Andy Kaufman came on the comedy scene in the mid-1970s and befuddled his audience from the beginning. In an interview, he said, “I am not a comic. I have never told a joke.” Yet, he appeared at comedy clubs and in the comedy series “Taxi.”
Kaufman undoubtedly confused his audience by never letting on if he was serious about anything or when he was being “himself.”
Growing up, Alex Braverman was intrigued by Kaufman’s cagy artistry. So much so that he created the documentary film, “Thank You Very Much,” as an homage to Kaufman’s brilliant career, which was cut short by cancer in May of 1984 when he was 35.
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WPR’s “BETA” talked with Braverman about his film and what led him to make it.
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Doug Gordon: What inspired you to create this award-winning documentary?
Alex Braverman: I love Kaufman’s work. I saw “Man on the Moon” when it came out, and I love “Jim and Andy.” They’re both great films, but I felt there was still an opportunity to make the definitive feature documentary looking at him and his life and career. I set out to make a film that captures the feeling one might have had watching him in these clubs.
I wanted to make a film that gave his work the time on screen to feel some of the awkwardness and some of the silence he created. But ultimately, I felt like he was a significant artist and wanted to attempt to give him his due.
DG: Mission accomplished. Your parents have a connection with you and Andy Kaufman. Can you tell us about that?
AB: In the ’70s, my parents worked together on producing and directing several specials. In 1979, they produced the Showtime airing of Andy Kaufman’s special that he made with Bob Zmuda, “Andy Kaufman Plays Carnegie Hall.“
I grew up seeing that tape because it was in my house, and my parents told me stories about Andy, and I became fascinated. Some of Kaufman’s stories are like catnip to a kid, where he’s taking his audience out for milk and cookies. He’s working as a busboy at Jerry’s Famous Deli at the height of his fame. And of course, Tony Clifton, his alter ego. Those things leave a mark, at least they did on me. He was always someone that I was aware of, inspired by and curious about. I love stuff like that.
DG: You have said that there’s something about Andy’s work that doesn’t get old for you. How so?
AB: I think as a performer, a personality, a persona, however you want to define it, he’s not someone that will ever break down what he’s doing. It’s not that he doesn’t break character. I think he does break character, and I believe that he gave interviews as himself occasionally. It’s just that even when he’s doing that, you’re not entirely sure if this is the real guy or if it’s just a guy pretending to be the real guy. He just has that quality.
There’s a little bit of a closed loop or sealed-off effect where you’re never going to fully penetrate the inner workings of his mind. It’s a riddle that can’t be fully answered. And I think that’s what makes it eternal.
DG: Bob Zmuda was Andy’s writer and friend. What did Bob think of Andy’s act the first time he saw him perform at The Improv?
AB: Like everyone else, he was mesmerized and confused. In those early days, when Andy would show up at The Improv or Catch a Rising Star, he had an American, or North American at least, sounding name, but then he gets up on stage and speaks in this completely Eastern European or beyond accent, and everyone’s having the same kind of reaction of like, “Oh no, who is this poor man and how was he allowed up on stage to perform? These are barely even jokes. He’s truly bombing.” Like everyone else, including Budd Friedman at The Improv or Rick Newman at Catch a Rising Star, they were embarrassed for him, confused, ultimately hypnotized, mesmerized and then delighted.
DG: Bob has said that Andy was a normal kid until he was 4 or 5, and his best friend was his grandfather. And one day, his grandfather doesn’t show up. What happened?
AB: When he was around 4 or 5, according to Bob, that’s when his grandfather died, and his parents just didn’t feel it was appropriate to have that conversation with him, or maybe they were worried about having that conversation with him introducing this concept of death. They told Andy that he had gone traveling.
That may have been harder for Andy to accept than the concept of death. Andy and his grandfather spent a lot of time together. They were constantly playing and singing songs and hanging out. And the idea that he left without saying goodbye, or why didn’t he take me with him? These are ideas that, according to Bob and according to Andy, you can hear him talk about it in the film a little bit, it just haunted and upset him.
DG: Andy took his foreign man character and morphed it into the mechanic Latka Gravas on the hit sitcom, “Taxi.” But then Tony Clifton moves into the garage. What happens?
AB: Tony Clifton is Andy’s alter ego and is occasionally played by Bob Zmuda. However, all of these different characters or personas that he embodied, whether it was Tony, the wrestler, or Elvis, were outlets for him to get certain aspects of his personality out.
I think in the case of Tony Clifton, he famously gets on “Taxi.” When Andy signed his contract for “Taxi,” he agreed to be on the show if Tony Clifton would be allowed guest spots on a few episodes. They agreed for some reason. As the story goes, Tony was a horrible actor, and he couldn’t do his lines. They wanted to replace him, so he blew up on the set. It’s one of those stories again that I heard as a child, and my mind is blown that he had this alter ego character that he got on a sitcom and was thrown off the set of “Taxi.” Andy came back to work the next day or a few days later and pretended like nothing had happened.
DG: What is your take on Andy wrestling women?
AB: He was a huge fan of wrestling, and I think he looked at professional wrestlers the same way a young kid today might look at movie stars or pop stars. These were heroes of his. I think he also appreciated the story behind wrestling, that there’s a good guy and a bad guy. He related to that, but he loved that and loved the story. He loved the bad guys.
Also, this is where it gets a little controversial for some reason, but the idea of wrestling also turned him on. And so on the one hand, he’s wrestling because he loves wrestling. On the other hand, he’s wrestling women because he understands that it’s a very potent social satire to be making at the time, commentary on chauvinism and misogyny. Then, the next layer is that he was really into wrestling women.
It is kind of a curve ball that he’s thrown in there regarding career trajectory and survivability. The fact that he decided to pursue it anyway is bizarre but also courageous.
DG: Yeah, exactly. I think that Andy was equal parts stand-up comedian and performance artist. And I think that’s the reason we’re still talking about him 40 years after his death. What do you think?
AB: I think he’s all of the above. To me, he’s an entertainer. He calls himself a song-and-dance man. Other people have called him a performance artist, which is fair and justified as a label. I’d say it’s kind of an honor, too.
I guess he’s a comedian because he performed on stage at comedy clubs and made people laugh. He’s a singer. He’s an incredible drummer and conga player. He’s an actor. So yeah, he’s all of these things, which to me falls neatly under the umbrella of just an entertainer.
DG: What do you want people to take away from watching, “Thank You Very Much?”
AB: Whether he’s intentionally commenting on society or just having fun. There’s a great line in the movie from Laurie Anderson, where she says he was a mirror, and people didn’t like what they saw a lot of the time. I think it’s very accurate. He’s a mirror to how we are as a society, and it feels quite relevant today.
He was performing in the ’70s and ’80s, but how he reflects on society now feels just as current and fresh. So I felt like he’s an artist whom I wanted to try to give his due and try to leave you with a feeling that I had about him as well. I wanted to let him make a lasting impression and have this film be a starting point for anyone interested in him.
