Much has been written about the late comedian Andy Kaufman, a pioneering comedian who was both loved and detested. They made a movie called “Man on the Moon” with Jim Carrey virtually channeling Kaufman but it wasn’t a hit — and some think it’s because Kaufman was not very likeable.
He liked to take comedy way into new realms of irony…and into areas where it was downright unfunny (the joke was on the audience for pitying or getting mad at him). He preferred to view himself as a performance artist.
If you’ve never seen the REAL Andy Kaufman, watch the You Tube bit below and you’ll see the bigime TV debut (on an early episode of Saturday Night Live) of this truly unusual comedian who was a non-smoker but died at a young age of cancer do one of his most (in)famous bits.
Kaufman’s reputation for putting people on was such that even years after his death, some believed it was all a joke and he was putting the public on. There was even a blog “by” him a few years ago.
If you want to watch (and study) the REAL Andy Kaufman CLICK HERE.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.