10 Wild Clips to Help You Understand Andy Kaufman’s Greatness

Andy Kaufman became one of the most influential comedians ever in a brief amount of time — really only a decade, from his first national television appearance to his death from lung cancer in 1984 at 35. In between, his comic stunts blurred the lines of reality and fiction and found a variety of ways to provoke audiences and upend expectations, while doing more than any club performer to expand the conceptual ambition of comedy, turning stand-up into performance art. What makes this even more remarkable is that he did almost none of it via regular roles in movies or high-profile television, with the exception of the sitcom “Taxi.”

And yet, Kaufman and his many characters were a constant presence in popular culture, clubs and wrestling matches and on talk and variety shows, many of which are long forgotten. These bits have lived on the internet, divorced from the context in which they appeared. Now on YouTube, the Andy Kaufman rabbit hole is deep and packed with pleasures. A new documentary on his life, “Thank You Very Much,” was made by artists who clearly spent a long time exploring it. Here are 10 of the best examples that show how Kaufman broke from the past and anticipated the future.

Foreign Man

The first Kaufman character to break out was the tentative, thick-accented immigrant from the Caspian Sea known as Foreign Man, an antecedent to Borat but sweeter, more sensitive and deluded. He mangled Borscht Belt jokes that fizzle like this one-liner: “My wife’s cooking is so bad, it’s terrible.” Before he turned into Latka Gravas on “Taxi,” Foreign Man showed up in short sets on shows like “Van Dyke and Company.” In one of the first, Foreign Man loses a Fonzie look-alike contest, becoming upset at Dick Van Dyke, who, unlike some television hosts who interacted with him (see Dinah Shore), clearly delights in Kaufman. To make things right, the host offers him the opportunity to tell some jokes. Playing an overly enthusiastic innocent with a shaky grasp on English and an even looser grasp on American humor, Kaufman fumbles through some bits and a terrible Ed McMahon impression. Somehow his errors endear him to the audience. Kaufman’s large, anime-like eyes do a lot of the work.

Celebrity Interviewer

Silence. Kaufman uses it as well as any comedian, building suspense, tension and most of all, awkwardness. On his ABC special taped in 1977 but broadcast two years later, he used that technique magnificently in a spoof of a disastrous talk-show interview that anticipated everything from “The Eric Andre Show” to “Between Two Ferns.” As the host, looking down on his guest, the “Laverne & Shirley” star Cindy Williams, from a desk towering high above her, (a disparity he would take to more extreme heights later in his career), he stops talking entirely, and the banter ends. Then the camera moves from him to her and back again, unease building. It’s almost a minute of dead air but seems much longer. Then he asks: “You have hobbies? You have any diseases?”

Bongo Player

Kaufman was the first (and probably last) comedian to kill on an HBO special through the use of the bongos. He often banged on the instrument in his act, but never as effectively as this furiously hectic 1976 performance on “Monty Hall’s Variety Hour,” an evolution of Foreign Man into something more dynamic and abstract. He invents not only a character, but also a language unintelligible to everyone. And yet, through force of will and charisma, he gets laughs without being understood and convinces an audience to speak this fake language. Some of his physicality resembles Steve Martin from the same era. But you can also see traces of the future avant-garde style of Reggie Watts, Rory Scovel and Kate Berlant.

Stand-Up Flop

Kaufman’s comedy was preoccupied with failure — or as he put it, “the bombing and crying routine.” In an HBO special celebrating the club Catch a Rising Star, he found a new way to “flop,” having a belligerent heckler stymie his act by shouting out his lines before he said them. This was his artistic partner, Bob Zmuda, who has called this his favorite among all the bits he ever cooked up with Kaufman. Zmuda insulted his partner’s lack of new material, his 1981 movie “Heartbeeps” (his one starring role, a bomb), even his hair loss. Zmuda flustered Kaufman, throwing him off his rhythm, leading to more awkward silence and melancholy. Since then, Tim Heidecker and Neil Hamburger have turned bad standup into its own art, but back then, this was unusual.

