Some Things Never Change
A short story by Chris Casino, which takes place during the story It Was All Worth It
Disclaimer: Fridays and its' characters are the property of Moffitt/Lee Productions and ABC, Hulkamania, Hulkster & Hulk Hogan are trademarks of Marvel Comics, WrestleMania is the property of World Wrestling Entertainment. Andy Kaufman and all others belong to themselves.
Manhattan Ramada Inn, February, 1985 ************************************
Andy Kaufman sat in his hotel room, pondering how he could promote the World Wrestling Federation's upcoming event, WrestleMania, of which he was one of the star attractions.
It's not fair. He thought. Terry and T get to do all the promotional stuff for the wrestling event I've been waiting to perform at all my life and I'm stuck on the sidelines with a nation of people hoping I get mine! Oh, if there was just something I could do to help promote the event...
He turned on NBC. His friend and future opponent Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea and his partner, The A-Team star Mr. T, were hosting Saturday Night Live, a show NBC chief Dick Ebersol had thrown him off of three years earlier as a publicity stunt and never called back as he promised Andy he would.
He then thought of an ABC show similar to it that he'd hosted called Fridays in 1981, which debuted in April 1980. It was seen originally as a rip-off, but little by little it started coming into its' own identity, and eventually ran neck and neck with SNL. Andy had been hired by producer/writer Jack Burns and John Moffitt to kick-start the show and get it some attention. How he did it was he broke out of character in a sketch with three comedians, Michael Richards (a brilliant upstart whom he befriended after the show), Melanie Chartoff and Maryedith Burrell. Each person was supposed to smoke a joint in the bathroom at one point and come back to the table without them knowing. But Andy wouldn't do it, saying, "I can't play stoned. I feel really stupid." And Michael tossed the cue cards at him and Andy poured water on him. With that, Andy, Jack Burns and Michael got into a fist fight. In reality Andy, Michael, Jack and John Moffitt had scripted the event to generate publicity, and it worked like a charm, but none of the other cast or crew members knew it. Richards' realistic reaction fooled everyone who was watching.
Andy thought it really was a shame it took so long for people to realize what a good show it was. They had a lot of great skits and actors, all of whom were hard-working and talented.
"If I could do something like that to promote WrestleMania," he thought. "I'd really be in business."
Suddenly, a light bulb went off in his head. He picked up the hotel phone and dialed a number.
"Hello?" answered a young female voice.
"Hello, is this Stephanie?"
"Yes, it is," She confirmed. "Mr. Kaufman?"
"Yes," Andy said. "Is your Daddy home?"
"Daddy!" Stephanie yelled.
"Hello, Andy," said Vince McMahon's voice a few seconds later. "What's up?"
"Uh, Vince, I know you said you wanted Terry and Mr. T to go on all of the TV shows and stuff," Andy noted. "But if I had a TV show I wanted Roddy, Bob and I to go on to promote it a week before the show, would that bother you terribly?"
"Certainly not," Vince said. "But what show could you go on? I thought you were blacklisted from every show except Letterman."
"Did you ever hear of a show called Fridays?" Andy asked.
"Oh, yeah!" Vince recalled. "Shane and Stephanie watch it every week. They especially like that tall, frizzy-haired double-jointed fellow on it. What's his name?"
"Michael Richards," Andy replied. "He's my friend."
"Funny guy," Vince mused. "If he ever hits it big, we should try to bring him in for a skit on TNT or something."
Tuesday Night Titans was the WWF's variety show at the time.
"So you up for it, Vince?" Andy pressed. "I can call the producer Jack Burns right now."
"Yes, I'm up for it," Vince said. "But I think you'd better call Roddy and Bob first."
"Okay. Goodbye, Vince."
Andy picked up the phone again and dialed Roddy's hotel.
"Yellow," Roddy's voice greeted him after a few rings. "You've reached the New York hotel room of "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and his frat brother Bob Orton."
"Hey, Roddy, it's Andy," Andy said.
"Hey, partner!" Roddy beamed. "What's up?"
"Are you and Bob up for going on a comedy variety show called Fridays to promote WrestleMania a week before it?" Andy questioned.
"Would you be with us?" asked Roddy, who had seen the show a few times.
"I sure would," Andy replied. "And I'd be planning the last sketch which would be specifically to promote the event."
"Cool." Roddy said. "Book it."
When Roddy Piper, Andy and Bob Orton arrived at the Los Angeles Basin set of Fridays, cast members Mark Blankfield, Michael Richards and Larry David immediately welcomed them. All three of them were fans (and by now acquaintances) of Andy's. Whenever he came on this show, something different and exciting happened.
