Andy Kaufman : Not funny. Not original.

He was into "shock value", making people look/feel stupid.
He was boring.

Agreed. I think he was an attention-starved narcissist mostly, with a couple of ideas and absolutely no concept of other people. If you find him annoying it means "you just don't get it"yawn. I get it, he's presented as being deconstructionalist when in fact he's just playing practical jokes, except they're not funny ha-ha, at best they're the other kind of funny. I'd rate, say, Phil Hartman as the far, far superior talent, and he was a professional and much less overtly arrogant.


Reason is a pursuit, not a conclusion.

No offence, but you people just don't get it. He was a performance artist, not really a comedian in the traditional sense. We need entertainers like that. People who don't take themselves so seriously.
God bless Andy Kaufman!




Listening to: HARRY NILSSON

He's playing a practical joke on the audience. Hilarious stuff.

Hartman was good. But he wasn't doing the same thing as Andy, so that comparison is totally useless.

Straightedge means I'm better than you.

Your name is the sexorcist6969 your opinion is invalid as far as comedy goes.

Time to kick bubblegum and chew ass, and I'm all out of ass

I think he was original in the sense that he was willing to destroy what made him famous and popular. Yes he was a performance artist, like many before him and after him. The thing is, nobody would have heard of him if it wasn't for Taxi.he was small t5b4ime before Taxi. He would have faded away. Taxi made him a house hold name. Most artists would have dropped the performance art and rode the wave of popularity all the way to the bank. Not unlike any musical artist that makes it big because of a pop song, then turns their back on their original "roots" to continue to cash in. In a way, like Genesis (Peter Gabriel). They were a prog band, not main stream by any stretch. They started writing pop music and became the Genesis people know today.

Having said that, "performance art" is not for everybody. I find the idea behind performance art interesting, but I don't personally enjoy it. I think the idea of Kaufman becoming a wrestling heel funny.but I didn't watch it because I think the concept is funnier than the actual act. Like having a funny idea you laugh at but don't go through with it because you know, in the end, the act itself won't be as funny as the idea.

At least that's my take on it. Maybe I don't "get it".but maybe it's just not that funny, beyond the concept.

His act was about audience participation. If you got angry, you were part of his act. That was the reaction he wanted. And when you, 25 years after his death, took the time to vent about him, you are participating. That has got to be some kind of record, right, that his act is continuing without him for this long.

'25 years after his death, took the time to vent about him, you are participating. That has got to be some kind of record, right, that his act is continuing without him for this long.'

so,when somebody vents about Ali Macgraw being unable to act, it must be because some form of greatness.

No, it's not a record because people though this goofball was just brave, not funny, and got some kind of recognition over it. Roller derby and WWF wrestling is about Particiption also. Doesn't take much to fool people.

I found some of his stuff mildly amusing. Otherwise, I thought he was just strange. Just not my cup of tea I suppose.

I respect him for doing what he set out to do.

I think he was funny, not the usual kind of funny that one expects from one-man acts, like Robin Williams, or Louis CK. It was interesting at the time, because Kaufman truly pushed the boundaries of 'entertainment.' So I guess when I say "funny" I'm referring to the whole schmesshis act, the audience, the reactions, etc.

I was in high school in 1977 and I remember VERY WELL people having debates over whether or not what he did was staged or if he was truly having some kind of break down in front of a national tv audience.

The skit on "Fridays" is etched in my mind. I had a teacher in high school who was a writer for that show and he thought Kaufman's performance, Michael Richard's reaction, and the stage manager (I think his name was Jack Burns) was all real. It got people TALKING and think that when an form of art gets people questioning their perceptions, it has done its job.

I will admit, that even though I'm a Kaufman fan, he DID make me feel very uncomfortable a few times when he appeared on tv. One time he appeared on Letterman, and literally looked like he was going to decompensatethe audience kept nervously giggling, waiting for a punch line, but none came, and the whole thing was, in my opinion, awful. He took risks; big ones. Sometimes they were brilliant; others times they flopped.

I literally did NOT know if the relationship/war with Jerry Lawler was real or faked until "Man on the Moon" came out.

One more thing: I have thought, for years, that Andy Kaufman was probably autistic. I'm not a professional, but I'd bet he scored somewhere on the Aspergers scale. He was uncomfortable with social situations; he never married, and I've heard stories about his life that show a lonely, sometimes very sad, man. He found peace through TM (Transcendental Meditation) and yoga. When I first heard about TM, I almost didn't believe it, because I always assumed it was a scam. I admit to not knowing too much about it.

Just my 2 cents

I think he was funny, not the usual kind of funny that one expects from one-man acts, like Robin Williams, or Louis CK. It was interesting at the time, because Kaufman truly pushed the boundaries of 'entertainment.' So I guess when I say "funny" I'm referring to the whole schmesshis act, the audience, the reactions, etc.

I was in high school in 1977 and I remember VERY WELL people having debates over whether or not what he did was staged or if he was truly having some kind of break down in front of a national tv audience.

The skit on "Fridays" is etched in my mind. I had a teacher in high school who was a writer for that show and he thought Kaufman's performance, Michael Richard's reaction, and the stage manager (I think his name was Jack Burns) was all real. It got people TALKING and I think that when an form of art gets people questioning their perceptions, it has done its job.

I will admit, that even though I'm a Kaufman fan, he DID make me feel very uncomfortable a few times when he appeared on tv. One time he appeared on Letterman, and literally looked like he was going to decompensatethe audience kept nervously giggling, waiting for a punch line, but none came, and the whole thing was, in my opinion, awful. He took risks; big ones. Sometimes they were brilliant; others times they flopped.

I literally did NOT know if the relationship2000/war with Jerry Lawler was real or faked until "Man on the Moon" came out.

One more thing: I have thought, for years, that Andy Kaufman was probably autistic. I'm not a professional, but I'd bet he scored somewhere on the Aspergers scale. He was uncomfortable with social situations; he never married, and I've heard stories about his life that show a lonely, sometimes very sad, man. He found peace through TM (Transcendental Meditation) and yoga. When I first heard about TM, I almost didn't believe it, because I always assumed it was a scam. I admit to not knowing too much about it.

Just my 2 cents