Andy Kaufman on Late Night

[babyrae1982]

Andy was such a genious and way ahead for his time........before him no celebrity ever got in the ring with a wrestler.........They do it all the time now in wwe at wrestlemania and other events but Andy was one of the first to do it.......he understood entertainment and putting on a good show......Andy you were the best and it's so sad you died so young........I'm sure Andy would have done tons more things to entertain people

[Takrezz]

Do Letterman know it? If it's a fake?

[Takrezz]

Do Letterman know it? If it's a fake?

[vidwatcher31951]

"I'm from Hollywood... I have BRAINS." LMAO!!!! xD

[E139486]

Faarm and ewellleweell..!! ROFL!

[Eaglesfaninca]

This pisses me off. Andy Kauffman gets credit for being this "genius" performer for pulling off this act. What about Lawler? What about Wrestlers in general? They do this shit everyday.

[santino2k6]

@Eaglesfaninca boo fuckin hoo!

[jolly704]

Ya I knew it was staged one of the reasons it was is cause when Lawler came on the set of Letterman,Andy wasn't far off behind the stage..so I'm sure it was staged!!lol

[rssfeedslive]

greatest pro-wrestling work of all time...period

[TheFuzzynandez]

He still uses that same joke about each parent wanting a boy and a girl.

[westben2000]

andy kaufman is the greatest IRL troll ever

[nikto45]

pay close attention. it's staged. When Kaufman looks over his left shoulder behind the chair. a guy with a neck injury wouldn't do that without wincing. Lawler also came out at a later date and stated it was staged. But watching this pay attention to the clues that it's staged.

[MrSoonerboy7]

it was revealed that it was staged

[stigler30]

Lawler used that "both satisfied" line on RAW last night. New material much?

[bleep77]

You wanna wrastle me Memphis styyyyyle, Mr. Lawwwwlerrr....duuuuuuhhhh!

LMAO!

[deanw0rmer]

One of the greatest works ever. Those two pull a fast one on Dave lol

[quarf53206]

it kind of made me tear up when i read that Jerry and a promoter went to Andy's house after he died and found several uncashed checks from their wrestling organization. It showed that Andy did this for the love of wrestling

[60BloodyChamp60]

Fun stuff like this went on all throughout the regional wrestling promotions of the day but this is the most famous example of regional wrestling making a dent in Hollywood.

[shizeninho]

its totally a work

[Machiminimo]

Ashton Kutcher has as much talent and comedic genius as one of Andy Kaufman's farts. You dont notice it until it's there and when you do you really really want it to just go away

[GrillaGardnr]

What fun! I didn't know about this whole shennanigan while it happening. What a wild and wonderful weirdo Andy was. Nice to see Letterman as a pup and in a state of pure, if momentary befuddlement, too.

[extremechampion00]

Jerry got DQ'd because of a piledriver? WTF?

[krischaoz]

@extremechampion00 old wrestling rules...

[TNA52383]

It was a work

[saiano1]

@LoganKMFDM You must like wrestling.

[kaitlinan]

The brilliance of it is Lawler and Kaufman were buddies :)

[iLuvAkeys4ever]

Jerry Lawler is mad and needs to be locked up what he did in the ring to Andy Kaufman looked really dangerous, he then pulled him around by the head and kneck and did that move again. It doesn't matter what anyone says to you, you should never retaliate with violence!!!! Just count to 100 walk away and seek justice through a good lawyer!!

[geoguy91]

@iLuvAkeys4ever you possess a vacuous shell of a human mind.

[frozenorange343]

@iLuvAkeys4ever

Dude. Its fake. They were friends. Dont be foolish.

[Darren50001]

So I guess JEff Jarrett in the WWF got the idea of hasseling women because he must've watched Lawler and Kaufman's clip. That explains a lot now.

[Marek4602]

aww i love both of them, haha

[gibbsies]

i cant believe they cut bill hicks and not this

[geoguy91]

@gibbsies it was because of this they stopped filming live. Very good point though. Bill Hicks was far too real for any general public though.

[gibbsies]

@geoguy91 No, he really wasn't. Those are the words of the standards and practices douche bags.

[Arroyo2099]

It always cracks me up when he says so earnestly "oh it was just teasing and having some fun" fucking hilarious!

[LeLimeLine]

Inter-gender wrestling champion.

Lol.