"Hi, guys." Andy greeted them. "These are my pals Roddy Piper and Bob Orton. Roddy, Bob, this is Mark Blankfield..."
Roddy stared at Blankfield, who was a short Jewish guy who looked like a poor man's Gene Wilder.
"Didn't I see you on Taxi?" Roddy asked, shaking Mark's hand.
"Yup," Mark confirmed. "As Simka's cousin Zifka, the monk. That was Andy pulling some strings for me. Well, that and teaching me the Foreign Man accent."
"And Larry David, who'll also be writing the sketch where we all play our WWF personas..."
"Yeah," Larry said. "We play these two wrestlers called the Golden Boys..."
"Yeah, Andy told us," Roddy said.
"And Michael Richards." Andy finished.
Roddy and Bob shook hands with him.
"Hey, Michael," Roddy said. "Andy's told us a lot about you."
"Likewise."
"Andy! Roddy!" yelled a voice from behind them.
Andy and Roddy turned around and saw their pal David Wolfe, who was their wrestling accomplice Cyndi Lauper's manager and fiancée.
"Dave!" Roddy beamed, hugging his pal. "What are you doing here?"
"Vince told us you were coming on this show to promote WrestleMania," Dave Wolfe replied. "And we couldn't be outdone."
"Hey, this actually works out pretty good," Andy said. "Now you guys can help us plot something else along with what we're already gonna do."
"That's what we were thinking." David Wolfe said. "What were you planning to do?"
Mark, Michael, Andy, Larry, Roddy and Bob all looked around to make sure nobody else was around.
"Okay, listen, this is it," Andy said. "But don't breathe a word of it to anybody else except Cyndi yet, okay, David?"
"Hey, who are you talkin' to, Andy?" David Wolfe asked.
The seven men huddled together in a corner.
Friday night, March 22, 1985 ****************************
Twenty minutes before the show, as the audience made their way in, Roddy and Bob were arguing with producer Jack Burns.
Jack Burns knew a lot about comedy, having worked with George Carlin (who was the show's very first host, all thanks to Jack), on The Muppet Show and Avery Schreiber, but he didn't know a whole lot about professional wrestling, as he was about to find out.
"Why are you guys playing your characters now?" Burns demanded.
In 1985, you could not break out of character in professional wrestling in public places like Roddy and Bob were in now, and if you did, the promoter you worked for would come over instantly and slap your frigging head off. Roddy and Bob were not about to blow their covers to Jack Burns.
"We ain't playing characters, you jackass!" Roddy pressed. "Now get outta my way before I rearrange your face!"
Burns got out of their faces.
At the same time, Andy was arguing with one of the backstage people.
"Ah, man that Michael Richards is just too weird!" The guy bellowed.
"He's too goofy and he's not able to stand still for long enough, he'll never go anywhere."
"No, no," Andy insisted, sticking up for a man he knew was one of the best guys on the show. "Michael's great. I guarantee you, five or ten years from now, he'll be one of the most popular faces on TV."
"Ah, all you show business oddballs stick together!" The man persisted. "That guy sucks!"
"All right, whatever you say." Andy said, quietly.
During the show, Andy, Roddy and Bob went off anywhere they could, interrupting Michael Richards' macho man character Dick by Roddy telling actress Melanie Chartoff, "I'm more macho than this lanky chump." The three of them destroyed the newscast set, and Orton engaged John Roarke's Ronald Reagan in an airplane spin for five minutes.
Finally, though, it was time for Andy, as the guest host, to introduce Cyndi Lauper as she prepared to sing Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Andy introduced her as, "Ladies and gentlemen, that short, orange haired girl whose voice sounds like the squeaking of an old chair, Cyndi Lauper!"
There was a nervous beat before everybody clapped for Cyndi. While she was singing, Andy, Roddy and Bob hid behind the instruments. Just as she hit her final note in the song, Roddy snuck up behind her and hit her over the head with a guitar as Andy and Bob held her down.
Suddenly, Mark and Larry appeared on the scene as the Golden Boys.
"Well, isn't this a fascinating turn of events?" Mark said. "It takes three of these men to harass one woman!"
"Very chivalrous of you boys," Larry agreed. "But we're the Golden Boys and we've come to put a stop to it!"
Suddenly, they switched the set to a wrestling ring with the other cast members, save for Michael Richards, Darrow Igus and John Roarke, as audience members.
