Andy Kaufman documentary

[Optimus Prime]

 

[Madmarsha]

He's still alive, isn't he?

 

[SaintJ]

One of the most brilliantly original comedians ever.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I'd call him more of a comedic performance artist than comedian

 

[DCSaints_Fan]

I'd call him more of a comedic performance artist than comedian

Whats the difference ?

 

[Optimus Prime]

hard to put words but I think there is a difference between a stand up comedian, a comedic actor and what Kaufman did

 

[Paul]

I'd call him more of a comedic performance artist than comedian

Agreed - I even think he didn’t like being referred to as a comedian.

 

[SaintJ]

I'd call him more of a comedic performance artist than comedian

I am OK with this. While he was capable of standup, he went way beyond it.

 

[itztime]

"Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah"

 

[Saintman2884]

I am OK with this. While he was capable of standup, he went way beyond it.

Yeah, Optimus does present a good point. I can't see mainstream "more typical" stand-up comedians like Bill Hicks, Eddie Murphy, Patton Oswalt, Bill Maher or even the great ones like Richard Pryor, and George Carlin willing to embrace and take up more adventurous, aggressive forms of performance comedy art like his wrestling angle-scripted skit with Memphis Wrestling Jerry Lawler in the early 80's.


It would be like Louis C.K. or Dave Chappelle challenging one of their rival comedians or a famous celebrity critical of their comedy routines to a 15-round celebrity, grudge boxing match. Or better yet, Robert De Niro battling it out with President Donald Trump in a WWE-styled Hell in a Cell steel cage match. Just so a wild deviation from the mean and so off-kilter and so unrealistic it defies rational expectations.

Andy Kaufman was definitely a comedian who was certainly off-kilter but because his post-SNL work, movies were so peculiar and popular, his reputation has endured and remained so strong nearly 42 years after his death.

 

[Saintman2884]

I am OK with this. While he was capable of standup, he went way beyond it.

I often got the impression he found the confine/structures of stand-up comedy too limited and restrictive. In a way he was like Plimpton in Paper Lion except Kaufman's intended audience reception, or "desired effect", was comedic than journalistic.

 

[Madmarsha]

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

As someone who loves the old tv show Taxi, i have always thought that the Latka character he played was the weakest part of the show .. to me, he just wasn’t funny .


But ill admit that outside of his infamous Letterman show appearance, im not familiar with Kaufman’s work, his standup or anything else.. Maybe it’s becuase in his heyday i was a little too young to be exposed to his performance art or whatever we are calling it in this thread.. I may check out this docu, and maybe it’ll give me an appreciation for him .

 

[Saintman2884]

As someone who loves the old tv show Taxi, i have always thought that the Latka character he played was the weakest part of the show .. to me, he just wasn’t funny .


But ill admit that outside of his infamous Letterman show appearance, im not familiar with Kaufman’s work, his standup or anything else.. Maybe it’s becuase in his heyday i was a little too young to be exposed to his performance art or whatever we are calling it in this thread.. I may check out this docu, and maybe it’ll give me an appreciation for him .

It could also be that outside his SNL appearances, his Latka role on "Taxi", and the infamous-yet-still kind of silly but memorable scripted Lawler Memphis wrestling angle, Kaufman's career really didn't last very long before his death in 1983. Less than a decade before appearing along with many mostly-unknown Second City comedians and writers for some bold, off-the-wall live Saturday night comedy variety show in a TV landscape still primitive where cable was about a decade away from being widely-available (and affordable), decades before streaming service platforms, somehow over the couple of years became an American cultural landmark series.

Kaufman was odd, and more then a bit weird but in a way that more people.curious or interested about his bizarre antics, and why he did them then really coming to a clear consensus about whether he's funny or not. But he also had a bit of an " underdog" personality whether with the actual person or with Latka that led audiences wanting to see him succeed. There's a sense that maybe the world itself, Blue, isn't such a terrible place when comedians, artists or even musicians can succeed despite such immense, Herculean odds or industry expectations or trends suggest they fail.

I have similar sentiments about a massively underrated, overlooked U.K. 70's-early 80's band Supertramp who wrote great, catchy songs, whimsical yet lyrically meaningful hit songs like "Logical Song" but didn't seem to "fit" the 1970's-early 80's music industry's model of what a successful "rock group" or "singer-songwriters" should look or sound like but within a span of 7-8 years, they recorded 4-5 well-received, commercially successful albums but critically, Supertramp were seen as quirky, aloof musical pushovers and a few critics openly wondered aloud how an odd-ball bunch of weirdos ever got big.