[thurin68]

Kaufman was a genius...He put one over on all of us...

Rest in piece my friend..

[jessicaoneblood27]

i bet if he was still alive ashton kutcher would have pranked his asss hahahahaha

[hankandthetwins]

witnessed here: comic genius.

[pimmagrimm]

So was Letterman in on it ?

[KyleNarayan]

@pimmagrimm Don't think so. Andys work worked out so fine because only the necessary people knew it was a prank. In this case that would be Andy and JL, nobody else. :)

[bummercucumber]

Hilarious.

[Lillian2167]

Andy could've been a great heel in wrestling even if he were only a manager or something! he had that attitude where he didn't care the reaction he got from the fans as long as he got a reaction from them! ^_^

[EnviousDominous]

I'm totally stealing that "They were both satisfied" line.

[JennyJenna]

Its awesome to see the actual interview.. after watching it in the movie..

[imahurne]

-fuck youtube's character limitation.

[imahurne]

Wow semasiologistics,

Way to take something that is legitimately funny and ruin it for everyone by turning it into a lecture on acting. People like you, and by that I mean people whose own pretentious self worth is so profound that it should be considered a mental handicap, are not only hurting yourselves but also hurting every creative individual in the world by making them think that they cannot be creative unless they've spent 4 years at college studying acting method. Fuck you and fuck-

[semasiologistics]

1st, you don't speak for everyone. Hence, your insult is unfounded. 2nd, I wasn't lecturing but discussing. If you're not open to such, then do not read or post comments--as this is what these are: [comments]. If you want to call me handicapped & arrogant, well, maybe you're having a bad day. I'd say we're all handicapped and pretentious and excellent and humble and fools and wise in given ways. I never suggested acting as only "taught" or that which is not a deep art. You suggested that I did.

[kentjames81]

@imahurne well put

[semasiologistics]

4. Even David Letterman and the wrestler were convincing. But, this does not mean they were genius actors. It just meant that they did not have to be as the stage necessitated their eloquence.

His removal of the stage is not what you said. Point in case, he was so passionate at practicing acting that he did it all the time. And of course then his audience would become his greatest source for entertainment.

[semasiologistics]

5. It would not take a person of so much practice long to figure out that people believed he really was any given character (especially if he was not on stage and they had never met him )...

He just loved to act and found that passion as a boy.

[semasiologistics]

3. To perform in such places and in such a way is analogous to the removal of the stage.

You may of course agree that the changing of the stage was a smart move (and how smart would be mostly subjective) but this would be aside what you said. That his ACTING and conviction TO was 'genius'...

and that it was certainly not.

[semasiologistics]

2. Consider your own criteria for contemporary actors. It was merely his broadening of the accepted stage that changed how people viewed his performance. It necessitated a thoroughly enthralled audience. This same principle applies to people like Tom Green and 'Ali G', Borat etc. It is the exploitation of one's being unknown that, in such cases, allows for such unbelievable performance. It is not really about the performance but about the audience.

[semasiologistics]

First, your usage of THIS is incorrect. So, I will take it to mean "acting", as "acting" was what I had first said and it was to this that you responded. You said, "Total conviction to the whole "act" and creativity to come up with ''this"'

This was what you called genius.

Again, to take your original words as their context rightfully suggests, his [acting] was just as well-done as is the acting of most. And, this was what I said. He was merely an ACTOR.

[percussin8or]

It's absolutely incredible to consider that this whole Kaufman-Lawler feud was a hoax!! Andy really was a genius, and the world lost a great comedic mind when he passed on

[semasiologistics]

That is just it. It is not genius. It is so god-damn simple and natural. I do not mean to talk about the produced show. Yes, it put it all on and made it all up. I mean to say, the idea and nature of the work. It is simple; its called ACTING!

people are saying it is genius. no, no it is just acting. So, what could that mean about today then? Well, maybe it means that much of Hollywood is not about acting but about illusion and bullshit. ... Maybe.

[HuskerDu2]

The thing is.....many could have "acted" it out, but Andy brought out not only a total conviction to the whole "act", but the creativity to actually come up with this and be willing to put himself into this character fully! THAT is where the genius comes in.

[semasiologistics]

1. Well, acting is about getting the mind to fluently demonstrate behaviors which are unnatural to it. This is why actors and actresses research the personalities they play. 'Believing' is usually prerequisite to the attitudinizing of other identities in that the mind must focus on the newer traits (rather than the old or other things) and there express them as if they were natural. So, of course he mastered those characters. It does not take a 'genius' to do that but passionate practice.

