Saturday, June 8, 2013

Andy Kaufman's TV Meltdown

Andy Kaufman's most outrageous alter ego (emphasis on EGO) was Tony Clifton who caused a scene on Dinah Shore's weekday afternoon talk / variety program, as he was want to do. Poor Dinah and her staff had no inkling that the star of one of TV's hottest sitcoms, Taxi, would insist on doing the program in character as the highly obnoxious lounge singer Tony Clifton. Kaufman was essentially doing performance art but no one, absolutely no one, appreciated the humor behind his crude insults and lousy singing.

Unfortunately the best portion of this taping is long gone, the part where 'Tony' forces Dinah to sing with him even though she begged off due to a sore throat and, at the end of the segment, he dumps a bowl of eggs over her head (the show's producer destroyed that portion of the tape). Can you imagine the calls to Andy's manager after that?

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