Your Lunch Break With Andy
May 22, 2014 10:30 AM Subscribe
Dangerous Minds digs up Andy Kaufman's My Dinner With Andre (prev.) parody, My Breakfast With Blassie. (57m video)
Bonus footage: Kaufman & Blassie on Letterman (part 2)
Kaufman previously on MeFi.
Bonus footage: Kaufman & Blassie on Letterman (part 2)
Kaufman previously on MeFi.
What stuck with me is that Blassie won't shake hands out of fear that other people didn't wipe and clean as effectively after bathroom duties as they should have.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:46 AM on May 22, 2014
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:46 AM on May 22, 2014
I've been looking for this for years.
posted by mad bomber what bombs at midnight at 11:06 AM on May 22, 2014
posted by mad bomber what bombs at midnight at 11:06 AM on May 22, 2014
The whole bit with the wet wipes is one of the most brilliantly inane things I've ever seen.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:06 AM on May 22, 2014
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:06 AM on May 22, 2014
This was one of the first DVDs I ever got. I still watch it every year or so. It is absolutely phenomenal.
posted by Etrigan at 11:07 AM on May 22, 2014
posted by Etrigan at 11:07 AM on May 22, 2014
"As a strategy, it feels a little desperate," says Kate Newlin, a brand consultant. She says it's as if the new Ronald is shouting: "Please remember you once loved me."
can the new ad campaign just be a 30 second spot of Ronald McDonald staring into the camera and then saying that at the very end
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 11:27 AM on May 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
can the new ad campaign just be a 30 second spot of Ronald McDonald staring into the camera and then saying that at the very end
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 11:27 AM on May 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
um i meant to post that in the ronald mcdonald thread but all things considered i'm okay with it being here
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 11:27 AM on May 22, 2014 [13 favorites]
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 11:27 AM on May 22, 2014 [13 favorites]
anyway this is a fantastic movie and everyone should see it. i have no idea if blassie knew zmuda was going to come up and do what he did. the end product is worth it either way.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 11:29 AM on May 22, 2014
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 11:29 AM on May 22, 2014
The actresses at the table behind the guys are named Linda, Laurie, Linda and Lynne (who played 'Legs'). Legend must have had fun directing them all together.
posted by carsonb at 11:57 AM on May 22, 2014
posted by carsonb at 11:57 AM on May 22, 2014
I'm OK with cyclists not wearing helmets, as long as they not only stop, but stop at the fricking stop sign. Pedestrians are afraid of everything that moves faster than them, and with good reason.
posted by IAmBroom at 1:04 PM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by IAmBroom at 1:04 PM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Nothing can make me forgive Weezer for everything after Pinkerton, not even Pinkerton.
posted by carsonb at 1:10 PM on May 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by carsonb at 1:10 PM on May 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
w/o a doubt, A. K. was the most perplexing artist of the modern era. No one ever, has pinned down exactly what he was.
I quote Nigel Tufnel: " In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people... the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing... "
posted by shockingbluamp at 1:28 PM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
I quote Nigel Tufnel: " In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people... the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing... "
posted by shockingbluamp at 1:28 PM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Also on the subject of fantastic My Dinner with Andre spoofs, Community's Season 2, Episode 19, Critical Film Studies is one of the finest 22 minutes of television ever made.
posted by Talez at 2:00 PM on May 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Talez at 2:00 PM on May 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
w/o a doubt, A. K. was the most perplexing artist of the modern era. No one ever, has pinned down exactly what he was.
Yeah, Kaufman is just an amazing specimen. Performance art and comedy -- Performance Comedy? Stand-up Art? I don't think someone like him could even exist today, given that his work came out of that strange period that birthed modern media and celebrity cultures in so many ways -- I think it's worthwhile to note that Network came out in 1976 when Kaufman was just getting started. Maybe Kaufman is something like a comic version of Howard Beale, with a similarly tragic ending. Instead of Andy Kaufman, we get this.
