the comic's comic

Scott Moran tracks down every existing video footage of the late Andy Kaufman

If you've been meaning to look at all of the existing video footage that exists online for the late Andy Kaufman, but didn't know where to look, well, not to worry. Someone already has worried more about this than you, and tried to fix it by collecting it all on one site. It's called Watch Andy Kaufman Be Alive, and it's the creation of comedian Scott Moran.

Let's roll the earliest known clip, showing Andy Kaufman in college in 1969. Acting!

Now for some explanation from Moran about his intentions. So far he says he has compiled about 90 percent of the footage depicted Kaufman on the small screen, or about 175 videos.

Here's what else Moran had to tell me about this project:

It wasn't very difficult to be honest. I have been a huge Kaufman fan since they started airing "I'm from Hollywood" on Comedy Central way back in 1997 or so. I had been reading about him and researching him ever since then so I had a pretty good idea of the order of things before starting.

I used a couple different timelines of his life I found online and from there it was a game of cutting and pasting the embedded YouTube links. It should be noted that my timeline isn't 100% accurate but it is very close.

One problem is NBC has removed 9 of Andy's 11 SNL appearances so unfortunately those are not a part of the timeline but at least most bits he performed on SNL appear elsewhere as he performed them on other shows or live in concert. There are also a few other really obscure morning tv interviews and Letterman performances that haven't made it to YouTube yet. I would say my site has at least 90% of everything Andy did that was filmed.

I did this mainly because I felt like Man on the Moon (the film with Jim Carrey as Andy) was a bit watered down and that Andy deserves to be seen in a more honest, raw way. I had always wished they would just make a serious documentary rather than hiring Courtney Love to act out the bigger moments in his life. There are a lot of gems in the smaller performances you can find on my site, they skipped over in the movie. For Example the Ohio program "Bananaz" Andy and Bob Zmuda appeared on is so so funny and brilliant, but you never hear about it.

I've been thinking about how to put this together for years but until now, it wasn't possible to hunt down all this footage so easily. I also really like the idea of being able to watch the growth of an artist, from beginning to end.