Andy Kaufman is a standup comedian who rose to fame in the late 1970s.
He even had a run-in with professional wrestler Jerry Lawler. He appeared on Saturday Night Live numerous times and he tried to make everyone laugh. Jim Carey portrayed the late comedian in Man on the Moon which is a 1999 film that told the story of the comedian. He did a lot of impressions back in the day which is what used to be funny back then. The truth is you would not need to be back there when you should know what is funny. It is evident he did not do his reputation any favors when he decided to wrestle women. Whether that was real or fake, it still ended up harming his Fidelity Discounts reputation and when you are a Hollywood star, you would not want people bashing your left and right. Besides, he wanted a lot of publicity and he got it when he decided to become some kind of a fake wrestler.
Behind the scenes, the Man on the moon trained with some pretty good professional wrestlers.
Jim Ross even made a cameo in the movie and he looked young back then. Danny DeVito also appeared in Man on the Moon and he was influential in getting Andy Kaufman that role in Taxi. There is no doubt Kaufman’s popularity would not rise if it were not for Danny DeVito. Kaufman’s sketches eventually drew a ton of women to come to his XArt dressing room and Jerry Lawler ended up benefiting from that.
The jokes Jim Carey did on the Man on the Moon are not really funny when you look at it now since we are in the new wave of comedy.
However, it can look funny when you show it to audiences twenty years ago. Besides, we all know how kids would laugh at simple impressions. Andy Kaufman did a number of impressions including Mighty Mouse and Elvis Presley. These days, it is not really hard to do an impression so you can only imagine the number of people who would sign up for a PlayboyTV discount to become a comedian in the 1970s. When it comes to controversy, Andy Kaufman’s name would always pop up and it is not that hard to find out why. He became a dastardly heel in professional wrestling even if he is not a trained wrestler.
It was wise for him to use his popularity to get paid and appear in independent wrestling shows.
Of course, Jerry Lawler would come in and expose his facade which is to actually select a girl from the crowd to wrestle him and he would select his girlfriend in disguise. When that happens, everyone knew the gig was up and he would proceed to get beaten up by another female wrestler. The crowd would pay for something like a Mofos.com discount after Andy insults them like a true heel. Everyone thought he would apologize for smacking a woman on national TV but it resulted in even more publicity.