References in Popular Culture
According to the film Man on the Moon which centered partially around Andy Kaufman's role on Taxi, Kaufman negotiated a certain number of appearances for his alter ego, Tony Clifton, into his contract with ABC. The film goes on to show a scenario in which Kaufman deliberately attempted to sabotage the taping of an episode of Taxi in the guise of Tony Clifton because, as the film explains, Kaufman was severely disappointed in his casting as Latka and truly wanted nothing to do with the show, but felt obligated by his friendship with George Shapiro and the money he was being offered for the role. However, a preface to the film by Kaufman (played by Jim Carrey) explained that the movie was a fictionalized, embellished and chronologically inaccurate portrayal of his life and the viewer was not expected to leave the film with a clear and true picture of it, therefore the reality of the event, as are much of the events in the film, is in question. Parts of this story have been confirmed by Danny DeVito in the book Hailing Taxi.
Read more about this topic: Taxi (TV series)
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture is seductive; high culture is imperious.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.”
—Anonymous. Popular saying.
Dating from World War I—when it was used by U.S. soldiers—or before, the saying was associated with nightclub hostess Texas Quinan in the 1920s. It was the title of a song recorded by Sophie Tucker in 1927, and of a Cole Porter musical in 1929.
“Without metaphor the handling of general concepts such as culture and civilization becomes impossible, and that of disease and disorder is the obvious one for the case in point. Is not crisis itself a concept we owe to Hippocrates? In the social and cultural domain no metaphor is more apt than the pathological one.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)