Despite being a highlight of the first episode of “Saturday Night Live,” Kaufman was never a cast member. But he did tape one of its weirdest auditions.

Hypnotic Singer

Imagine coming home late on a Friday night, bleary-eyed and a little buzzed, and turning on the television to find Kaufman on an otherwise conventional musical variety show, hopping around stage in a jumpsuit, singing, “I trusted you. I trusted you. I trusted you. I trusted you. I trusted you.” The lyric repeats on and on for three minutes, in a hypnotic, borderline feral performance that evoked a record skipping or maybe the inner voice of a betrayed man. The next day, you’d think it had been a dream.

Ice Cream Eater

Kaufman was the rare comedian who was happy to receive laughs based on not getting the joke. In a set that invites you to question the limits of comedy, he walked onstage at the Improv comedy club, sat down and ate ice cream. That’s it — almost. And judging by the response, equal parts baffled and pleased, that was enough.

In Kaufman’s most famous appearance on “Late Night With David Letterman,” he staged a fight with the wrestler Jerry Lawler. But his greatest exchange with Letterman was years earlier on the host’s short-lived morning show, a few weeks after the news that it had been canceled. In fact, one way to view Kaufman’s maudlin 1980 guest appearance is as a manifestation of how Letterman was feeling but was too stoic to express on air. Hair mussed up, Vaseline under his eyes to simulate tears, Kaufman said his career was in shambles, his wife had divorced him and he was falling apart. When the crowd chuckled, he pleaded for them to not laugh. It’s a remarkably convincing performance that makes you question the reality of the situation. Was it a spoof of sunny daytime chat or an actual cry for help? It ended with Kaufman panhandling in the audience. Even this had some precedent. In the new documentary, Marilu Henner, Kaufman’s co-star on “Taxi,” describes running into Kaufman on a New York street as he was asking strangers for money. Kaufman’s original plan had been to end the Letterman segment by putting a gun in his mouth and pretending to commit suicide. It was nixed.

Saboteur

Kaufman incorporated many forms into his comedy, like lip-syncing, that would later become much more popular in the age of the internet. But what made him the most contemporary of figures is that he was a master troll. He got rises out of people through insult, surprise and sometimes just a stubborn refusal to play along. In a bit of chaotic television from 1981 that has the feel of a prank by Nathan Fielder, he was in the middle of a lame sketch opposite Michael Richards (Kramer from “Seinfeld”) and two other actors in a “Saturday Night Live”-like show when he decided to just stop. He refused to say his lines and mumbled that he didn’t want to play the part. Richards then walked offstage, returned with the cue cards and dumped them in front of Kaufman, causing chaos. It looked like a hostage situation, then a brawl. Richards seemed upset, but has said that he was the only one in on this stunt. He recalled Kaufman’s committing to the bit to the point that even after the cameras stopped, he continued crying backstage in front of angry crew members.

The King

If there was one entertainer Kaufman took seriously, it was Elvis Presley. He had been a fan his whole life and even wrote an book (unpublished) about the rock star. Kaufman’s Elvis impression often closed out his early act, its spectacular charisma juxtaposed with an uneasy performance that appeared to be flopping. But my favorite of his Elvis impressions was a softer ballad, less of a comic contrast than a genuine love letter. On Johnny Cash’s 1979 Christmas special, Kaufman brought unexpected feeling and melancholy to “That’s Where Your Heartaches Begin.”

One narrative you hear about Kaufman is that characters like Foreign Man were innocent and wholesome while his later ones, like the seedy Vegas singer Tony Clifton or his heel turn wrestling women, curdled into something darker. But this 1983 appearance on “Late Night,” one of his last, disproves that tidy arc. It tapped into the childlike Kaufman as much as any of his early work did. He brought his parents on the ironic late-night show (with a cozy couch replacing the usual chairs) and did something entirely shocking: He treated them with respect and affection, then called his grandmother in Florida to tell her he loved her. She said she loved him, too. Then Kaufman and his parents sang, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” You kept waiting for the twist and it never came. Kaufman fooled us again.