Posted in: TV | Tagged: andy kaufman, artificial intelligence, Hollywood Walk Of Fame, Man on the Moon, saturday night live, wwe hall of fame

Honoring Andy Kaufman (Finally): So Why Did It Take So Long?

The entertainment industry is finally celebrating the influence that comedian/actor Andy Kaufman had - but why did it take so long?

It seems a bit peculiar in 2023 that the entertainment world finally decided to solidify actor and comedian Andy Kaufman, with WWE inducting him into their Hall of Fame on March 20th and becoming immortalized on the Hollywood Walk of Fame posthumously in late August with his brother Michael Kaufman accepting on his behalf, nearly 40 years after his death in 1984. My simple question is: what took them so long? I mean, did people seriously think he would fake his own death up to this point for some demented long con? Don't answer that. I forget how deep the conspiracy theory rabbit hole is.

There have been several documentaries chronicling the life of the comedian, including one dedicated to his brief stint in the wrestling ring, which includes his infamous feud with Jerry "The King" Lawler in the Memphis territory – not to mention the 1999 Miloš Forman-directed biopic Man on the Moon that starred Jim Carrey. Kaufman's Taxi co-star Danny DeVito played agent George Shapiro. Coincidentally when the Taxi scenes were filmed, all the surviving cast members (Marilu Henner, Jeff Conway, Judd Hirsch, Tony Danza, and Christopher Lloyd), but DeVito (who played Louie De Palma on the ABC sitcom) appeared in the scene.

I have some theories as to why they decided to finally do it aside from seeing if Kaufman really faked his death from cancer. It's that he was the kind of provocateur who was way ahead of his time, whether it was playing pranks on his Fridays castmates, messing with the vertical and horizontal holds of CRT televisions on broadcast during his special, or throwing skeptics off his trail by having his creative partner Bob Zmuda played his even more obnoxious "lounge singer" persona, Tony Clifton. It's fascinating to think about – Kaufman had us second-guessing our reality decades before AI did.

We could see an all-digital version, and I wouldn't put it past his family or Zmuda to keep it going as one final giant "screw you" or nod to the public, depending on where you sit. Aside from the CG technology engaging in the de-aging and digital resurrection of actors that "Star Wars" has already engaged in, we have YouTubers using AI to have dead artists like Frank Sinatra, Freddie Mercury, Whitney Houston, Hank Williams, Michael Jackson, and Johnny Cash sing covers. While it doesn't take much of a trained ear to see that technology has a little bit of way to go, it won't be long until "The Mandela Effect" becomes commonplace, especially in the current of misinformation where his trolling seems small now by comparison.

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