The Proto-Borat Lives On
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

As a mustachioed foreigner commands movie theaters this week, comedy buffs may feel a twinge of recognition upon seeing “Borat.” The awkwardly interpreted English, the primitive social mannerisms, the refusal — even in press interviews — to break character: While British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has certainly given these traits an original lease on life, they recall a funnyman of a previous era, American icon Andy Kaufman. The late star rose to fame in the 1970s performing a character called “Foreign Man,” an immigrant from the fictional island of Caspiar who spoke in crude English.
And no one is more aware of those similarities than Kaufman’s father, Stanley Kaufman, who invited Mr. Baron Cohen to attend the finals of the third annual comedy competition in his son’s honor, the Andy Kaufman Awards. The competition gets under way this week at Carolines on Broadway as part of the New York Comedy Festival.
“He is a little bit of a take-off on Andy,” Mr. Kaufman said of Mr. Baron Cohen. “Andy, I think, had a broader repertoire, but Sacha will grow into it. He’s a very courageous guy to do what he’s been doing.”
Courage is a quality that Mr. Kaufman, who created the competition, hopes to foster with this project. The contest, which awards the winner $5,000, solicits video submissions (organizers received 150 entries this year) and 20 semi-finalists — who face-off in live competition — are chosen. The field is then narrowed down to eight finalists. The goal is to encourage “people that do things off the beaten path,” Kaufman’s former manager and a contest judge, George Shapiro, said.
What began as a way for Mr. Kaufman to celebrate the accomplishments of comedians following in his late son’s footsteps has become a beacon for a kind of humor infrequently celebrated these days: comedy that’s neither gratuitously vulgar nor topically tame. “Andy was completely clean,” Mr. Shapiro, who was also an executive producer of “Seinfeld,” said. “But it’s a question of degree. Things are much looser now, much more blue.”
To that end, the Kaufman Awards, or “the Andys,”as Mr. Kaufman calls them, are a platform to celebrate provocative comedy rather than provocative language. “Comedy humor has changed,” Mr. Kaufman said.”I go back to the days of Bob Hope and Jack Benny and people of that stature, and their humor did not rely on dirty words and sexual innuendo. It was different humor.”
But such comedians have been increasingly difficult to find, as evidenced by the many submission tapes the judges had to toss aside on the basis of their incongruence with Kaufman’s brand of humor. “Andy’s not an easy person to imitate,” former contest judge and owner of Carolines on Broadway, Caroline Hirsch, said. “We try to find people that fit into the likeness, and it’s really not an easy thing to find.”
Indeed, many of the more successful contestants from previous years have spanned the creative spectrum. One contestant delivered a stand-up routine while wrapping his entire body, mummy-like, in duct tape. Another performed in character as Jesus. Still another performed her stand-up routine through ventriloquism.
“You don’t know it until you see it, but you know it’s not the norm,” Mr. Shapiro said. “The other part is that they’re flat-out funny.”
Last year’s winner, Kristen Schaal, will host the award’s finals Thursday. Ms. Schaal, a zealous young woman with a cheeky face framed by fat ringlet curls, uses her sugary, high-pitched voice and exuberant, uninhibited laugh to disarming effect. Breathing heavily into a tightly-clutched microphone at a recent stand-up performance, Ms. Schaal delivered the kind of material that navigates the tricky comedic territory the Kaufman Awards celebrate.
“What a great week of weather we’ve been having, am I right?” she asked rhetorically. “Like, even if, let’s just say, you’re riding your bike and someone hits you with a car, at least you get to lay out in the warm breezy sunshine and wait for the ambulance, am I right?” she said with a nervous giggle. “Am I right?” she continued, sounding a little unsure of herself. “Am I right?” A touch of hysteria crept into her voice. “Am I? Am I?” She held the microphone too close and dropped her voice to a loud whisper. “‘Cuz I hit a guy on his bike, and I just kept on driving.”
Ms. Schaal, it seems, is perhaps as big a fan of the contest as its judges were of her.”It’s just the best show,”she said. “It celebrates anything that’s unique and different and brave.” Having also won the title of “Best Alternative Comedian” at the revered HBO Comedy Festival in Aspen, Colo., during the past year, her praise places the show in esteemed company.
But there is, of course, one person whose company is sorely missed in the competition. Mr. Shapiro put it best, referring to longstanding, unsubstantiated rumors that Kaufman falsified his passage from lung cancer in 1984 and has been hiding in seclusion as part of an elaborate, ultimate joke. “They said he faked his death,” Mr. Shapiro said. “And with this, he’s still alive.”
Semifinals tonight (Stand-Up NY,236 W. 78th St. at Broadway,212-595-0850).Finals November 9 (1626 Broadway, between 49th and 50th streets, 212-757-4100).