6 Ways Andy Kaufman Was Ahead of His Time

Love him or hate him (there really is no in-between), nobody can say Andy Kaufman was boring.  Even in an era marked by brilliant talent like Richard Pryor, Robin Williams & Rodney Dangerfield, Andy was still someone who made people sit up and say "That guy is going places.  I'm not sure where, but he's going places."  He was a comedian's comedian, except he didn't consider himself a comedian at all but a Song-and-Dance-Man... a troubadour.  He even christened himself  "Andy Troubadour Kaufman" as a child.

Everyone says The Simpsons are good at predicting the future.  Pshaw.  They've had 30+ years & several teams of writers to throw things at the wall--eventually some things were bound to stick.  Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman only graced the stage & screen for a short 10 years, much of that as a sitcom actor in a scripted series.  From his TV debut on Dean Martin Comedy World in 1974 until his death from a rare lung cancer in 1984, Andy proved time and again that he was on a whole other wavelength, predicting the future of entertainment, society & media in ways that are still revealing themselves to this day... some positive & others not so hot.   

Here are just 6 ways Andy Kaufman was ahead of his time:

Pee Wee's Playhouse -  The gonzo, semi adult-themed Pee-Wee's Playhouse was a staple in every '80s & early '90s household on Saturday mornings.  But did you know Paul Reubens supposedly got the idea for the show from Andy Kaufman?  That's right:  According to Bob Zmuda's book "Andy Kaufman: Revealed!" Reubens asked Kaufman for permission to use his ideas on the show shortly before his death in 1984.  You can see the seeds of the "Randy" puppet, Magic Screen, the secret word & other "Funhouse/Playhouse" ideas in this pilot from Uncle Andy's Funhouse.  The special was taped in 1977 but didn't air until 1979 while the first episode of Pee-Wee's Playhouse debuted in 1986.  (Though we gotta give Pee-Wee full credit for predicting the rise of video chat with his super futuristic "picture phone".)

Influencer-Style Videos: - While they're commonplace today, videos with a person facing a camera and egotistically yapping away were once pretty unusual.  But not for Andy Kaufman, who took great pleasure in making tons of these hilarious vignettes during his wrestling phase.  They were usually antagonistic, with Andy mocking Southerners, women or other specific demographics to get them riled up before matches.  ("Repeat after me:  Soap.  Not sa-oup.  Not saioooup").  

18 minutes of wrestling taunts.  You're welcome.

Reality TV -  My Breakfast with Blassie was a parody of My Dinner with Andre, a dramatic comedy about two actors having a deep discussion at a cafe.  But "Blassie" also gave us a brief glimpse into the future of television, with its half-scripted, half spontaneous plot in which we watch two B-list (okay, okay: D-list at that point) celebrities eating in a restaurant while discussing mundane topics like herpes & wet wipes.  Again, this wasn't a thing in 1982 when the film was made--the viewing public & his showbiz peers just thought it was Andy being a weirdo.  And they weren't wrong.  But in hindsight we can see that this brand of eavesdropping on the banal activities of the rich has largely supplanted sitcoms, soap operas & other forms of TV programming since its rise in the early 2000s.  His brawl with Jerry Lawler on Letterman's late night show would also foretell a very big trend:  talk show smackdowns a la Jerry Springer & Geraldo.  

Intergender Champion -  One of Andy's most polarizing and career-destroying bits was wrestling women.  He even crowned himself "Intergender Wrestling Champion of the World."  While he saw it as a joke, his fanbase was not amused.  Not only did it get him voted off SNL forever, eventually he was excommunicated from his transcendental meditation retreats as a result of this obsession.  (And in all honesty, his motives weren't entirely pure:  His dirty little secret was that he had to tape down his penis before matches to hide the boner he got from all the rubbing that occurred on the mat.  He also treated his fan mail like a personal dating service, answering letters from pretty young college students & throwing letters from men or fat, unattractive women into the trash).  The fact that males are now unironically competing against women in women's contact sports means the world has finally "caught up" to what was supremely unpopular even as a comedy bit way back then.  The situation has been parodied on South Park, Dave Chappelle's "The Closer" & any number of memes & cartoons online.  Once again, Andy beat us to the punch.

'Memba when this was just a (bad) joke?

Pro Wrestling -  At the time Andy got into pro wrestling (against men), his show business peers were perplexed as to why anyone would waste their time on such unrefined pursuits.  To be blunt, pro wrestling was largely considered a lowbrow form of entertainment for Southern hicks who fell for the dumbest sleight of hand trickery.  But as per usual, Andy was simply an early adopter who was ahead of the curve.  He didn't begin challenging pros like Jerry Lawler & Jimmy "Mouth of the South" Hart until October 12, 1981 & barely missed the Golden Era by dying prematurely in early 1984.  While far from the Dark Ages, things didn't really get exciting in the WWE (then the WWF) until 1985 when Hulk Hogan, MTV's Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection, the 1st Wrestlemania & the WCW kicked off.  I'm sure the Hollywood crowd's doubts were put to rest by the end of the '80s when the WWE was bringing in $137,553,873.  Total revenue for the years 1984-1990?  $644,026,574.  That's $1,538,241,890.71 in 2022 dollars.  

Singing ballad in neck brace on Letterman appearance preceding Lawler slap

Proto-Trolling -  From sending entirely fabricated stories to the tabloids to turning a late-night sketch comedy show into an all-out brawl, Kaufman was a master troll.  And he did it nearly 30 years before the internet as we know it existed.  Acting an ass anonymously behind a keyboard is easy but this guy was risking his career on national TV in front of millions of viewers at a time when network TV was the only game in town.  He claimed not to care whether the audience laughed, cried or got raging mad... as long as they reacted.  Classic troll behavior.  Another masterful moment:  attempting to read the entire Great Gatsby to a captive SNL audience in a thin British accent before being hurried offstage by an annoyed Lorne Michaels.  (Letterman was prime trolling territory too).  My personal fave was his fake engagement to Lawrence Welk gospel singer Kathie Sullivan, in which he claimed to be a born-again Christian & proceeded to sing hymns & lecture the audience about staying drug-free.  The full episode is available on Tubi.  

Bonus: These lyrics are as deep as anything on the Billboard charts today.  

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