DARENET
Andy Kaufman's Last Performance
New Wave Theatre came to an end when Ivers was bludgeoned to death in his home in downtown L.A. The murderer has never been caught, though many suspect it must have been a member of a band who had appeared on the show and got pissed off at Iver's hippy-dippy questions.
Ivers was a Harvard graduate, and in memory of him,
they initiated the Peter Ivers Visiting
Artist Program. He had many powerful friends in Hollywood, including Harold
Ramis. Harold wanted to see the spirit of New Wave Theatre live on, so he
agreed to executive produce a show called The Top for local TV, once
again produced and directed by David Jove, and featuring many of the New Wave
Theatre gang, including me. He also supplied Chevy Chase as a host, with
guest stars Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray, and Dan Aykroyd.
The Peter Principle immediately came into play, and I'm not talking about Ivers. Jove, who worked well with his underground crew and punk bands, editing in his own private bay in his cave-like home, was totally out of his league in the real world of television. New Wave Theatre was shot guerrilla style, and he was in charge of absolutely everything. Faced with an actual production staff, he found himself completely incapable of delegating authority, preferring instead to boss everyone around, telling them specifically what he wanted them to do, and ordering them not to do anything else. He literally ran around stopping people from doing their jobs. It was nuts. Everyone hated him.
Then it was Jove's turn. One by one, he shot down every single
one of Chevy and Harold's ideas. He made it very clear what the show was going
to be. Despite what Ramis had told the network, it was going to be the David
Jove show. He then ran through HIS list of ideas, like constantly cutting back
to the control booth, which would be run by animals. Like the talk show portion
of the show which would feature nothing but baby ducks. Like his wife and child
performing a song. One by one, Chevy and Harold shot down every single one of
David's ideas. There was a horrifying silence. Chevy threw out another idea.
David turned it down. David threw out another idea. Harold turned it down,
throwing out another idea of his own. David turned it down.
Finally, Chevy said "Why don't we satirize Thriller?" which was Michael Jackson's latest video that had just started airing that week. This was my cue. Just before the meeting, I had told David my idea for satirizing Thriller with Chevy Chase, replacing the words "it's a thriller in the night" with the words "it's a Chevy in the night," and having Chevy turn into a Chevy instead of a werewolf. Chevy and Harold looked at me and I said "That's a good idea," but just as I was about to tell my concept and justify my presence in the room, I felt a kick under the table. I looked at Jove, who surreptitiously lifted up his shirt to reveal a revolver in his belt. The message was pretty obvious: if I told my idea, which Chevy and Harold would clearly like, he would shoot me. I kept my mouth shut. The meeting ended in stalemate and a death threat.
Finally, it was time to shoot the opening episode with a live
audience. The rehearsal with the bands had gone well. Jove had scored quite a
coup getting Cyndi Lauper to perform Time after Time. She was fantastic.
The audience packed in, full of punks who were fans of the original New Wave
Theatre, and expecting more of the same. Jove, who was used to actually
being on the stage as the main hand-held camera operator, found himself stuck in
the booth in back, having no idea how to give orders to the crew on the stage.
As it turned out, he wouldn't need to.
There was a fanfare, an announcer said "Ladies and Gentlemen, it's THE TOP!" I had written Chevy several opening monologues. Chevy had written himself an opening monologue. But right before he went on, Jove had gone up to him and made him put on a punk costume with a spiked wig, telling him to just go on stage as a punk and wing it. Chevy came on stage in his punk costume, looking pretty uncomfortable since he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do next.
The opening music kept playing. He stood there. A bunch of
punks in the front row, aroused by the music, jumped on stage and started slam
dancing.
A word here about slam dancing. Slam dancing consists of jumping up and down like you're on a pogo stick while bouncing off of those near you. That's it. It works particularly well on a VERY crowded dance floor with VERY loud music; everyone caroming off each other like a million balls in an insane punk pinball game. Unless you know that slam dancing is a dance, you would have no idea that you were witnessing something other than a riot.
Chevy had apparently never seen slam dancing. All he knew was that a bunch of punk assholes were jumping up and down trying to bounce off him. He pushed one of them away. They pushed back. He pushed back. Chevy got cold-cocked and knocked off the stage. He got up, walked to his dressing room, and didn't come out. The show was over after a full thirty seconds of production.
It was a disaster and everyone blamed Jove. Chevy blamed him for not letting him do the monologue he wanted to do. He quit and refused to work with Jove again. I blamed Jove for not doing MY opening. Harold blamed Jove for inviting the punks in the first place and seating them in the front row. Jove blamed the system for not letting him be on the stage where he could have stopped it from happening instead of being cooped up in the booth.
The network was still owed a show. Harold Ramis took charge. He arranged for a second taping a week later, getting Andy Kaufman to fill in as host. He threw out Jove's script and got a pair of handcuffs to keep him in his seat in the production room during taping. During one production meeting, he took a phone call, walking around the room, stretching the cord of the phone as he walked. When the conversation ended, he was on the other side of the room, and he simple let go of the phone, which flew across the room hitting David Jove smack in the middle of the forehead. It was the funniest moment of the whole production.
The second shooting was much more controlled. No punks allowed. Backstage before the show, Kaufman was as friendly as could be. There was not a hint of star ego as I hung out with him in the dressing room, taking his picture as they put on his make-up. As head writer of the show, I had absolutely nothing to do with the words that were to come out of his mouth, so I asked him what routines or characters he would be doing. "None," he said. "Just myself."
