people online: wow, people back then just did not understand the GENIUS of Andy Kaufman like we do now People back then: *uproarious laughter and standing ovations for Andy Kaufman*
I was watching him then and I thought he was hysterical. I loved his wrestling the women-I just thought it was funny I didn’t find it offensive. Course, I always hoped she’d win, though.
@@tesz-vesz1985 I'm not sure that I fully grasp the 'genius' either. I think Kaufman's whole shtick was to leave the audience wondering if he was fully connected or not.
@@kenmoelhoff3122 he was the first troll of the comic scene he wanted to confuse and amuse the audience and he did that perfectly so i do believe genius is right
I know its subjective but I like to enjoy any pointlessness that comes my way. I suspect all the people gushing at his genius enjoy not enjoying themselves. I enjoy The Office cringe humour, but Kaufman to me is strangely mean spirited
@@katehamilton7240 I think people think it makes themselves look like a genius when they call Andy a genius. Like only really brilliant and special people get his humor when in fact a lot of his act was just kind of dumb. If Andy went up on stage and brushed his teeth they would call THAT " genius". If he opened a box of Corn Flakes and ate a bowl of cereal on stage they would call THAT genius too. The whole thing reminds of The Emperor's New Clothes.
Andy was so good playing this character. He genuinely makes me feel sad and sorry for the fella his portraying. The childlike naiveté, innocence and oblivious sincerity are captured so genuinely.
If he stuck around for the internet this guy would be huge. He is like an original troll, parodying things without any indications of parody so people get upset, sometimes just messing with people's heads with senseless stuff.
"This guy" WAS huge. But if the internet had been a thing, it's quite possible he would have been huger. Also he might still be alive. Usually I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but if anyone were going to fake their death for shits and giggles, it would be Kaufman.
Nah dude, he's just laying down some mad build up for the greatest punchline anyone's ever seen. My bet? He's secretly been Barack Obama. The entire time. Best. Prank. Ever.
+Trisador9 any indications lol its clearly a joke, nobody's walking away from his set thinking he's serious, and if you think he has anything in common with trolls you failed to understand what he and many other past and present alternative comedians do.
Gotta disagree with your 3 year old comment. What Kaufman did ironically would mix in perfectly with what trolls do today. You'd be damned surprised how many people can't distinguish silly from serious these days. Millions of people can't fathom irony. Millions.
@@indridcold3762 ahead of his time is how Andy kaufman was. He was so ahead of his time that time was unable to catch up to his time which was ahead of everyone else's time. He only ever set his clock forward on daylight saving time and never back. That's how far ahead of his time he was. Indeed, many people in time were ahead of their time and time was of little importance to them, but andy kaufman was indeed the most ahead of his time of all the ahead of their timers.
Jim Carrey outside of actually playing him in man on the moon basically became him in personality for most of his career. They even made a documentary about it.
TheChap1234 billions what ?? Yeah he was unique he was a complete idiot that people laughed at how much of a goofball he was and he profited off of it y'all actually think that was genius comedy??!! That literally makes me cringe when u associate genius with this idiot. I could get up on stage and do that type of shit . That's the easiest type of comedy cause basically your just acting like a child and saying random stuff and fake crying wow sooooooooooooooo genius dude!!! Bahahahaha gtfoh
@ a real 1: I dare you to try it. You will quickly find out that what looks stupid simple is actually hard to pull off. Even Elvis hisownself thought that Kaufman was the best Elvis imitator ever. I'm kinda sad that you never got the joke, but there you are. True, the cast of 'Taxi' was annoyed with him rarely showing up for rehearsal, but then Andy not only knew all of his lines, he also knew everyone else's. Had something very close to an eidetic memory (I've read that Jackie Gleason was like this also). Also, not breaking character is more difficult than you'd think and Andy was perfect at that. He could be a sweet naif and then turn into a monster in a microsecond. He truly was brilliant so, tell ya what. Give him a rest and come back to his stuff in a year or so. You might just change your mind.
