I dont know who this andy kaufman everybodys keeps talking about is, but tony clifton was a true artist of its time.
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For extra giggles try asking random people who Steve McQueen is ;).
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clears throat
yes I know you mean the actor, don’t @ me!
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I think Kaufman had and continues to have a perfectly respectable, appropriate amount of fame, considering that he passed away 40 years ago at a young age and was only really active on the national stage for about a decade. For goodness sakes, there was a major movie made about him in 1999 that starred one of the most famous, well-paid actors of the day. He hasn’t faded into total obscurity yet.
What’s more interesting to me is the opposite phenomenon: enduring fame of some other actors. One example is Marilyn Monroe, who remains very well known among younger folks who may have never even seen any of her films. She passed away 62 years ago so she’s not within living memory of the majority of the population. (Not to pick on Marilyn, there are plenty of other examples)
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Oh boy. Will have to watch.
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i was born in 1977. I only had a vague memory of him as a character in taxi, a show i never really watched. In the 90s I started listening to REM and heard the name and then only really became aware of his whole story/character/act from the movie Man on The Moon. I guess what I’m saying is. if it weren’t for that movie, I think he might have been mostly forgotten by even people in the 1990s. I would not be surprised that people too young to remember even the Jim Carrey movie wouldn’t know him at all. I mean, it would be like expecting kids to know who Jan Hooks (not a knock, i liked her) is or something. He was great, but no one talks about him much anymore.
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completely going off topic, but I just googled Jan Hooks to see what shes done since SNL and i totally never heard that she died in 2014. That’s sad. 
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The View recently had a Taxi reunion with the still living cast members. The first 2.5 minutes of this video is Carol Kane talking about learning Latka’s language from Andy. It’s pretty funny.
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“Hey Nineteen, that’s Steely Dan”
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I had some stupid kid tell me that he only liked old school punk like limp bikkit. 
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Bob Hope was one of the most famous people in the world for decades but to our grandkids he’ll just be a street in Palm Springs
Not even grandkids. We went to Hawaii for vacation last year and visited Pearl Harbor. Near a hangar that is preserved from the attack, there’s a building dedicated to Bob’s many visits to people in battle. My kids had zero idea who he was, and I was shocked.
Time passes and even the most famous of today will be but a trivia question in the future.
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“Donald J. Who?”
Has a nice ring to it!
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I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
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I met (?) Andy in the late 70’s standing on his head in a record bin at Tower Records on Sunset.
He was sweet, kind and had the most incredible, riveting turquoise blue eyes I have ever seen in my life.
I loved him. And…I miss him dearly.
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I don’t know about Gen Z, but I’m (an older) Millennial, and I love Andy Kaufman and can assure you I haven’t forgotten about him. I grew up watching re-runs of “Taxi” and when Jim Carrey’s “Man on the Moon” came out in 1999 (when I was in high school), I (along with many others) had a renewed interest in him.
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Just a little one, medium dry.
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Born in the 80s i knew his name, but dont think he ever made it over to the uk in a way that made a impact, more as 2nd hand reference from amercain media.
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Same here. There was reruns of Taxi on late-night TV and that was the only way I knew him. I was surprised when Latka switched his accent in the later episodes.
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… yeah, he wasn’t famous during his own lifetime for doing underground anti-comedy, he was famous for playing the foreign guy on “Taxi”
It’s not reasonable to expect young people to know stuff now that their parents and grandparents didn’t know back in the day either 
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