Dial File — Steve Bornfeld: Kaufman couldn’t beat TV system

Friday, Dec. 17, 1999 | 9:46 a.m.

Steve Bornfeld is the Sun features editor. His television column appears Fridays. Reach him at steveb@vegas.com or 259-4081.

He was real and TV isn't. Or maybe TV is real and he wasn't. Or maybe we're real and he and TV weren't. Or maybe he and TV are real and we aren't.

Or maybe ... ah, screw it: Real or imagined -- or more likely, both -- he was Andy Kaufman.

Leaving a legacy as TV's walking, talking ink blot test, the late comedian is the subject of the new bio flick "Man on the Moon." Opening Wednesday, the film features an eerily on-target, is-it-real-or-is-it-Memorex-style performance by Jim Carrey as the "Taxi" co-star and five-star loon who turned the tube into his own private psycho-playpen.

Kaufman was TV's Kafka.

And all his Kafka-esque lunacy on the small screen is recounted on the big screen:

His rise to "Taxi" fame as fractured English-spouting mechanic Latka Gravas (tank-you-veddy-much!), inspired by his wacky Foreign Man routine, and of which he was contemptuous because of its traditional sitcom structure; the so-ridiculous-it-was-funny lip-synching to the "Mighty Mouse" theme; ("Here I come to save the day!"); wrestling with women; wrestling with wrestler Jerry Lawler, then, wearing a neck brace, brawling again with Lawler on the Letterman show; loading an entire Carnegie Hall audience on buses and taking them for milk and cookies; his being voted off of "Saturday Night Live" by weary fans; the brawl precipitated by Kaufman on the sketch comedy series "Fridays"; his surreal network comedy special; spending an entire performance reading an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel to a stupefied audience.

And, of course, there was Tony Clifton, the repugnant lounge lizard character -- from Vegas, no less -- that was initially played by Kaufman and, when audiences started to suspect that he and Kaufman were one and the same, would be played by his co-conspirator and comedy partner, Bob Zmuda, needling Kaufman on stage. Kaufman even had it written into his "Taxi" contract that "Clifton" would be allowed to appear on four episodes when, conveniently, Kaufman wasn't there -- antagozinig everyone on the set and getting himself fired, much to Kaufman's demented delight -- without ever acknowledging that he was Clifton.

The "Man on the Moon" bio puts it this way: "Andy Kaufman was considered one of the most innovative, eccentric and enigmatic performers of his time. A master at manipulating audiences, Kaufman could generate belly laughs, stony silence, tears or brawls. He specialized in creating performances so real that even his close friends were never sure where the truth lay. ... He was described variously as a nihilistic elf, a Zen guerilla, a dadaist comedian and the first true performance artist."

The ultimate validation of Kaufman's inside-out comedy: Cancer took his life nearly 15 years ago and some people refuse to believe it wasn't a gag -- and that he was just waiting for the release of this film to make his grand return.

Despite such TV envelope pushers as Ernie Kovacs before Kaufman and David Lynch after him, Kaufman stands alone as the gutsiest performer television has ever seen, seemingly unafraid to turn audiences against him -- and turn they did -- in the name of stretching the boundaries of comedy.

The world of television isn't real and Kaufman dared to remind us of that -- and mock it, tease it, turn it inside-out and upside-down -- purposely destroying the sense of comfort and familiarity on which TV's appeal is built. He forced us to question our perceptions, to shake ourselves out of our pop culture comas, to look again.

And, ironically, for all its traditional constraints regarding comedy -- basically set-up and punch line, dating back to Uncle Miltie, no matter how much "Saturday Night Live" and its cutting-edge disciples tinker with it -- TV proved that it could stretch its mass-appeal parameters enough to embrace a Kaufman. (Movies? Not a chance. Too dependent on linear narrative to handle a Kaufman.) And that was in the pre-cable days. Today, with highly specialized channels that don't depend on mass acceptance, Kaufman's quirkiness could certainly find a niche audience, even if such neat pigeonholing -- the Andy Channel? -- would probably horrify the label-busting comedian.

But it's not a coincidence that the tradition-hating Kaufman's most lasting fame came in a traditional sitcom -- albeit one of the best ever produced. You can't beat the system. And long after "Man on the Moon" -- which celebrates Kaufman in all his twisted glory -- has dropped off the pop culture radar, it is Latka Gravas and "Taxi" that will remain imprinted on the national consciousness, much, no doubt, to Kaufman's eternal chagrin.

You still can't beat the system, even if you're the Man on the Moon.

Tank you veddy much.

Croon a Tune: Last week's ditty was the theme that signaled the weekly beat of lady law enforcers "Cagney and Lacey," the popular cop drama that aired on CBS from 1982-88. Making the arrest were hard-boiled Croon a Tune flatfoots Tracy Bollinger, Mary Dowling, Penelope Wells, Tony Varchetto, LaLa (any last name, LaLa?), Richard Deeds, Ed Boucher, Joe Lacy (know anybody named Cagney, Lacy?), Doug Weise, Daniel Brown and Peter Green.

With another couple of weeks to figure out the very last Croon a Tune quiz of (deep breath here) the month, year, decade, century and millennium -- see Closing Credits below -- give 259-4012 a ringy-dingy (it will pick up after four ringy-dinghies) for a Tune to Croon.

You'll recognize the Tune. But will you recognize the Crooner?

If you do, you'll be recognized in Dial File.

As a singular honor, only getting recognized in a police lineup comes close.

Closing Credits: Two weeks on, two weeks off. That seems to be the temporary pattern as Dial File gets docked for the next two Fridays -- Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve -- when the entire Accent section takes a seasonal siesta to slurp eggnog and swill champagne.

But Dial File is scheduled to put in a special post-holiday appearance on Jan. 3 -- assuming the Dial File columnist hasn't been bitten by the Y2K bug, causing his hardware to incorrectly revert to 1900 and prompting him to write about that memorable 1900-1901 TV season (wasn't that when Susan Lucci got her first Emmy nomination?) -- and will return to its regular Friday home in Accent on Jan. 7.

Please enjoy a safe and sane holiday and millennial New Year's.

Ciao for now, until we meet again in the next thousand years. Or three weeks.