I was reviewing some old videotapes of TV shows I taped back in the early 1990's, and came across this interview from the show "Later with Bob Costas" from 1993. He was interviewing Les Charles, Jim Burrowes and Glen Charles at the time the final episode of "Cheers" was about to air.

Of course these gentlemen knew Andy from working with him on "Taxi," and Bob took the opportunity to ask them about him. They were first discussing Bob Newhart, with whom they'd also worked, and his warm personality and how well he would go over with audiences, even doing the warm-up act before his shows, etc., and then Bob took the conversation along the lines of Andy. I thought it was interesting enough to share, so I transcribed it for y'all:

"Later" from 1993: Bob Costas interviewing Les Charles, Jim Burrowes, and Glen Charles

Bob: Let's go to the flip side. Someone very unusual to be successful in a sitcom, Andy Kaufman. There wasn't anybody like him, maybe ever, in show business exactly like him, and certainly for a guy to be a star of a sitcom, whatever his appeal was, it was the opposite of Bob Newhart's.

Jim: Well, you know what, Andy... there's something about his blue eyes though, that makes him accessible.

Bob: There was a vulnerability and a sweetness about him.

Jim: There was a sweetness about him. He was... Latka was definitely off the wall, and eventually it got further off the wall when he adopted those different personalities, then it really got... but there was an accessibility about Andy, that was... he was wonderful doing that character.

Bob: When he started to edge further and further toward the deep end, did that actually affect him within the confines of the show, or was he able to deliver that, and it was comfortable for you guys and not difficult, and then go off and do his club act?

Glen: It was harder on the rest of the cast than it was on any of us. We anticipated... Andy didn't come to us as the "boy next door." I mean, we'd seen his act, and we knew that this was a strange person with a very, very offbeat sense of humor. I mean, a man who gets onstage and reads "The Great Gatsby" to an audience all the way through. That's something different, there.

Bob: Who's stranger in that case, the performer or the audience!

Glen: I think a professor of comedy would tell you, the joke is on the audience; the man reading is only pointing that out. But he actually had in his contract that he was gonna be allowed to do another character... another actor... what was his name? ...Tony Clifton. A completely different persona that he was going to have come in to get a role on "Taxi." And so we said fine, and he came in to meet with the writers and it was obviously Andy, but he was in a moustache, different wardrobe, a Las Vegas lounge lizard type. And chain smoker, and Andy hated cigarettes, wouldn't go near them... but he adopted this personality and demanded to have a role, so we wrote something in, and of course it was horrible, and one of the producers on the show called him, Ed Weinberger, who was closest to Andy, and said "We've got to get rid of your friend; what can we do?" and Andy said, "You've got to fire him. You've got to get rid of him." And this is true... so Ed went with a security guard down to his trailer. He wasn't in Andy's dressing room; he was in a trailer, and they fired Tony Clifton. And he left the lot screaming and yelling, "I'm getting my agents, I'm getting my lawyers," that's the last we heard of Tony.

Jim: But... Andy loved to put you on. I don't know how euphemistically "crazy" he was. You know, he pretty much knew what he was doing at every moment. He was very smart. There were moments I could talk to him, and you could see the sense that it was all premeditated and it was all by design. He had a wonderful gift at comedy, wonderful.

(Clip plays of SNL "Mighty Mouse")

Bob: In the last year or two though, he started doing some stuff that... the wrestling stuff, that troubled me not so much because it might have been an indication that he was completely gone, but because it wasn't that funny any more. It stopped being... it was almost like he went inward and it just wasn't accessible to anybody. Even people that were willing to take the trip with him, he was leaving by the side of the road, I thought.

Jim: There was a certain violence in wrestling that, you know... violence in comedy really takes you back rather than it takes you in. So there was a certain violence. So I know I was sitting next to his mother and father when he did his show out here, Donny Hartford, when we were doing "Taxi" he did a show, and when he was getting thrown around by the wrestler, they were taken aback... they had no idea it was a put-on. So there was this sense of violence about that, that really was not... that did not help you to laugh.

Les: But he would always test your credulity; that's what he was in the business for; I think he he wanted that even more than he wanted you to laugh at him. He wanted to... I know he was experimenting with the very edge of how far you're gonna believe. "How far can I go and you still believe that this is"... you're always on the verge of "is this really happening? I know that it's a joke... but is it? Maybe it's real." And I have to say that I don't think I'm the only person who for a long time couldn't believe he was dead, because we thought that maybe somehow this was yet another put-on, his greatest put-on. "How can I top that?"

Bob: Well, the night he went off with Jerry Lawler, the wrester, on Letterman's show, was actually frightening. It was so convincing, that a lot of people there that night still don't know what part was put on, what part was real; throwing the coffee, and of course they bleeped it, but there was some really harsh profanity being thrown back and forth... and even Letterman, who was able to turn it into a joke, didn't know exactly what was happening on his set.

Les: And that's exactly what he wanted. That's exactly what Andy was reaching for. He was playing with some emotions that no other stand-up comic could ever even approach.

It's always interesting to read articles from sort of pre myth/man on the moon days.

I liked the statement Les Charles made, "how far can I go and you still believe." I've always seen it as either black or white, either believing or not but it makes much more sense to me now that AK would have left room for the gray area in between. Thanks for transcribing that, Raaawb.

With gratitude.

"Even people that were willing to take the trip with him, he was leaving by the side of the road, I thought."

Trying the "quote original message" feature along with this... haven't tried that before.

Bob's thought about "leaving by the side of the road" reflects my own thoughts at the time about the wrestling. Seemed like Andy would do one thing, then a different thing, and so forth... the unexpected. So then it seemed like the entire wrestling endeavor was too long, while we were waiting for another different thing! Hm, so maybe him not doing the unexpected was unexpected in itself, and therefore consistent. Still, it didn't seem to fly very well with the public.

I should point out that I misspelled Mr. Burrows' name... no "e" in it.

It was very cool to run into this show. I think I taped it via the timer and never actually watched it before. The same tape also has the original airing of the last "Cheers" episode... and also the hourlong season-ender of "Seinfeld" that aired the same evening, with the storyline about the "NBC show about nothing" Jerry and George created within the show coming to its conclusion. Hard to believe that was 12 years ago!

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Replying to:

"Even people that were willing to take the trip with him, he was leaving by the side of the road, I thought."

Thanks for transcribing that, Raaawb. Very nice treat for us. :)

Yehaw, Raaawb thank you!

Transcribing takes a freaking long time, too! (I STILL have not finished that hour long interview I was transcribing last week! Eeek!).

Anyway, regarding this "leaving people behind" thing... here's my opinion for what it's worth.

If Andy was doing stuff that everybody GOT, that was SAFE, he would have been Bob Saget, not Andy Kaufman. If he wasn't leaving people behind, he wouldn't have been controversial, now would he? Ideas that are ahead of their time are controversial by their very nature.

But, I just like to think that mostly, he was doing whatever he wanted. For fun.