The story of Andy Kaufman’s ban from Saturday Evening Dwell is an extended and tangled one. And, consistent with the boundary-pushing comic’s profession purpose of preserving audiences guessing, the payoff of the late comic’s closing SNL look solely doubled down on the controversy surrounding Kaufman’s tumultuous time on the groundbreaking sketch comedy sequence.
Because the story goes, Kaufman after which Saturday Evening Dwell producer Dick Ebersol received right into a screaming, profanity-laden argument backstage in the course of the Nov. 13, 1982, episode, reportedly as a result of Ebersol had minimize Kaufman’s newest visitor look on the final minute. Kaufman stormed off, and, in the course of the episode, Ebersol made a uncommon look on the present itself, explaining that Kaufman’s materials had grown stale and that Kaufman merely wasn’t humorous anymore.
It was an odd and uneasy factor to observe, which, naturally, was all a part of the plan. Kaufman, whose current stint because the self-created “intergender wrestling champion” noticed the comedian grappling with ladies throughout his act and at professional wrestling venues, had succeeded in producing a number of adverse publicity, as was Kaufman’s intention. So the concept that the notoriously controlling Ebersol would take to SNL to trash Kaufman was at the least believable — which is how he and Kaufman wished it. The following week, SNL introduced an unprecedented call-in vote during which viewers may dial one in all two 900 numbers to find out whether or not Andy Kaufman would ever be invited again to Saturday Evening Dwell.
The vote was performed straight by the forged — as a result of nearly all of them have been, just like the viewers, at midnight. Kaufman, in keeping with Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad’s account of the early days of SNL, Saturday Evening, spent the week main as much as the vote worrying that the vote — cooked up because it had been between he and Ebersol — would go towards him. And that’s simply what occurred, with 195,544 callers voting (at 50 cents per name) to ban Kaufman from SNL perpetually. Kaufman by no means would seem on Saturday Evening Dwell once more, earlier than the comic died from a uncommon lung most cancers simply over a yr later on the age of 35.
Or somewhat, Kaufman by no means appeared dwell on Saturday Evening Dwell once more. It was on the Jan. 22, 1983, episode of the present, hosted by Lily Tomlin, that SNL viewers have been handled to what seemed to be one other gratuitous low cost shot on the now-exiled comic. With forged member Brad Corridor performing because the anchor for Ebersol’s “Weekend Replace” information phase (quickly retitled “Saturday Evening Information”), Kaufman was given another kick whereas he was down. Corridor, precisely reporting that Kaufman had been shopping for advert area on TV stations across the nation, defined that the “semiretired comic” was desperately begging America for one more likelihood to come back again to Saturday Evening Dwell.
Watch When Andy Kaufman Was Voted Off ‘SNL’
Corridor then aired Kaufman’s precise advert, which the anchor defined had run solely within the extra reasonably priced markets of Macon, Ga., Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Neb. In it, Kaufman stands uncomfortably posed in entrance of a backdrop of blue-screened pine bushes and explains that he’s utilizing his personal cash to buy airtime at particular person stations in an try to get Ebersol and SNL to rescind his ban. Kaufman performs it completely straight, thanking Saturday Evening Dwell for “all the good years” and thanking the “169,000 individuals” who voted to maintain him on the present (the overall was 169,186), explaining that it made him really feel good that so many individuals appreciated his work.
“That’s fairly unhappy,” Corridor famous sadly because the advert ends, incomes a chuckle from the confused viewers, earlier than occurring to notice that not solely is Kaufman nonetheless banned, “however he now owes the NBC community $80,000 and a few change.” Andy Kaufman’s comedy was a one-of-a-kind mix of showmanship and provocation, and this closing bit on the present that helped elevate his profession (Kaufman was on the very first SNL episode in 1975) was an ideal encapsulation of Kaufman’s inimitable fashion. Kaufman did cook dinner up the entire thought with Ebersol, though he relished his recurring highlight on the present.
Simply as his supposed feud with professional wrestler Jerry Lawler was revealed as a hoax lengthy after Kaufman’s dying, nearly everybody at Saturday Evening Dwell was stored clueless as to the true stakes behind the vote. On a podcast look, forged member Gary Kroeger famous that he regrets being the one to introduce the 900 numbers on that fateful evening, explaining that he imagined all of it to be a joke.
Kroeger was half proper: Whereas Kaufman was behind the stunt, he was nonetheless dedicated to abiding by the consequence. His subsequent, low-rent public pleas for a keep of SNL execution have been one other piece of Kaufman’s efficiency artwork however have been additionally little doubt supposed to convey him again into the present’s orbit. That SNL aired his pleas solely to mock him one closing time was simply the icing on the cake, a meta-textual gag that left these watching baffled and uneasily amused. It might not have been how Andy Kaufman wished his tenure on Saturday Evening Dwell to finish, however it’s robust to think about he wasn’t happy to exit on such an odd and chaotic notice.