Andy, Roddy and Bob beat the hell out of Larry and Mark for two minutes before a voice yelled, "Yo, Piper! Kaufman!"
Andy and Roddy looked behind them and saw Michael Richards as Hulk Hogan, Darrow Igus as Mr. T and John Roarke as Superfly Jimmy Snuka.
"Oh, no! Roddy, Bob, our WrestleMania rivals! What will we do?" Andy questioned.
"I pity you fools!" Igus said.
Roddy and Bob never would have admitted it on the air, but seeing Michael, Darrow and John dressed up as their colleagues was hilarious (especially Darrow as T because Roddy was willing to take any chance he could to poke fun at that asshole) and they were having difficulty keeping straight faces. Michael looked like he could be a Hulk Hogan parody because he was tall and deep-voiced, but he was way too thin to be any kind of real Hogan (although he was wearing a body suit over his Hulkamania shirt). Andy on the other hand, had no difficulty because he always maintained he did not tell jokes, that he was not funny and he had no idea what was. By the time Michael was beaten, he fell and stumbled out of the ring like he would do so flawlessly and without bodily harm time and time again on Seinfeld four years later. He continued to stumble as he was out of the ring.
Andy, Roddy and Bob beat up the trio for a while before a familiar female voice yelled out, "Piper, Kaufman, Orton, I don't like this junk you guys have been pulling all night, and I got a surprise for you!"
Out of nowhere, Cyndi Lauper led the real Hulk Hogan, Mr. T and Jimmy Snuka onto the sketch. Andy, Roddy and Bob were shocked.
"What are you doing?" Andy screamed. "What the hell do you guys think you're doing? Fridays is my show! You guys aren't supposed to be here!"
"Isn't that the darkest Indian you ever seen, folks?" Roddy asked the audience, referring to T.
They couldn't help but laugh. Although his audience hated him, Roddy could always make them laugh.
Terry, T and Jimmy stared the men down for a good few minutes. As they started to brawl ferociously, the audience gaped and the show went off the air.
"Hey, boys!" Terry yelped, suddenly stopping and calling T and Jimmy off. "We've entertained these nice folks long enough. Whaddya say we take it backstage?"
"You got it!" Roddy roared.
Vince McMahon's House, Stamford, Connecticut ********************************************
Shane and Stephane McMahon watched this event unfold on television in their living room.
"Shane!" Linda McMahon's voice yelled. "Stephanie, we're home!"
"Mom, Dad!" Shane yelled back at them. "Get in here, quick, you gotta see this!"
Vince and Linda came in and saw Cyndi Lauper bringing in Terry, T and Jimmy as the imitations left the ring.
The two of them cracked up.
"That's terrific!" Vince roared. "Goddamn, that Andy's brilliant!"
Backstage, Twenty Minutes Later *******************************
Andy, Roddy, Bob, Mark, Larry, Michael, Darrow, John, and Jack Burns were toasting Terry, Jimmy, Cyndi Lauper and David Wolfe with various drinks and munching on a buffet table. Mr. T, on the other hand, was not much of a party animal, especially around people who were just making fun of him, so he went on back to the hotel. As it turned out, Andy, Larry and David Wolfe carefully crafted the whole incident. Whenever Fridays slipped, Jack Burns knew he could always count on Andy to come aboard and get it some more attention, and here was no exception.
"Andy," David said. "I gotta hand it to you. This shoot fight on the show scheme of yours was a stroke of genius!"
Andy blushed.
"I couldn't have done it without you or Larry." He said. "Are you okay, Ms. Lauper?"
"Andy, I already told you to stop calling me that, I'm younger than you, for Christ's sake!" Cyndi Lauper beamed. "And I'm fine, the guitar was custom made. It exploded on impact, remember?"
"You really did a hilarious impersonation of me, Michael," Terry remarked.
"I've been studying you for weeks." Michael said.
"Did I hurt you, Mark?" Roddy asked.
"Me and Michael are the two most agile comics on this show," Mark explained. "We never get hurt. And if we do, we get right back up."
"Sounds kind of like us." Roddy said, referring to himself, Bob, Terry and Jimmy.
As cast members Melanie Chartoff, Bruce Mahler and Maryedith Burrell looked on, Melanie laughed. Andy had hurt her feelings in the restaurant sketch in 1981, but once she realized that it was done to help the show and that Andy was a much kinder, sweeter guy off-camera, she developed a liking for him.
"You know, guys," She remarked to her two costars. "It's true what they say, some things never change!"
