Because this movie was so poorly received at the box office, Andy Kaufman's "The Tony Clifton Story," a movie about the life and times of his alter-ego Tony Clifton, was scrapped by the movie studios.
It was while nervously attending to Bernadette Peters' makeup application one morning that Winston received a piece of advice he would take with him into every subsequent job. "I was in a stressed-out state," he recalled, "which was fairly typical of me at that time, and Bernadette Peters said to me, 'Relax, Stan. It's just a movie.' Here she was, going through this grueling process of having these prosthetics applied to her, and she had to calm me down. It should have been just the opposite. To this day, I thank Bernadette Peters for putting my attitude in perspective. In this work, there are always going to be very real responsibilities and pressures -- but it's just a movie, and there's nothing to be gained by being a walking stress factory. Ever since that time, I've tried to bring positive energy and lightheartedness to the set."
Universal Pictures gave Andy Kaufman a blank check to make this film after focus group testing indicated that children liked robots, apparently in the wake of R2-D2 and C-3PO.
Because of the weather at the New Mexico shooting location, Stan Winston's elaborate robot makeup, which took several hours to apply, gradually wilted in the heat, limiting how much footage could be shot in a day.
Allan Arkush, who had never helmed a big-budget project, staged scenes at a glacial pace that frustrated everyone but him.