I know its subjective but I like to enjoy any pointlessness that comes my way. I suspect all the people gushing at his genius enjoy not enjoying themselves. I enjoy The Office cringe humour, but Kaufman to me is strangely mean spirited
I saw this live when I was 10, did not know of Andy. To see it in 1975 the routine drew you in and I felt exactly how he wanted me to feel....then he let me out of the box. It was wonderful an emotional serpentine. Genius.
I know its subjective but I like to enjoy any pointlessness that comes my way. I suspect all the people gushing at his genius enjoy not enjoying themselves. I enjoy The Office cringe humour, but Kaufman to me is strangely mean spirited
The technique with which he merges the crying sound into a tune is just so original and awesome! Hats off to Andy Kaufman & also Jim Carrey who portrayed him in a great way! :)
Watching this as it aired in 1975 as a young teen and seeing Andy's "foreign man" various times, I thought it was a real "foreign guy, right off the boat"....when he switched gears back to Andy, I was blown away!..Such a genius talent level, gone way, way too soon,..oh, what we may have seen over the years!
Yeah, I don't get it and I'm almost 50, so I've known about him for a long time. I really don't see anything even mildly entertaining about his schtick.
The thing is that it's so on point that you are immediately inspired to try something similar, yet you know at the same time that there is just nothing left to do for anybody down that road because the bit is just perfect.
Why y'all so mean.. must be miserable or something I'm really curious.. like does the drum mean that he was gonna play it the whole time? Like it was the punchline sitting there and still no-one guessed it? Idk but this whole video is very fascinating
@@disherofpain i understand what hes saying. The longer the act went on the more curious you got about what the drums were for. Or if they were for anything at all. Andy was famous for reaching a punchline but not only that just completely pulling the rug from under you. Wish he was still alive.
@@disherofpain How are they being mean? He used the drums at the end, so they really didn't symbolize anything. OP is probably going to pull something from stretching that much.
"I am not a comic, I have never told a joke. I don't even watch comedians. The comedian's promise is that he will go out there and make you laugh with him. I've never done that in my life. My only promise is that I will try to entertain you as best I can. I can manipulate people's reactions. There are different kinds of laughter. Gut laughter is where you don't have a choice, you've got to laugh. Gut laughter doesn't come from the intellect. And it's much harder for me to evoke now, because I'm known. They say, "Oh wow, Andy Kaufman, he's a really funny guy." But I'm not trying to be funny. I just want to play with their heads." - Andy Kaufman
That was just ... surreal. I knew I had to expect something of him. Towards the end he kind of got to me with the crying, it was really dramatic. This guy really put up a show. And then ... boom, dancing and rhythm.
Its simple, he had full command of the audience. Strange how some people have trouble with his material or cannot get past the silliness to see the genius of it. He just wanted people to genuinely laugh and be entertained.
“I don’t know if yew er laughing at meh or with me...?” *proceeds to look like when you forget your monologue on stage and you stand there with primal fear in your eyes*
Karl trembath eric andre doesnt amount to one of tony clifton's moldy toenail clippings. Kaufman was a genius and a pioneer, eric andre is some guy at a frat party pretending to smoke weed so that he has a reason to be acting nervous and drinking their ranch dressing.
He absolutely owns the crowd, and does so mostly with facial expressions that cannot be described or imitated. They're in the palms of his hands, unknowingly mesmerized, hesitantly paralyzed, yet thoroughly enchanted by a persona of his own brilliant creation.
embe1 Yeah. I know what you mean. It's timing, fake emotions, facical expressions ... Hell I don't know why it's funny. It just is. People who don't think he was are the butts of his jokes.
just like the Audience. you just laughing beacuase you think your "suppost to" even tho he is not funny, becuase every body calls him a genious and stuff.
Andy brought things to a whole different level. When you saw it, you may not of understood it, but you knew what you were watching was something you had never seen before. It was special, he was a true pioneer.