A short story by Chris Casino, which takes place during the story It Was All Worth It
Disclaimer: Fridays and its' characters are the property of Moffitt/Lee Productions and ABC, Hulkamania, Hulkster & Hulk Hogan are trademarks of Marvel Comics, WrestleMania is the property of World Wrestling Entertainment. Andy Kaufman and all others belong to themselves.
Manhattan Ramada Inn, February, 1985 ************************************
Andy Kaufman sat in his hotel room, pondering how he could promote the World Wrestling Federation's upcoming event, WrestleMania, of which he was one of the star attractions.
It's not fair. He thought. Terry and T get to do all the promotional stuff for the wrestling event I've been waiting to perform at all my life and I'm stuck on the sidelines with a nation of people hoping I get mine! Oh, if there was just something I could do to help promote the event...
He turned on NBC. His friend and future opponent Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea and his partner, The A-Team star Mr. T, were hosting Saturday Night Live, a show NBC chief Dick Ebersol had thrown him off of three years earlier as a publicity stunt and never called back as he promised Andy he would.
He then thought of an ABC show similar to it that he'd hosted called Fridays in 1981, which debuted in April 1980. It was seen originally as a rip-off, but little by little it started coming into its' own identity, and eventually ran neck and neck with SNL. Andy had been hired by producer/writer Jack Burns and John Moffitt to kick-start the show and get it some attention. How he did it was he broke out of character in a sketch with three comedians, Michael Richards (a brilliant upstart whom he befriended after the show), Melanie Chartoff and Maryedith Burrell. Each person was supposed to smoke a joint in the bathroom at one point and come back to the table without them knowing. But Andy wouldn't do it, saying, "I can't play stoned. I feel really stupid." And Michael tossed the cue cards at him and Andy poured water on him. With that, Andy, Jack Burns and Michael got into a fist fight. In reality Andy, Michael, Jack and John Moffitt had scripted the event to generate publicity, and it worked like a charm, but none of the other cast or crew members knew it. Richards' realistic reaction fooled everyone who was watching.
Andy thought it really was a shame it took so long for people to realize what a good show it was. They had a lot of great skits and actors, all of whom were hard-working and talented.
"If I could do something like that to promote WrestleMania," he thought. "I'd really be in business."
Suddenly, a light bulb went off in his head. He picked up the hotel phone and dialed a number.
"Hello?" answered a young female voice.
"Hello, is this Stephanie?"
"Yes, it is," She confirmed. "Mr. Kaufman?"
"Yes," Andy said. "Is your Daddy home?"
"Daddy!" Stephanie yelled.
"Hello, Andy," said Vince McMahon's voice a few seconds later. "What's up?"
"Uh, Vince, I know you said you wanted Terry and Mr. T to go on all of the TV shows and stuff," Andy noted. "But if I had a TV show I wanted Roddy, Bob and I to go on to promote it a week before the show, would that bother you terribly?"
"Certainly not," Vince said. "But what show could you go on? I thought you were blacklisted from every show except Letterman."
"Did you ever hear of a show called Fridays?" Andy asked.
"Oh, yeah!" Vince recalled. "Shane and Stephanie watch it every week. They especially like that tall, frizzy-haired double-jointed fellow on it. What's his name?"
"Michael Richards," Andy replied. "He's my friend."
"Funny guy," Vince mused. "If he ever hits it big, we should try to bring him in for a skit on TNT or something."
Tuesday Night Titans was the WWF's variety show at the time.
"So you up for it, Vince?" Andy pressed. "I can call the producer Jack Burns right now."
"Yes, I'm up for it," Vince said. "But I think you'd better call Roddy and Bob first."
"Okay. Goodbye, Vince."
Andy picked up the phone again and dialed Roddy's hotel.
"Yellow," Roddy's voice greeted him after a few rings. "You've reached the New York hotel room of "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and his frat brother Bob Orton."
"Hey, Roddy, it's Andy," Andy said.
"Hey, partner!" Roddy beamed. "What's up?"
"Are you and Bob up for going on a comedy variety show called Fridays to promote WrestleMania a week before it?" Andy questioned.
"Would you be with us?" asked Roddy, who had seen the show a few times.
"I sure would," Andy replied. "And I'd be planning the last sketch which would be specifically to promote the event."
"Cool." Roddy said. "Book it."
When Roddy Piper, Andy and Bob Orton arrived at the Los Angeles Basin set of Fridays, cast members Mark Blankfield, Michael Richards and Larry David immediately welcomed them. All three of them were fans (and by now acquaintances) of Andy's. Whenever he came on this show, something different and exciting happened.