And the funny thing is, in theory I'm too young to really be able to appreciate him, as I imagine many other people in the thread are. I was 7 when he died in 1984. I'm sure I'd seen him on Taxi, if not also on reruns of SNL when my parents let me stay up late, but I wasn't aware of him at all. In my teens I knew of him as the guy who did the "stupid Mighty Mouse bit" (I was a very foolish child). It wasn't until the run-up to Man on the Moon that I started learning about his career. Just a brilliant, crazy, and too too short span of amazing work. How do others proselytize about Kaufman to their friends? I feel like I want everyone to know about him, but on the other hand he's so hard to talk about, and such a strange bird that I worry about turning people OFF to him.
posted by Saxon Kane at 3:03 PM on May 22, 2014
Yeah, Kaufman is just an amazing specimen. Performance art and comedy -- Performance Comedy? Stand-up Art? I don't think someone like him could even exist today, given that his work came out of that strange period that birthed modern media and celebrity cultures in so many ways -- I think it's worthwhile to note that Network came out in 1976 when Kaufman was just getting started. Maybe Kaufman is something like a comic version of Howard Beale, with a similarly tragic ending. Instead of Andy Kaufman, we get this.
And the funny thing is, in theory I'm too young to really be able to appreciate him, as I imagine many other people in the thread are. I was 7 when he died in 1984. I'm sure I'd seen him on Taxi, if not also on reruns of SNL when my parents let me stay up late, but I wasn't aware of him at all. In my teens I knew of him as the guy who did the "stupid Mighty Mouse bit" (I was a very foolish child). It wasn't until the run-up to Man on the Moon that I started learning about his career. Just a brilliant, crazy, and too too short span of amazing work. How do others proselytize about Kaufman to their friends? I feel like I want everyone to know about him, but on the other hand he's so hard to talk about, and such a strange bird that I worry about turning people OFF to him.
posted by Saxon Kane at 3:03 PM on May 22, 2014
It probably helps to be too young to be part of Kaufman's original audience, since you come to his work knowing that it's all an act, either by word of mouth or simply because performance art has become somewhat more mainstream as a concept.
There are plenty of older people who still don't gather that a lot of Kaufman's later material was entirely a put-on, particularly the "Inter-Gender Wrestling" thing, because at the time he did these bits, almost everyone knew him as a stand-up comedian from Saturday Night Live or an actor from Taxi. It looked to most people as if he'd simply lost his mind, or stopped being funny.
Of course, what Kaufman always did was deliberately subvert expectations and create deliberate tension. Comedy does that, but with a particular kind of expectation, which is why his later bits don't read as comedy. I'd argue that the modern counterpart to Kaufman is probably Tim and Eric and their stuff. Dr. Steve Brule, for instance, seems very much like the sort of thing Kaufman did.
posted by kewb at 3:20 PM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
There are plenty of older people who still don't gather that a lot of Kaufman's later material was entirely a put-on, particularly the "Inter-Gender Wrestling" thing, because at the time he did these bits, almost everyone knew him as a stand-up comedian from Saturday Night Live or an actor from Taxi. It looked to most people as if he'd simply lost his mind, or stopped being funny.
Of course, what Kaufman always did was deliberately subvert expectations and create deliberate tension. Comedy does that, but with a particular kind of expectation, which is why his later bits don't read as comedy. I'd argue that the modern counterpart to Kaufman is probably Tim and Eric and their stuff. Dr. Steve Brule, for instance, seems very much like the sort of thing Kaufman did.
posted by kewb at 3:20 PM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
kewb, I think you're right about Tim & Eric being among the heirs to Kaufman's aesthetic. Neil Hamburger too. I don't think anyone will ever be their performance the way Andy was, though.
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:55 PM on May 22, 2014
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:55 PM on May 22, 2014
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I find literally every detail of it to be worthy of obsession, from the name of the restaurant, to Blassie's confession that he likes to take his toast and "dip it into the yella," to Kaufman's bright-eyed (and obviously sincere) interest in every word that comes out of Blassie's mouth.
posted by incomple at 10:43 AM on May 22, 2014