Name: Andy Kaufman on The David Letterman Show, October 13 & 15, 1980 (full)
Uploaded: 2018-11-11T22:46:54.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Andy Kaufman on The David Letterman Show, October 13 & 15, 1980 (full)' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-11-11. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Andy Kaufman on The David Letterman Show, October 13 & 15, 1980 (full)' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-11-11. Transcript available.

I am welcome back to the show what am i doing at this point all right ladies
and gentlemen here's
andy kaufman hello andy how are you thank you very nice surprise what do you
what brings you here
well i'm in new york and uh i've been sleeping in doorways to see what it's
like and um
a very fascinating it's true that's what i've been doing that's i haven't been
in a in a bed or
anything for for a few weeks now and a very fascinating thing uh happened to me
um as i was
uh a few days ago i was in this doorway you know and um i i had i had needed a
place to sleep you
know and i was chased out of one place like i found an apartment it was
dangerous doing this huh yeah
it's an apartment house staircase and i was sleeping on it and and the i was
chased out of there by i
i guess the manager of the hotel or something so i had to find a place to sleep
and i made a deal
with myself that i would only stay on staircases and um you know because i want
to experience the
and so anyway this fascinating i'm sorry we don't we really don't have time um
ed newman is standing by
this morning uh with our nbc news update and uh ed are you there i'm here okay
ed nice of you to be
here this morning thank you david here is the news this morning there's been an
explosion in a daycare
center at a public housing project in northwest atlanta there is a report that
of about 20 injuries
and there may still be some children under the rubble the cause of the
explosion is not known it took
place at a public housing project called bowen homes northwest atlanta the
winner of the 1980 nobel
peace prize was announced today he is adolfo perez esquivel of argentina the
head of a group of
organizations devoted to human rights in latin america perez esquivel is 50
years old an architect
and a sculptor in iran a big battle appears to be shaping up for the oil refinery
city of abadan
iraq says its forces are pushing slowly ahead iran says they've been stopped
fighting continues in
the port city of quorum shah where iraq now appears to have the upper hand in
turkey a military
court today sentenced two men to hang in the shooting deaths last april of a
united states navy
man and his turkish driver the american was chief petty officer sam novello of
erie pennsylvania
the killers were said to be left-wing terrorists relief officials in algeria
say the dead in last
friday's earthquake at el asnam may go well past 20 000 and el asnam will have
to be entirely rebuilt
los angeles is looking forward to somewhat cleaner air today after two weeks of
the worst smog and
10 years it should be cooler and windier there was a concert last night in los
angeles by the rock
group blood sweat and tears just after it ended early this morning seven people
were stabbed two of
them are in critical condition among the campaigners jimmy carter is in new york
city this morning later
he's to be in west frankfort illinois and st louis then back to washington ronald
reagan is in and
around los angeles john anderson is working new york city philadelphia and chicago
that's it david
very much had i appreciate that we'll talk with you tomorrow morning you know
for the past few
weeks we've been running a contest on our show called why the david letterman
show should originate
from my home we received thousands and thousands of entries from all over the
united states and it was
very difficult to choose a winner we have however selected our final choice howard
and jane goldsworthy
and their children gina and greta golds where they they live in the city of
cresco iowa
they're applauding cresco iowa i was in cresco iowa over the weekend it's a
wonderful community
we'll be there next weekend and we'll be showing you that particular television
show
on the following wednesday perhaps andy kaufman will be back here tomorrow
thank you folks have a good day
welcome back to the show thank you very much frank uh thank you very much frank
uh thank you very much
frank uh once again october 22nd uh jot it down on your shoe plenty of fun cresco
iowa you've seen my
next guest on saturday night live and he was seen on the hit series taxi as latke
uh however he has not
been on television much lately he's been i guess busy doing other things
nonetheless i'm glad that he has
agreed to be with us here this morning please welcome mr andy kaufman
andy thank you sir
i really i really appreciate you being here this morning it's nice to see you
uh tell me about uh
tell me about taxi uh was
would you like a tissue can i would you like a tissue
i would you like a tissue can i would you like a tissue can i would you like a
tissue can i have a
have a little uh just a little bit of something
so um uh tell me about the uh
see the people sometimes eat eat breakfast while they watch the show again
now the uh this the there was a tv strike you know and uh some shows were not
in production
but now they're they're going back into production and uh are you gonna i guess
are you gonna be on
taxi you've mentioned before the show there were some problems uh yeah i quit
the show you quit the
show you're no longer gonna be on taxi right you have your own show no um there
i'm not doing much
special right now no but um this is you know i'm once in a while making
appearances like on this show
yeah yeah i know you're probably gonna do movies hopefully i hope
and i guess you'll be you used to be on saturday night live an awful lot so i
don't know i really
don't um have any control of that if they asked me i would do it but i don't
really there's nothing
planned right now in the for the near future
um you're doing a lot of nightclubs though um occasionally appearing at the
improvisation in
new york this is a place i started out at yeah yeah uh not really much i'm just
staying i'm living
in new york now uh but things are things are okay
okay well so you know a woman mentioned you
um
you um
can i get you a mint
um yeah i know you wanted to your um you had a little uh you're going to do a
little piece
for us this morning you want to you want to go to that now or what do you want
to do um
if you'd like okay we have a stool there you want to do it thank you thank you
andy coughlin ladies
who are you want to do it thank you thank you thank you thank you very much to
david letterman
and the producers of this show and the people that run this show for having me
as a guest and it's a
very pleasure to come on the show and be here i'd like to talk about my
marriage
i met my wife uh several years ago when i was struggling in new york performing
every night
at the improvisation nightclub i would perform every night for free and once in
a while i would get
jobs elsewhere for maybe 50 a night and stuff and i met her i was driving up
from southern new jersey
one time she was a cocktail waitress and uh we went out a few times fell in
love and got married
and she kind of she worked as a waitress while i was working for free in nightclubs
and we lived together out right outside of new york city and we had two
children and uh names were mark
and lisa and um the saturday night live it just discovered me i'm not i'd
rather
um if you don't uh laugh because um i'm not trying to be funny right now
uh and shortly after that i went to california and things really started
happening
um i started i had a manager i got a manager shapiro west and associates george
shapiro wonderful man
and he was my manager for uh for next few years and then taxi came along and i
was doing all these
far out things on television shows but when taxi came along it was just one
character the latke
and i kind of felt inhibited by it that you know i was just able to do the one
character i wanted to
have more freedom creatively to do these other things and the things i used to
do on saturday night live
and stuff um so anyway i quit the show and my wife uh at that time i was
wrestling women on saturday
night live i got a lot of hate mail and no producer would hire me after that so
one day i was at my
manager's office trying to get a engagement for a dinner theater in wisconsin
and i got a call from my
wife's lawyer she wanted a divorce and she got a divorce she got the kids the
house she got all
my money oh not all my money but some anyway she got everything i moved to new
york and now that's
what i'm doing now living in new york and i'd um i i don't really have anything
so anyway um if anybody could i i know this sounds like a cliche but uh if you
could any extra money
i would appreciate it
thank you
thank you
thank you very much
please you have to please come
you have to go
you can't do this here so i have to go
be a good boy that's it stop
okay i'm not too
staying all right fine well
all right there we go um
always a pleasure to have
always a pleasure to have the young talent on the show we'll be right back
welcome welcome back to the show uh andy kaufman was here and he was only
kidding
i think