"Hi, guys." Andy greeted them. "These are my pals Roddy Piper and Bob Orton. Roddy, Bob, this is Mark Blankfield..."
Roddy stared at Blankfield, who was a short Jewish guy who looked like a poor man's Gene Wilder.
"Didn't I see you on Taxi?" Roddy asked, shaking Mark's hand.
"Yup," Mark confirmed. "As Simka's cousin Zifka, the monk. That was Andy pulling some strings for me. Well, that and teaching me the Foreign Man accent."
"And Larry David, who'll also be writing the sketch where we all play our WWF personas..."
"Yeah," Larry said. "We play these two wrestlers called the Golden Boys..."
"Yeah, Andy told us," Roddy said.
"And Michael Richards." Andy finished.
Roddy and Bob shook hands with him.
"Hey, Michael," Roddy said. "Andy's told us a lot about you."
"Likewise."
"Andy! Roddy!" yelled a voice from behind them.
Andy and Roddy turned around and saw their pal David Wolfe, who was their wrestling accomplice Cyndi Lauper's manager and fiancée.
"Dave!" Roddy beamed, hugging his pal. "What are you doing here?"
"Vince told us you were coming on this show to promote WrestleMania," Dave Wolfe replied. "And we couldn't be outdone."
"Hey, this actually works out pretty good," Andy said. "Now you guys can help us plot something else along with what we're already gonna do."
"That's what we were thinking." David Wolfe said. "What were you planning to do?"
Mark, Michael, Andy, Larry, Roddy and Bob all looked around to make sure nobody else was around.
"Okay, listen, this is it," Andy said. "But don't breathe a word of it to anybody else except Cyndi yet, okay, David?"
"Hey, who are you talkin' to, Andy?" David Wolfe asked.
The seven men huddled together in a corner.
Friday night, March 22, 1985 ****************************
Twenty minutes before the show, as the audience made their way in, Roddy and Bob were arguing with producer Jack Burns.
Jack Burns knew a lot about comedy, having worked with George Carlin (who was the show's very first host, all thanks to Jack), on The Muppet Show and Avery Schreiber, but he didn't know a whole lot about professional wrestling, as he was about to find out.
"Why are you guys playing your characters now?" Burns demanded.
In 1985, you could not break out of character in professional wrestling in public places like Roddy and Bob were in now, and if you did, the promoter you worked for would come over instantly and slap your frigging head off. Roddy and Bob were not about to blow their covers to Jack Burns.
"We ain't playing characters, you jackass!" Roddy pressed. "Now get outta my way before I rearrange your face!"
Burns got out of their faces.
At the same time, Andy was arguing with one of the backstage people.
"Ah, man that Michael Richards is just too weird!" The guy bellowed.
"He's too goofy and he's not able to stand still for long enough, he'll never go anywhere."
"No, no," Andy insisted, sticking up for a man he knew was one of the best guys on the show. "Michael's great. I guarantee you, five or ten years from now, he'll be one of the most popular faces on TV."
"Ah, all you show business oddballs stick together!" The man persisted. "That guy sucks!"
"All right, whatever you say." Andy said, quietly.
During the show, Andy, Roddy and Bob went off anywhere they could, interrupting Michael Richards' macho man character Dick by Roddy telling actress Melanie Chartoff, "I'm more macho than this lanky chump." The three of them destroyed the newscast set, and Orton engaged John Roarke's Ronald Reagan in an airplane spin for five minutes.
Finally, though, it was time for Andy, as the guest host, to introduce Cyndi Lauper as she prepared to sing Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Andy introduced her as, "Ladies and gentlemen, that short, orange haired girl whose voice sounds like the squeaking of an old chair, Cyndi Lauper!"
There was a nervous beat before everybody clapped for Cyndi. While she was singing, Andy, Roddy and Bob hid behind the instruments. Just as she hit her final note in the song, Roddy snuck up behind her and hit her over the head with a guitar as Andy and Bob held her down.
Suddenly, Mark and Larry appeared on the scene as the Golden Boys.
"Well, isn't this a fascinating turn of events?" Mark said. "It takes three of these men to harass one woman!"
"Very chivalrous of you boys," Larry agreed. "But we're the Golden Boys and we've come to put a stop to it!"
Suddenly, they switched the set to a wrestling ring with the other cast members, save for Michael Richards, Darrow Igus and John Roarke, as audience members.
