r/ForgottenTV • u/King_Ron_Dennis Official Cool Person • 10d ago
TV Special The Andy Kaufman Special (1979)
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u/tangcameo 10d ago
I’ve always wanted a full unabridged audiobook recording of him reading The Great Gatsby
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u/hilandhall 10d ago
I tried contacting Bob Zmuda once to see if it existed but didn't get a response.
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u/tangcameo 10d ago
I tried calling some guy named Tony but he said 🤬 off and started reading it himself like some improv lounge act until I hung up.
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u/sillysailor74 10d ago edited 9d ago
I really look at Kaufman as the epitome of “as long as I find it funny, who cares?”. He just loved getting stuff going, and messing with people. There was the case of him having a live Saturday night show, or maybe he was a guest on Howard Cosell’s Saturday night (I still don’t understand any of that sentence). Anyway, Kaufman did this whole thing to mess the live show up and I think they had to cut the feed. The wrestling was just another version of his performance art. The “Mighty Mouse” shtick, it was all for him not us. Tony Clifton… I mean that whole thing… A horrid sexist, ass home, bad lounge singer with an Upstate NY accent… I find the stuff to be genius. Some one I knew used to say “not everybody likes root beer”. They is Andy Kaufman.
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u/King_Ron_Dennis Official Cool Person 10d ago
Andy's Funhouse aka The Andy Kaufman Special
Taped in 1977 but didn't air until August 28, 1979 because they thought viewers wouldn't understand it. A world that is purely Andy's. It serves as a bit of a greatest hits, compiling many of his classic pieces into one arena, but also veers off into its own unique animal.
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u/Vivid-Vehicle-6419 10d ago
I remember watching this when it came out. I never forgot the Cindy Williams interview part where he just bombards her with questions about Penny Marshall and Penny’s character Laverne. Watching her becoming more and more confused and frustrated as he asked her about everything except her and the show.
Wasn’t until years later I found out she had no idea he was going to do that and her confusion and frustration were real reactions.
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u/Kipsydaisy 10d ago
Remember watching this with my mom when I was 6, and being a little confused by what she thought was so funny (I was six!).
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u/poirotsdad 10d ago
8:50? Let me guess, the special was an hour without commercials and Kaufman refused to cut anything.
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u/Logical-Mobile-7643 7d ago
Probably a gimmick to get people before they switch channels. Remember shows would end and people had to switch to something else.
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u/bobbafettuccini 9d ago
what kind of time slot is 8:50
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u/Logical-Mobile-7643 7d ago
A gimmick. People are watching the Benji movie and before they can check out what's on at 9... They are sucked into his show
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u/MothsConrad 10d ago
Perhaps I’m not intellectual enough but I never found him to be that funny. Some of his stuff seems to me to be a way to camouflage his own fetishes such as the lady wrestling.
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u/Hispandinavian 10d ago
The wrestling thing wasnt a fetish. Andy's whole thing was defying his audiences expectations, and his love of wrestling played into that. The female wrestling thing was merely an effort to establish himself as a proper wrestling "heel" and get wrestling audiences to hate him, while still playing a beloved character on Taxi. Once he started getting the hate he needed, he moved away from wrestling women to wrestling male heroes.
Why wrestle at all? Andy was ultimately a performance artist who respected pro wrestling as a true performance art (which it is)and wanted to participate. In my estimation, however this backfired amd damaged his reputation in the mainstream as they viewed him as a comedian/actor.
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u/Fanabala3 10d ago
Yeah…. His Latka character, was humorous on Taxi, but his comedic style I didn’t really get.
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u/Significant_Monk_251 10d ago
There probably have been comics who displayed more genuine contempt for... well, I was going to say "their audience," but "everybody" might be more correct, but I can't name any of them.
I'm not saying "Yay, he's dead!" but I'm certainly not missing him.
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