I'm from Hollywood

My 1st exposure to Andy came on this special that used to show often on Comedy Central way way back in the day. Kinda saddens me to some extent most younger generations wouldn't be familiar with him. Maybe more so Sacha Cohen who I think parroted a lot of Andy's humor.

I've read numerous takes on Andy over the years and the two things I found consistent were:

He loved wrestling since he was a boy. The badder the wrestler the more he loved them.

He never liked TV sitcoms and wasn't especially fond of his role in Taxi.

So I think those two things put together inspired his foray into this area. It's a must watch for any Kaufman fan. The thing I found most interesting was the Kaufman/Lawlor "feud" played out for years. The David Letterman appearance was the zenith of it though.

Andy Kaufman was the funniest man of all time. This film/biopic is just a testament to the fact that Andy Kaufman was the originator and mentor of all the great comedians since the late 70's (Robin Williams, Richard Belser, Jim Carey, and yes probably even Carrot Top). He will go down in history for mastering that rare brand of humor that was infantile yet adult, lowbrow yet refined, utterly disgusting yet beautiful. Everytime anyone reads The Great Gatsby, sees an Elvis impersonator, or professional wrestling he should be thought of.

A look into Andy Kaufman's foray into the world of professional wrestling. Interesting bit of entertainment, seeing a comedian who reached his peak playing a babbling mechanic on "Taxi" try his hand at fooling people into thinking he was serious about wrestling. Andy is made to look like an absolute psycho-case by this movie and you sort of feel sad for him, till you realize he's pulling your leg all the way. Then you realize that the producer is attempting to keep Andy's lame joke going as are the "interviewees" who are shown wringing their hands and worrying about Andy's mental condition. He certainly had neither the verbal nor the physical abilities to carry off the charade of being a wrestler for long, but it is an interesting look at a strange experiment. They let midgets, bears and all sorts of human flotsam and jetsam wrestle. Allowing some skinny guy in his flannel underwear into the ring was no big accomplishment. Recommended for those fooled by perhaps Kaufmann's ultimate scam, portraying a comic genius.

This film makes me laugh out loud every time I watch it.This is the one that turned me into a life long fan of Andy's work.To imagine a HOLLYWOOD comic,(even though he didn't see himself that way)would go into wrestling and take it to a "higher level" with an element of comedy as the twist,is too unbelievable.

There is also brief clips of Kaufman playing the bongos,and impersonating Tony Clifton,the self absorbed lounge singer. With great comments by Henner and Robin Williams about Andy being so bizarre and taking his wrestling so serious.

It sent me into a frenzy looking for more Kaufman material, I would love to have more of the wrestling footage than is shown on the videotape.

"It was like,Andy was the premise and the entire world was the punchline" -Robin Williams

"I'm From Hollywood" is just about as thorough a synopsis of Kaufman's wrestling career as a 60-minute mockumentary could ever hope to be. It begins on a huge high note, covering Andy's early career via a series of tongue in cheek interviews with big name co-stars and friends, stretching the truth while maintaining an anchor in reality a'la "This is Spinal Tap." It's when the subject turns to his exploits in the Memphis wrestling scene, though, that the picture pulls a complete 180. Those celebrity chats quickly disappear, replaced with direct archival footage of the actual matches and promotional segments that eventually built to Kaufman's long-term feud with a very young Jerry Lawler. It's great in a sheerly historical sense, but considering this rivalry lasted for well over a year (in regular once-a-week installments) there's a lot of redundancy to the material that could've been cut out. I would have rather seen a continuation of those interviews spliced in with the raw footage to keep the commentary fresh and the pace quick, because this catches a terrible case of the drags midway that it never manages to shake. It's a major disappointment that the producers couldn't secure the rights to Kaufman and Lawler's infamous fight on Letterman, too, which was the real hook of the entire storyline. A true let-down.