Tony Clifton
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- mg33
So in Chicago right now, Tony Clifton has a comedy show at a local theater. You know who he is right?
http://www.chopintheatre.com/eve…
It's getting great reviews and is supposed to be totally out of control.
Now, my question is, I want to go and take my girlfriend, but she has no idea who this is, has never seen Man On The Moon either. Should I not tell her what it is and just take her, without knowing anything about it so she's all the more shocked by the show? What do you think?
- ********0
cant be the real Clifton
- zerocool0
I think she will hate it. I mean it is a very specific kind of humor that most , including myself, so not get.
- Dennis_Moore0
I think knowing "who" Tony Clifton is, would be a massive part of enjoying the show.
- PonyBoy0
hell yeah, take her... but make her watch the film / explain the story first...
... I bet it's still his agent of old?... gotta love how Kaufman is STILL fucking with us. :)
- mg330
I mean, she might freak out at watching a person pour whiskey on people in the front rows of the show. She's pretty open humor-wise, but I'm 50/50 on going and or letting her in on it.
- Dennis_Moore0
My wife would hate it.
- mg330
Man On the Moon is a great movie though, agreed?
- detritus0
Hey, cool - I just last night watched Man in the Moon and learned about that whole Andy Kaufmann and Tony Clifton legend thing... I couldn't believe I'd not really known about that guy sooner - what a m'f'ing genius.
Go. Don't give her any background, and see what her reaction is..
- ********0
I think watching her reactions alone would constitute high hilarity for you, haha.
- mg330
Here's a review of the show from the Chicago Tribune:
Here in Chicago, you can get in trouble for lighting a cigarette on a stage. On Thursday night, Tony Clifton not only ignited a fistful of cigarettes, he threw a lit butt into the audience, causing a guy to think his shirt was on fire. Until, that was, gushes of complimentary Jack Daniel's started to spray from the stage, extinguishing all worries in the first three rows.
"Tony Clifton and the Katrina-Kiss-My-Ass Orchestra," ensconced in the wildly incongruous surroundings of the Chopin Theatre and organized as a benefit for Comic Relief, is not an ordinary show. It is a bacchanalia with a horn section that lands somewhere near deep, deep parody, a live taping of a Howard Stern show (although Stern would never dare say some of things that come out of Clifton's mouth), an episode of "Hee-Haw," political satire, a New Orleans jam session led by a decent group of session musicians and an evening at Nevada's Moonlite BunnyRanch, where Clifton hangs out.
It is in heinous bad taste, beyond X-rated, replete with a glamorous dance troupe of dangerously young women and, as the performers get drunker, wildly out of control. If someone you love—and only partially trust—has tickets this weekend, be very afraid. And hide the car keys.
I don't think I've ever left a show I was reviewing. But somewhere around 2 a.m. Friday morning, it dawned on me that the whole point of this show was to keep performing until everybody had left and the performers had all collapsed. Anyway, four hours of Tony "Goldfinger" Clifton was enough. By then, there were only a couple dozen of us left.
Clifton, you might recall, was a creation of the late comedian Andy Kaufman. He's a parody of the faded and wholly untalented Vegas sleazeball—a girl-groping lounge lizard with a Dean Martin repertoire, a faux-Sinatra repartee and the dirtiest jokes imaginable. He is now played by former Kaufman sidekick Bob Zmuda. Zmuda does not admit this in public.
Zmuda is, in fact, a gifted improviser, albeit a terrifying one without any semblance of aesthetic boundary. It isn't so much the profane material here that gets under your skin—although it does, it does. It's Zmuda's total assumption of character—it feels even an invasion of armed buffalo wouldn't snap him back to reality. God help him and those who play with him.
- ********0
When I saw "Man On The Moon" in theatres I found myself to be the only person laughing a lot, haha. I think at all. Like to the point I was in tears at some parts being very loud and getting a lot of, "What the fuck is the matter with you?" looks.
And I won't be ruining the movie at all, but the transition from him to the casket had me out of my seat, walking up and down the aisle laughing like a maniac, hahaha. I still lose it just thinking about it!
What made it better, was I there with this girl, her brother and his wife. Afterwards the girl told me that her brother thought I was psychotic and didn't feel safe with her seeing me. When I surprisingly met him again later, he told me to my face, haha.
- that's great. that movie is my kind of humor for the most part.mg33
- threadpost0
take her with no background information, that is the way it was supposed to be experienced anyway.
Sounds fun, wish I could go. Is it Bob Zamuda (sp?) performing as Clifton?
- Llyod0
andy kaufman was more crazy than funny
- mg330
He needs a web site that portrays the show as totally normal, so that I could send that to my GF and then all the antics and chaos would be very left-field and quite a shock.
- waterhouse0
http://www.avclub.com/content/bl…
How was it?
- ********0
he's dead, he won't come back
- ********0
is Bob Zmuda still playing the character?
- ********0
Hedge is the funniest