[semasiologistics]

2. We all act in life. If you think about it, Andy was not so much a precursor to any new form of acting but merely someone who broadened the stage. Who transmogrified it, if you will. That is, because he made life a stage, many people could not identify that he was actually acting.

[semasiologistics]

3. (As it would be the case with many performers) Whereas, if it had been in a movie... it would have been the same old thing insofar as, even if it were some grand amalgamation of characters in one person, the audience would still not have been susceptible to such minutiae of a character. That is, they would not have been able to distinguish this 'genius' you are so quick to point out. This is why on the Hollywood stage, beauty is so successful.

[semasiologistics]

4. Because acting is not at all that hard! If people cannot lie, then they did not graduate adolescence.

[semasiologistics]

Orwell was good, I agree. But, I am not here as a political and social disutopian, thanks.

[klwewf]

Sure

[RUM420PEYOTE]

blahahha are you from memphis klwewf wanna rassle ya fucking degenerate swine now was that straight forward enough for ya i made it as "single talk" as possible so even your pea sized brain would get it

[HuskerDu2]

My argument is that the genius is the whole concept of the idea, and the conviction that he put into it. It is true that most "actors" could have performed this whole segment of acts, but he made people question if he was acting or not. And for a whole year, lived this act.

[samMc3000]

A F'N GENIUS!

[Joseph88keyz]

Like him or not; Kaufman was a genius...he pulled so many into his fun.lol. 24 years later we are still watching clips of the schemes he masterminded.Brilliant.Jim Carrey did an AMAZING job portraying Andy in "Man on the Moon"

[LoganKMFDM]

real or staged?

[bergduck]

... staged

[9caps2hell]

@bergduck staged and utterly genius. the world lost part of its soul when andy died

[KenFromBeara]

@bergduck jerry cannot keep a straight face. that's a dead give away

[Flatworldproductions]

@LoganKMFDM I reccomend watching man on the moon

[Orangetree547]

@LoganKMFDM Staged. It's in the movie Man on the Moon. Andy and Jerry met with Andy's manager about it. George begged them to stop. Jerry said they were just having fun.

[bigrigbob2010]

@LoganKMFDM staged letterman was pissed because he wasn't in on it and didn;t find out tilll after kaufmans death

[Booma151676]

@LoganKMFDM staged but people thought it was all real for 10 years

[axrarx]

did he curse on live tv?

[Puzzlementarians]

On November 9, Andy Kaufman will hold a press conference in New Jersey.

For more details visit

andykaufmanlives

[Doon23]

Ummmm did anything happen?

[bullhead86442]

WTF no slap! what a wast of my time.

[bergduck]

for the slap see "Kaufman vs Lawler"

[cha5]

@bergduck But you don't have audio on your "Kaufman vs Lawler" video.

[dontcommentmehoe]

He thinks he so cool cause he can beat up fat chicks.

[klwewf]

Dummies like you were Andy's favorite. You believe this stuff. LMAO

[pcrissfan3]

i am a big fan of andy kaufman.....i love the movie 'man on the moon'....and this was all staged....andy was awesome

[jazztronaut]

he definitely walked his own path.

[Nosveractu]

wether it was a staged rivalry or real, you have to respect andy kaufman for having the guts to actually get in the ring with a bigger profesional wrestler such as lawler.

[zumaria]

He really did get beaten up... He did anything for a joke. I love him so much.

[TyghtAlso]

He spent 12 weeks training for the fight with Lawler-just as he took 6 weeks of lessons on sword swallowing or whatever other talent he wanted to use to continue being THE FUNNIEST EVER! x

[kate285]

I,ve only recently come across Andy and think he was fantastic, sad to hear he,s no longer with us.

[klwewf]

Wow, just come across, huh? You'll find lots of great things here on YouTube featuring Andy.

[sahem62896]

What makes this so cool is knowing _now_ that Kaufman and Lawler were staging this whole thing. Classic Kaufman!

[DXslilgangsta]

Classic!

[ShiksaWithChutzpah]

I love how Andy is the biggest babyface ever to the New York audience and all of Memphis wanted his head on a platter.

[Graiff]

And still,he had the balls to face all those audiences that hated him.Andy was the greatest.