Lost in the Funhouse_ The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman - Bill Zehme [105]
Which was what Uncle Sammy Denoff tried to tell him backstage afterward-before the whole family went out for Chinese food. (“What else would Jews do?”) “So Andy said, ‘How do you think it went, Uncle Sam?’ I said, ‘I think it went pretty well. But you have to rethink this whole Tony Clifton thing, because you’re turning off the audience. They’re not laughing at the character. The idea is to make them laugh, but it’s too obnoxious.’ He said, ‘You’re absolutely right, you’re absolutely right! I’m not gonna have him back on the show. I told him he’s finished!’
“So I said, ‘Yeah, okay, okay … but I’m serious, Andy. No kidding. Rethink it, because there’s a way to do that and make it funny.’ He said, ‘No, you’re right—he’s finished. We had a big fight and I told him he was through.’ I said, ‘Andy! What are you—come on! Look who you’re talking to here!’ And he wouldn’t back off and this went on for about ten more minutes until I finally said ‘Pass.’”
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I liken what I do sometimes to a life game, an adventure in absurdity, an adult fairy tale in which I engage people emotionally and intellectually…. I like to think people will learn something from my hijinks; that they will become a little more cautious…. Because the next time around, their hoaxer might truly be diabolical and rob them of things far more important and meaningful.
—Alan Abel,
The Confessions of a Hoaxer
There now awaited the imprimatur of legacy-in-shorthand. He would soon become … a name of a character in a thing. And thus, in all aftermath, he would most often be fuzzily remembered as having been … a name of a character in a thing. The name would be—give or take a letter—exactly that of a potato pancake; the character would be his but not his any longer; the thing would live on in flickers of recollection as something that had been quite good, a television series that most people had meant to watch more than they did. And this was to be his legacy-in-shorthand, that which in years to come would inform occasional blank expressions that greeted mention of his name—ohh himmmmmmm of courssssse. He would know this sooner than later and it was, um, fine and also discouraging because of all else that he was and that he would do. He sensed/feared the imminent cultural shackling of it from the get-go. So he wavered at the idea of committing himself to the enterprise. (Can’t we just put Foreign Man in a trunk for a while, like Howdy?) George, however, explained that it would be foolish not to take advantage of such a lofty opportunity —this was going to be a very classy show without doubt; these were Mary Tyler Moore guys for God’s sake—and the money he would earn would only afford him freedom to pursue other dreams. So negotiations between Ed. Weinberger and Shapiro took wing shortly after the Comedy Store encounter. The producers were to begin writing their first episode in April and they had already decided that the series would be called Taxi—inspired by a September 1975 New York magazine article, “Night-Shifting for the Hip Fleet” by Mark Jacobson, about an eccentric cab company in Greenwich Village—and among first priorities was to sign Andy to the cast. “Andy was reluctant to do the series,” Weinberger said. “I mean, he wanted to do it, but didn’t want to work every week; he had these other things he wanted to do.” Concessions were made from the start and would continue to be made over the next five years, but first they would have to deal with the initial thirteen episodes ordered by the network. He would agree to appear in no more than eight of them—and in only one of those as a featured player; he would perform in the rest as a background novelty who blithered betwixt plot points