+Cosmonauteable The hell do you mean "by today standards" lol? What's this extremely sophisticated comedy that you see today? The transition from Andy Kaufman to internet memes and other mainstream sources of comedy wasn't incredibly drastic...Tbh I find him to be a hilarious genius, but to each their own.
I enjoyed it, but also the "you don't find it funny because you don't understand" crowd need to get over them selfs. Lol Not everyone likes family guy. You aren't no elites that sets the standards towards comedy.
I watched this when it aired, sitting on my couch in my pj's with a big bowl of popcorn...I was 15 and I'd never seen anyone like him. I thought he was fabulous...
I love TAXI but the Latka character comes close to ruining it. All the other characters seem real and they are all great characters, the kind you just might find working for a cab company in New York, and Latka comes off like a comedian doing a shtick. It's not believable for a minute.
Andy Kaufman, a true comedic GENIUS, with more talent that ALL of those so called "comedians" today combined....the MIghty Mouse song, where Andy just stands there and mimes "here I come, to save the day" shows what only someone with the fantastic talent of Andy could make into a comedy LEGEND 🤣
I love how he uses the crying sound with the bongos to let us know that he's not actually breaking down and it's okay to laugh now. It's like edging, and the bongos are the climax
It's unbelievable that whenever I saw anyone talk about Andy they either hate him or love him.. But what no-one gets is that Andy didn't want people to love him. He wanted to annoy them.... and THAT is what is funny. The genius part in Andy lies in that he isn't funny when you look at him, he is funny when you look at peoples annoyed reactions on his performance. If you get offended or annoyed by this that just means you are unhappy with yourself or your life... Chill god damn it!
+Brian Griffin Now you're a philosopher as well?! Look at you! I'm impressed. Please share with us all that you have found in your discoveries on the purpose of life. You should write a book about your journeys of wisdom searching and publish it for all of the RU-vid readers and subscribers you have following you.
Its simple, he sets up the premise of the joke with an awkward foreigner, the broken English, accent and nervous ticks. The shyness at the start is like the hook that draws the audience into the reality he has created, as he progresses, he lets his "guard" down as he slowly leads the audience by the hand, where using his comedic timing, makes it look like he's totally losing control of the situation which leads into the punchline. With each inward breath acting as the first note of a melody he changes the vocal pattern from what seems like a random emotional breakdown, transitioning smoothly into the rhythmic crescendo which forms the final part of the punchline. He never looses control of the situation or loses his place in the joke, with each of the silly jokes and actions being meticulously placed to build the narrative along side the nervous ticks and stammering. He would have spent weeks fine tuning that bit so it flowed perfectly, not wasting any time that wasn't supposed to be wasted. Its a little goofy by today standards but if you take the concept, progression and made it more up to today's standard , it would still be a brilliant joke. Some comedians write jokes, some create fictitious narratives. I hope I explained it well, I haven't slept for 24 hours.
I watched man on the moon in theaters when it came out in 1999/2000 and I was around 12 years old and Instantly understood Andy and knew he was a genius.
After watching Man on the Moon I went back and watched everything of Andy on RU-vid. He's a massive influence on me, because was unafraid for his audience to feel uncomfortable sometimes.
I remember trying to understand this guy back in the day. He totally had me fooled. Thought he sucked, found him uncomfortable to watch, didn't see what was funny, or genius. Looking at it nowadays, it was genius. Seeing him do these characters, being uncomfortable, terrible, or terrified in front of an audience. Letting the audience stew in it, let them take it in, try to understand what he was displaying. So much more going on than I could comprehend, and still trying to
I love how he loved wrestling... and adapted the art of living the lifestyle constantly ... even if it wasn't wrestling he was always working people. Lol it's great. No matter when or where.. he just enjoyed messing with everybody. Genius.
Some say that Andy Kaufman was mostly entertaining himself while on stage and simply used the audience as a medium to do so. He would go to any length to make the audience uncomfortable.