Andy, Roddy and Bob beat the hell out of Larry and Mark for two minutes before a voice yelled, "Yo, Piper! Kaufman!"
Andy and Roddy looked behind them and saw Michael Richards as Hulk Hogan, Darrow Igus as Mr. T and John Roarke as Superfly Jimmy Snuka.
"Oh, no! Roddy, Bob, our WrestleMania rivals! What will we do?" Andy questioned.
"I pity you fools!" Igus said.
Roddy and Bob never would have admitted it on the air, but seeing Michael, Darrow and John dressed up as their colleagues was hilarious (especially Darrow as T because Roddy was willing to take any chance he could to poke fun at that asshole) and they were having difficulty keeping straight faces. Michael looked like he could be a Hulk Hogan parody because he was tall and deep-voiced, but he was way too thin to be any kind of real Hogan (although he was wearing a body suit over his Hulkamania shirt). Andy on the other hand, had no difficulty because he always maintained he did not tell jokes, that he was not funny and he had no idea what was. By the time Michael was beaten, he fell and stumbled out of the ring like he would do so flawlessly and without bodily harm time and time again on Seinfeld four years later. He continued to stumble as he was out of the ring.
Andy, Roddy and Bob beat up the trio for a while before a familiar female voice yelled out, "Piper, Kaufman, Orton, I don't like this junk you guys have been pulling all night, and I got a surprise for you!"
Out of nowhere, Cyndi Lauper led the real Hulk Hogan, Mr. T and Jimmy Snuka onto the sketch. Andy, Roddy and Bob were shocked.
"What are you doing?" Andy screamed. "What the hell do you guys think you're doing? Fridays is my show! You guys aren't supposed to be here!"
"Isn't that the darkest Indian you ever seen, folks?" Roddy asked the audience, referring to T.
They couldn't help but laugh. Although his audience hated him, Roddy could always make them laugh.
Terry, T and Jimmy stared the men down for a good few minutes. As they started to brawl ferociously, the audience gaped and the show went off the air.
"Hey, boys!" Terry yelped, suddenly stopping and calling T and Jimmy off. "We've entertained these nice folks long enough. Whaddya say we take it backstage?"
"You got it!" Roddy roared.
Vince McMahon's House, Stamford, Connecticut ********************************************
Shane and Stephane McMahon watched this event unfold on television in their living room.
"Shane!" Linda McMahon's voice yelled. "Stephanie, we're home!"
"Mom, Dad!" Shane yelled back at them. "Get in here, quick, you gotta see this!"
Vince and Linda came in and saw Cyndi Lauper bringing in Terry, T and Jimmy as the imitations left the ring.
The two of them cracked up.
"That's terrific!" Vince roared. "Goddamn, that Andy's brilliant!"
Backstage, Twenty Minutes Later *******************************
Andy, Roddy, Bob, Mark, Larry, Michael, Darrow, John, and Jack Burns were toasting Terry, Jimmy, Cyndi Lauper and David Wolfe with various drinks and munching on a buffet table. Mr. T, on the other hand, was not much of a party animal, especially around people who were just making fun of him, so he went on back to the hotel. As it turned out, Andy, Larry and David Wolfe carefully crafted the whole incident. Whenever Fridays slipped, Jack Burns knew he could always count on Andy to come aboard and get it some more attention, and here was no exception.
"Andy," David said. "I gotta hand it to you. This shoot fight on the show scheme of yours was a stroke of genius!"
Andy blushed.
"I couldn't have done it without you or Larry." He said. "Are you okay, Ms. Lauper?"
"Andy, I already told you to stop calling me that, I'm younger than you, for Christ's sake!" Cyndi Lauper beamed. "And I'm fine, the guitar was custom made. It exploded on impact, remember?"
"You really did a hilarious impersonation of me, Michael," Terry remarked.
"I've been studying you for weeks." Michael said.
"Did I hurt you, Mark?" Roddy asked.
"Me and Michael are the two most agile comics on this show," Mark explained. "We never get hurt. And if we do, we get right back up."
"Sounds kind of like us." Roddy said, referring to himself, Bob, Terry and Jimmy.
As cast members Melanie Chartoff, Bruce Mahler and Maryedith Burrell looked on, Melanie laughed. Andy had hurt her feelings in the restaurant sketch in 1981, but once she realized that it was done to help the show and that Andy was a much kinder, sweeter guy off-camera, she developed a liking for him.
"You know, guys," She remarked to her two costars. "It's true what they say, some things never change!"