Latka? Are You In There?

A couple of weeks ago, a few full-page newspaper ads appeared inviting "the believers" to a "return celebration" for comedian Andy Kaufman. Kaufman, as you may remember (or have learned from the Milos Forman film Man On the Moon), died 20 years ago this month, but not without promising to return on the 20th anniversary of his death—the greatest performance-art stunt of all time.

Well, friends, it appears that Andy is—at least in the dimensionless ether of the Internet blog format—back.

Now, before you get too excited, it is prudent to remember that Kaufman ally, fellow comedian, and writer Bob Zmuda frequently portrayed Kaufman's lounge-lizard alter ego Tony Clifton in performances before Kaufman's death (the joke being that Kaufman always claimed not to be Tony Clifton, and having Zmuda on stage as Clifton when Andy would do a walk-on was "proof" that they weren't the same person). Score one for the possibility that the mystery blogger is Zmuda.

Still, there does exist a fairly compelling discussion of the various theories about Andy's death, or lack thereof, as well as a rather creepy site maintained by a Hollywood animation professional on behalf of a man he does not know and has never met in person named "Enrique P." Enrique writes in a question-and-answer format that is notable for his lack of any attempt to provide "evidence" that Kaufman faked his death, as you might expect your average conspiracy-theorist lunatic to do on a Web site. Indeed, the more you read Enrique's disquietingly philosophical musings, the more you think that Enrique might actually be Kaufman himself.

But back to "Blogger Andy." Certainly he could just be Zmuda horsing around, or someone else entirely trying to capitalize on the 20th anniversary of Kaufman's death. But in any case, you should check it out; it's either proof of the greatest stunt in history, or the dangerous ramblings of an insane mind—or possibly both.