{"id":37196,"date":"2022-06-03T20:10:27","date_gmt":"2022-06-04T00:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=37196"},"modified":"2022-06-03T20:10:27","modified_gmt":"2022-06-04T00:10:27","slug":"the-bootleg-files-stick-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/03\/the-bootleg-files-stick-around\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Stick Around"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 803:<\/strong> \u201cStick Around\u201d (1977 TV pilot starring Andy Kaufman). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN: <\/strong>On YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> Mostly likely due to rights clearance issues.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: <\/strong>Probably not.<\/p>\n

During the mid-1970s, Andy Kaufman began to percolate across television in a number of guest appearances on popular programs ranging from Johnny Carson\u2019s \u201cTonight Show\u201d to \u201cThe Midnight Special\u201d to the premiere episode of \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d He was also a regular on Dick Van Dyke\u2019s short-lived 1976 variety show \u201cVan Dyke and Company,\u201d where he used his Foreign Man persona for a running gag of coming out in the middle of a skit and interrupting it with sincere bafflement over what was transpiring on-stage.
\n<\/p>\n

In early 1977, ABC was willing to consider a sitcom with Kaufman as the leading character. A concept was created that imagined Kaufman (in his Foreign Man voice and behavior) as a bumbling robot who serves as a butler to a young couple in a futuristic epoch. This unlikely idea was taped as a pilot episode under the title \u201cStick Around\u201d \u2013 but ABC opted not to pursue the series and dumped it on the air for a one-shot broadcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cStick Around\u201d fails at almost every level, with the sole saving grace being (not surprisingly) Kaufman. But this creates a weird effect throughout the half-hour episode: Kaufman does his shtick and the other actors go through their paces, but there is no common ground and it plays like a split-screen presentation rather than a cohesive whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cStick Around\u201d takes place on April 9, 2055, with Kaufman as a robot (named Andy) playing a chess-type game with his owner Vance (a nerdy and bespectacled Fred McCarren) while Vance\u2019s wife Elaine (Nancy New) wonders why they are playing \u2013 she points out that Vance programmed Andy to lose. Vance nervously double-checks Andy\u2019s controls by lifting an epaulet on a jacket that Andy wears and is confident he will win. But Andy outsmarts Vance and wins the game, leading Elaine to look at the camera and declare, \u201cRobots that don\u2019t work, computers that fall apart \u2013 if you think things are complicated in 1977, just stick around!\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance runs an antique shop full of stuff from the 1970s, which the futuristic society doesn\u2019t recognize \u2013 he sells an old-fashioned toilet as a garden planter. Andy is Vance\u2019s bumbling assistant who has problems following simple commands \u2013 a request to gift-wrap a toaster results born wrapping paper and yards of tape that barely cover the merchandise.<\/p>\n

A customer comes into the store who identifies as formerly being cryogenically frozen from the \u201cold days\u201d and brings in a .38 pistol \u2013 and he proceeds to rob the store, with Andy helpfully handing over the store\u2019s cash while obeying the thief\u2019s command to tie up Vance (that happens off-screen).<\/p>\n

Vance is unhappy with Andy\u2019s inefficiencies, which are on full display when another formerly cryogenically frozen individual \u2013 their neighbor Mr. Burkus (played by veteran character actor Cliff Norton) \u2013 comes by for dinner. Andy\u2019s skills as a server create havoc, and Vance decides to get another robot. The replacement is a tall, strapping and somewhat impatient robot named Earl (played by Craig Richard Nelson with a slight Paul Lynde snarl). Andy recognizes what Earl\u2019s presence means and arranges for him to fall out of the window of his owners\u2019 apartment. Ultimately, Vance gives in to his wife\u2019s fondness for Andy and opts to keep him.<\/p>\n

The problem with Kaufman\u2019s robot is that there is nothing robotic about him. Without Vance and Elaine constantly mentioning Andy is a robot, it would be easy to assume that Kaufman is just a clumsy eccentric rather than a mechanical being. And on his own terms, Kaufman is charming and funny as the misfit out of place in his surroundings.<\/p>\n

Ugh, but those surroundings! Outside of Kaufman, \u201cStick Around\u201d is a typical third-rate sitcom with bad actors overselling poorly constructed jokey dialogue while mugging with oversized reactions not seen since the Mack Sennett days. The pilot was obviously taped without a live audience and presented with a shrieking laugh track that put absurd emphasis on the most trivial of mirthful verbiage.<\/p>\n

Mercifully, Kaufman moved beyond this dinky failure and landed in \u201cTaxi,\u201d which is arguably among the greatest sitcoms of all times. The Latka Gravas character was Andy the robot in a garage, and this became one of the most beloved characters in sitcom history.<\/p>\n

As for \u201cStick Around,\u201d some people who had VCRs in 1977 had the foresight to tape and preserve it, and several unauthorized postings now online. It is unlikely this will get a standalone home entertainment release, so these bootlegs are the best (and only) way to enjoy one of Kaufman\u2019s rare misfires.<\/p>\n