kinds of stuff.
Guest:And when you're watching it, no celebrity, none.
Guest:And there's been infinite celebrities in pro wrestling at this point.
Guest:No one did it better than Andy Kaufman.
Guest:Andy Kaufman was as effective or more effective than the best heel wrestlers in the country at the time.
Guest:No one could really stand up to what he was doing and the effectiveness of how he was doing it.
Guest:In your book, you have a scene where Andy goes to Graceland and gets a private tour.
Guest:Did Elvis actually tape all of Andy's appearances?
Guest:I don't – I mean, that's what he says.
Guest:You know, they say that – you know, it's been well known.
Guest:He said a number of times that Andy was his favorite – did his favorite impression.
Guest:And, you know, I think there's a lot to that too because, like, when people – anyone –
Guest:does an elvis impression they often the first thing they say is thank you very much right that was andy's thing that he said that was that was his thing that he said at the end because that's what foreign man was saying after all of his jokes thank you very much thank you very much then he does elvis and he says thank you very much and elvis's voice
Guest:And then everybody does.
Guest:It's like when the George H.W.
Guest:Bush impression from Saturday Night Live, that became everybody's Bush impression.
Guest:And that was Andy for Elvis, I think.
Guest:There's a million Elvis impersonators, all that stuff.
Guest:And, you know, as far as Elvis impersonators go, like, Andy was like the most famous Elvis impersonator.
Guest:And he was really good at it.
Guest:And so, like, people copied his impression.
Guest:Brian, it's been awesome talking with you about this.
Guest:I couldn't think of a better person when I saw Andy Kaufman was inducted in the Hall of Fame.
Guest:I thought, you know, everybody's going to talk to Bill after.
Guest:And, you know, there's...
Guest:There's all these people who know about the Memphis stuff, but I don't I don't believe I've read anything about Andy Kaufman that got to the core of him as much as this.
Guest:So congrats on that.
Guest:And thanks for doing this.
Guest:Thank you so much for having me on.
Guest:Andy always dreamed of wrestling
Guest:Andy always dreamed of wrestling.
Guest:He would see himself in the ring With bulging biceps and in people's knees
Guest:Basking in the spotlight As you heard the crowd cheer By Andy
Guest:He wasn't tough enough Big time wrestling can't be so wrong No, and he wasn't man enough So he started wrestling women
Guest:Andy always dreamed of wrestling.