He charms the pregnant waitress with some friendly banter, only to reveal after she leaves that he did that so they wouldn’t have to leave as big of a tip. You don’t have to be that nice.” Later on, he Blassie turns his heel persona on and off like a light switch. “He didn’t do anything he wasn’t supposed to do. “What did you thank him for,” he says to the polite comedian.
He chastises Kaufman for thanking the busboy who seats them. At once, Blassie shows himself to be a down-to-earth, no-nonsense individual.
MY BREAKFAST WITH BLASSIE ANDY KAUFMAN MOVIE
The movie takes place in real time, and we see the entire meeting between the two over a friendly breakfast at a downtown Hollywood diner. My Breakfast with Blassie is the on-screen chronicling of that meeting. In the ensuing battle, Kaufman was injured, and he was forced to wear a neckbrace for some time.īreakfast takes place shortly thereafter, the premise being that Kaufman wanted some advice on his wrestling career, after his major setback against Lawler, and for this he sought direction from Blassie, who was making a name for himself as a notorious heel manager. Lawler took offense at the actor mocking the sport and its fans, and challenged Kaufman to a one-on-one match. Eventually, his antics caught the attention of Jerry “The King” Lawler, the Southern Heavyweight Champion at the time. Kaufman boasted that his career was 400-0 against women. As part of his standup routine, he would go into heel mode and fling insulting comments towards the women in the audience until one of them would be goaded into fighting him in the ring. In the early 1980s, Andy proclaimed himself the Intergender Wrestling Champion. One celebrated period in his life was his foray into wrestling. More of a prankster than a joke-teller, Kaufman would use a mixture of humour and hostility to entertain and at the same time provoke his audiences. Though Breakfast is quite similar in terms of plot and style, that’s where the similarities end.įor those unfamiliar with Kaufman’s work (and if you are not, I suggest watching Man in the Moon, the bio-pic from a few years ago starring Jim Carrey), his comedy could best be described as shoot-humour, to put it in wrestling terminology. The movie consisted of the two men sitting in a restaurant, carrying on a meaningful conversation about life, art, and philosophy in between dinner courses. The movie’s title and premise are parodies of the 1981 art-house classic My Dinner with Andre, which documented playwright Wallace Shawn’s dinner with his old friend, theatre director and renaissance man Andre Gregory. The lyrics, written by REM in their tribute to late comedian Andy Kaufman, refers to Blassie’s participation in Kaufman’s cinema verite piece, My Breakfast with Blassie, a must-see for fans of either man. That’s a shame, particularly in light of this week’s passing of wrestling legend, Classy Freddie Blassie.
Though many wrestling fans may have heard those lyrics before, not as many understand the reference. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” – “Man on the Moon” by REM
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