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Posts tagged as andy kaufman

Albums

Andy Kaufman Is Releasing His First-Ever Comedy Album This Summer

by | May 10th, 2013

Andy Kaufman is the second beloved dead comedian to have a new project announced this week. Following Tuesday's news of an animated film based on a rare Phil Hartman recording, record label Drag City announced yesterday that they'll be releasing a comedy album called Andy and His Grandmother, which is assembled from 82 hours of micro-cassette tapes Andy Kaufman recorded between 1977 and 1979. From the press release:

Andy regarded the micro-tape recorder as a fantastic new way of capturing his hoaxing, and carried it with him everywhere, for use at any given moment. Real life was the ultimate frontier for him, and these tapes demonstrate the heart [...]

Lost Roles

Another 10 TV Pilots the Networks Didn't Pick Up

by | September 13th, 2012

The fall TV season kicked off this week, with NBC being the first of the major networks to launch new shows. It’s really impressive any time a TV show makes it to air because it’s such an arduous process to even get a pilot episode made, let alone getting a show picked up to series. There are so many steps at which things can completely fall apart when developing a TV show that it’s a wonder so many shows get made at all.

Because most networks develop far more pilots than they need, each network has its own back catalogue of rejected shows that never made it to air. [...]

Advice

Foolproof Strategies For Winning Next Year's Andy Kaufman Award

by | November 10th, 2011

Congratulations to Nick Vatterott, who took home the coveted Andy Kaufman Award for his standup routine as a monster. It's funny! Here are some suggestions for those considering entering this contest next year:

- Repeat the sentence "You guys know what I think about recursion?" for half an hour. Then take a bow and, as if you're starting a new joke, repeat the sentence "You know what I think about repetition?" for forty-five minutes.

- Do your regular set, silently.

Tragedy Plus Time

Finding the Humor in Cancer

by | February 5th, 2013

Welcome to our new series Tragedy Plus Time. Each segment will focus on a particular ‘life crisis’ — sometimes globally tragic, sometimes more of a personal affair — and we’ll explore how many of the comedians we know and love have dealt with it.

Cancer is the disease that perpetually reminds us that we are all a bunch of vulnerable, fleshy meat sacks, and that everything we touch, eat, breathe or spend too much time standing near is eventually going to kill us. It affects millions of people every year. A late diagnosis is effectively a death sentence, and the variety show of pain it has provided humanity [...]

Interviews

Talking with Alan Spencer about 'Bullet in the Face,' Andy Kaufman, 'Sledge Hammer,' and Life as a Hollywood Script Doctor

by | August 15th, 2012

After spending his teenage years sneaking on to movie studio lots and befriending talented, offbeat folks like Marty Feldman and Andy Kaufman, Alan Spencer became one of the youngest-ever members of the Writers Guild at age 15. The first show he created, Sledge Hammer!, made him the youngest-ever creator of a network TV series at the time at 26, and the program earned a great deal of critical acclaim and inspired a devoted cult following after its criminally short, two-season run. Frustrated with how hard it is to get a show on the air, Alan Spencer then began working as a Hollywood script doctor, fixing other people's movies and [...]

Classics

Watch Andy Kaufman Be Alive: 175 Andy Kaufman Videos Running in Chronological Order

by | September 30th, 2010

Watch Andy Kaufman Be Alive is a new blog by comedian Scott Moran, one that promises to post every available Andy Kaufman video in chronological order. With 175 videos lined up, he's starting with his college acting auditions and leading up to his final TV appearance 9 years later. It's a pretty awesome undertaking, and a great way to get introduced to Kaufman over time. Above is Kaufman's first ever TV appearance on Kennedy at Night from 1972.

From the Archives

Making the Strange Journey to Andy Kaufman's Funhouse

by | January 25th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

When it comes to comedy today, audiences are kind of spoiled. With podcasts, cable channels, video sites, and every other vehicle for media out [...]

From the Archives

Kaufman! Lawler! Letterman! (And the Rest of the Episode)

by | December 16th, 2011

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

Early Letterman always seems strange to me. In a good way. I grew up watching Conan on Late Night, so seeing Letterman walk out [...]

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