Al's Pals

Post by **algonacchick** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:36 am

Perhaps, but Fridays wound up being compared to Saturday Night Live, which is why it got cancelled. The shows were two similar, and it was written off as a rip-off. I did watch, but it just wasn't as good as SNL. Michael was pretty funny in it, I must admit.

Post by **Well, Well, Well** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:01 am

Fridays is good and all, and is where Larry David and Michael Richards, as far as I know, became friends, but it's not where Richards gained any sort of recognition. As algonacchick said, Fridays was dropped because it was a rip-off, so that was never really a "hit" outside of maybe a small cult following. Seinfeld is all Richards had going for him, sadly. Sure, for us (here) UHF is popular...but outside of WOWAY, it was a pretty big flop.

Website · Post by **Teh Dingo** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:07 am

Wasn't he the one that got into the fight with Andy Kaufman?

Post by **algonacchick** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:12 am

Yup, he's the one. Sounds like he has needed anger management for some time.

Post by **Well, Well, Well** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:13 am

Yes.

EDIT: that "fight" really had nothing to do with Richards, to be fair. It was rather comical, though. Andy Kaufman always had a way of bringing out the prick in everybody.

Post by **Grom** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 7:10 am

Rumour has it that at least Richards was in on the Fridays joke with Kaufman. Or the whole cast.

Website · Post by **Teh Dingo** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 8:47 am

Yeah. I was really only asking because the "fight" (Or whatever it was...it's true you never know with Kaufman

) is really the only thing about Fridays that's ever really thought about.

Post by **TMBJon** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:40 am

The original question was "Did UHF lead to Richards getting hired on Seinfeld?"
No. It was because of Fridays.

Nothing about that clip suggests that Richards needed counseling. Why? Because he threw water on Andy Kaufman? Ooooh, what an angry angry man.

I seriously don't see why you all think he has so many problems just because of one incident. This is worse than what they did to Howard Dean...

Post by **Kevbo1987** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 5:15 pm

Weirdalfreak27 @ Nov 24 2006, 04:20 AM wrote:

It is my contention that UHF may have been a factor as to why Richards was even cast as Kramer on Seinfeld in the first place. UHF was released in the summer of 1989, leading me to believe that filming/production was finished in late '88/early '89 (please experts, correct me if that assumption is wrong).

One thing about movies is that they are sometimes seen by celebrities, and other people in the industry before they are released to the general public. Richards's first appearance on Seinfeld was in the pilot episode (in which he was referred to as "Kessler", later "Kramer"), which, at that point, was called "The Seinfeld Chronicles." The pilot aired July 5th, 1989. The theatrical release date of UHF was July 21st, 1989. UHF was almost assuredly finished by July 5th, if it was going to be released to the general public on July 21st. It is concievable that Jerry Seinfeld or someone else saw Richards in UHF at some sort of private screening before the general public did, and cast him in the pilot episode of what would later be known as Seinfeld. Possible, since television shows take a very short time to record.

I doubt that Michael was cast due to "UHF". As it's been mentioned, it's because he was friends with Larry David. Plus, I think I remember hearing somewhere that the pilot was shot a good six months before it actually aired. I'm pretty sure NBC wasn't all that crazy about the pilot and they put it on hold for a while.

mrmeadows · Post by **mrmeadows** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 9:02 pm

That "fight" had to be staged. In the clip they come back from commercial and the cast is signing off, but Andy is still fighting with crew members in the background. He then moves into the foreground before the fade-out. Had to be planned that way. I'm sure Richards was hip to the whole thing ahead of time.

BTW, I wouldn't quite equate this to the Howard Dean thing, Jon. Dean made a goofy sound during a speech and the media overplayed the heck out of it just to embarrass the guy (it wasn't in the least bit "newsworthy"). Richards hurled the worst of racial epithets at someone who was heckling him, and referred to the act of lynching black people back in the 40's and 50's as if it were a positive thing. And although he was in a comedy club, he didn't seem to putting any kind of humorous spin on it. However, the fact that it was caught on video is what made this the huge story it is, rather than just a passing word-of-mouth story. Without the audio and video, this would have probably been over the next day.

As for Richards landing the Seinfeld gig, I tend to think it was more about his stint on Fridays, where Larry David was a writer. It's possible that UHF might have "reminded" David how talented Richards was on the show and he called him up to try out for the Kramer part. But that wouldn't have happened if they hadn't already worked together on Fridays.

Meadows