There was a fanfare and Dan Aykroyd's voice came over the loudspeakers:
"Under no circumstances attempt to watch this show without a working television
set." The monitors showed rapid, one frame cuts of star fields (one of Jove's
specialties)The list of guests followed: Cyndi Lauper, The Romantics, The Hollies, special guests Dan Aykroyd, Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray, Lili and Lotus, and Robert Roll as George Gerkon. "This is your suicidal announcer, Bill Martin," he concluded as the screen showed a baby duck walking around a miniature talk show set. Cut to a living room full of aliens watching a TV set. "And now your host, Andy Kaufman."
Finally, he went on stage, doing an opening that wasn't written by me,
but contained remnants of Jove reworked by Ramis. It was nothing special. "Hi
everybody" he waved.
"Hi Andy" the whole audience replied. Then a phone rang and Andy answered it. On the monitor, we saw a tape of Rodney Dangerfield on the phone saying "Andy, what's going on? When are you going to show Rappin' Rodney? I gotta go to the bathroom."
Andy did a double, a triple, a quadruple take looking at the phone. The screen cut to a little old lady saying "Now you stay tuned to The Top." A multi-colored fright wig appeared on her head. "Do you hear me?" she said shaking her finger at the screen. Cut to commercial.
During the rest of the show, Andy did
little more than introduced the guests and take calls from Rodney. Aykroyd and
Murray were wasted in a pre-taped segment which looked like Jove just got them
stoned and babbling at each other. Dangerfield'
When the show was aired, there was no writing credit. During the final
credits, which were shown over a rather sweet performance of a song about heaven
by Jove's wife and daughter, Lotus Weinstock and Lili Hayden, I was called a
"Creative Consultant."
Kaufman's performance in The Top seems to be unique in his career. He wasn't playing a character. He wasn't putting anyone on. He wasn't trying to be funny. There was an absolute lack of irony. It actually wasn't a performance; he was simply being himself, doing a favor for a friend, dropping every facade he had ever used, dropping any attempt at being clever or cute or even entertaining. Other than the remarkable circumstances leading to his filling in for Chevy Chase, it wasn't even worth writing about. He smiled a lot and just came off as a totally nice guy, without pretense, someone you could share a beer with. Anyone tuning in to see any of his trademark idiosyncrasies would have been pretty disappointed.
At the time, I saw it as a complete waste of his phenomenal talents, but looking back now, I see it as a moment of incredible clarity. He probably knew he was dying. He didn't have anything else to prove to anybody. He could afford to just be himself, and that was good enough. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it goes," he said. "Good-bye from The Top." He put his hand over his heart, looked at the audience, wide-eyed and innocent, and said "We love you" before walking off the stage. He died four months later. It was his last public appearance.
Posted here with a bunch of videos.
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Send your response to
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Reader Comment
wrong answer
(Yester)day's answer is just wrong. Sammee Tong starred with John Forsythe in Bachelor Father in 1957, WAY before Barney Miller.
MD
Thanks, Michael!
The question was:
Who was the first regular adult character on US prime-time television written for an American of Japanese descent?
Bachelor Father's Sammee Tong was Chinese.
Besides, Bachelor Father's premiere episode was 15 September 1957, but a day earlier, on the 14th, "Have Gun - Will Travel" Three Bells to Perdido (1957) debutted, with Kam Tong in the regular co-starring role of Hey Boy.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
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Lou, 44, was banned from filmmaking in China for five years after he brought his last film "Summer Palace" - about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests - to Cannes in 2006 without permission. He shot "Spring Fever," a moody and sexually explicit drama that tracks the romantic entanglements of five characters over the course of a torrid spring season, with a small camera and without authorization in the city of Nanjing.
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Honored In NOLA
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May Face New Trial
Orhan Pamuk
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The compensation suit stemmed from an interview with a Swiss magazine in 2005 when Pamuk said "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were killed" in Turkey.
Turkey denies Armenians were systematically killed between 1915 and 1923, saying that both sides suffered losses in internecine fighting during the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.
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Acquitted In SD Bar Fight
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Jones, 44, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault for a Dec. 4 scuffle at Wiley's Tavern. Surveillance video showed a bloodied Jones punching Juan Trevino-Barrera, 24, in a hallway minutes after Barrera's friends hit Jones with a beer glass and beer bottle, causing deep cuts to Jones' nose and forehead.
Jones said he received 70 stitches for his injuries - scars from which are still visible. He faced a maximum punishment was one year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
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Hohle Fels Cave
Naked Woman
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The figurine, unearthed in September 2008 in Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany, may be the oldest known example of figurative art, meaning art that is supposed to represent and resemble a real person, animal or object. The discovery could help scientists understand the origins of art and the advent of symbolic thinking, including complicated language.
The fixation wasn't just for naked women, though. Early carvings of phalluses appeared in Europe at about the same time.
The tiny statue is carved out of the tusk of a woolly mammoth and is less than 2.5 inches (60 millimeters) long. Instead of a head, it has a ring that scientists think meant it was worn as a pendant looped through string. Paleoanthropologist Nicholas Conard of Germany's Tubingen University reported the discovery in the May 14 issue of the journal Nature.
Naked Woman
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