Who was Andy Kaufman? A nice Jewish boy from Long Island who didn’t smoke or drink and practiced Transcendental Meditation? A nonsensical man-child? An angry jerk who pushed the limits of what was entertainment? The moving, funny and revealing documentary Thank You Very Much, directed by Alex Braverman, explores those questions about the innovative, odd, confounding and mysterious comedian. Braverman mines Kaufman’s grief-tinged childhood, filled out some with old interviews with Kaufman and also with his thoughtful father. Most prominent among the interviews is partner in crime and comedy Bob Zmuda, who met Kaufman early in his stand up career, as well as interviews with Taxi co-stars Marilu Henner and Danny Devito, Kaufman’s girlfriend Lynne Margulies (and many others), and the hours of appearances, specials and notable and notorious interactions (such as all the times he aggressively solicited women from his audiences and the not-so-adoring public to wrestle him).
Sadly, Kaufman has been dead longer now than he was alive, having passed away from lung cancer very prematurely 41 years ago at 36. But he left a rich, strange, outlandish and hilarious archive. We’re treated to his screen test for the first season of Saturday Night (as SNL was initially known) in 1975 and his famous Mighty Mouse record lip syncing routine on the premiere, of which Steve Martin said, “He’s also funny while he’s waiting.” Even more fun is when he goes on, unrecognized, as a contestant on The Dating Game, bringing out his Foreign Man character that was a variation of his role of Latka on Taxi. One of my favorite clips is Kaufman on a talk show with Carol Channing and Robert Goulet and the camera captures Goulet’s perfectly expressed look of utter bewilderment at Kaufman’s bizarre brand of performance.
Kaufman’s determination to generate a visceral, even hostile reaction is at the heart of his polarizing style of comedy and what fed him, though in the same instance, he wasn’t creating comedy intended to alienate the audience. The film offers potential explanations as to why Kauffman was such a provocateur. Even his friends, like Fridays star Melanie Chartoff, who was on the 1981 episode on which Kaufman guested, in which he threw a glass of water during filming on Michael Richards (Seinfeld’s Kramer), recognized that “he really relished taking us prisoner.” Zmuda makes a strong argument that it was the death of Kaufman’s beloved grandfather Papu when he was a boy that set him on his course. Rather than tell him that his grandfather had died, Kaufman’s parents thought it was better to spare him the sad news and told him that his grandfather was on a trip. An adult Kaufman recalls all the times he spent as a child looking out the window, waiting for his grandfather to return and wondering why his grandfather hadn’t taken him or come back. It’s that rejection and hurt, according to Zmuda, that are the magic ingredients to creating the performance artist, the misogynistic Tony Clifton, the wrestling stunts and braggadocio, as well as the man who has a touching, sincere conversation with the puppet Howdy Doody (on a late 70s TV special), who had clearly once been a immense source of comfort to a lonely, sad boy.
I think the documentary would have been benefited from hearing from other voices. I would have liked to have heard more from Kaufman’s parents (there’s a lovely scene in which his father remembers Andy coming to him as a teen when he was reading On The Road and wanting to read it with his father, and they cried together as they did). It’s also curious that the only SNL co-star included is Steve Martin. No one else from that first season is featured, and given that Kaufman was actually voted off the show in 1982 in an effort led by then-producer Dick Ebersol, there must have been some Not Ready For Primetime Players who have things to say about Kaufman. I would also have been eager to hear from some comedians today and what influence Kaufman’s comedy had on them.
It’s likely impossible for Kaufman to be fully known – it’s better that way, I think – and what made his unique style of comedy so effective that it earned him a paradoxically widespread cult status. He achieved major stardom in the brutal field of stand-up by flipping the familiar dynamic (he heckled the audience, and they loved it, or hated it and still filled the seats). He made his strange and bemusing mark on pop culture, and punctuated it with the ultimate mic drop. We should thank him very much.
Thank You Very Much is in theaters and available online. For more information on where to find it, go to https://drafthousefilms.com/thankyouverymuch
