However, the plan was sidelined after the box office failure of Kaufman's first major motion picture Heartbeeps, in which he co-starred with Bernadette Peters as a robot who falls in love.
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After a disastrous first show, where Clifton took the stage with Tony Bennett's famous "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" and was summarily booed, he reappeared on the second night in riot gear amid a shower of rotten vegetables and other detritus.
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Sam Simon, executive producer on Taxi, revealed in a 2013 interview with Marc Maron for the WTF Podcast that the portrayal of Andy on the show was "a complete fiction" largely created by Bob Zmuda, who he maintained has a "vested interest" in creating stories about Kaufman.
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Clifton disrupted the rehearsal with his antics, leading Judd Hirsch to call his agent and Jeff Conaway to storm out in anger.
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Kaufman's Tony Clifton character has influenced other "anti-comedy" acts, notably stand-up comedian Neil Hamburger, singer/comedian Unknown Hinson, and Canadian singer/comedian Corey Mystyshyn.
Tony Blair | Tony Bennett | Tony Award | Tony Curtis | Tony Scott | Clifton | Tony Conrad | Tony Cragg | Tony Hawk | Tony | Clifton College | Tony Benn | Tony Kushner | Tony Danza | Tony Blackburn | Tony Rice | Tony Allen | Tony Robinson | Clifton, Bristol | Tony Visconti | Tony Stewart | Tony Soprano | Tony Hawks | Tony Orlando | Tony O'Reilly | Tony La Russa | Tony Hawk's American Wasteland | Tony Allen (musician) | Tony Joe White | Tony Hancock |
Phish bassist Mike Gordon was in attendance and then joined the band for the encore and their cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", which featured Gordon on bass, Spears on guitar, and Palmieri on vocals and dressed and singing as Tony Clifton.
Zmuda created the "Tony Clifton" makeup for the film, and made a brief appearance portraying comedian Jack Burns, one of the producers, who gets into a brawl on stage during one of Kaufman's appearances on the 1980-82 ABC Fridays.