As comedians, Redd Foxx and Andy Kaufman could hardly be more different. Foxx, the pioneering nightclub performer and star of “Sanford & Son,” who died in 1991, was candid, socially conscious and unapologetically obscene. Kaufman, the standup, sometime wrestler and “Taxi” co-star who died in 1984, was experimental, obtuse, playful and perplexing.
But now these two comics will be united in a most unlikely way: both are being turned into holograms to perform and tour again.
On
Friday, Hologram USA, a technology company that specializes in these
visual recreations of celebrities, plans to announce that it will use
the likenesses of Kaufman and Foxx and parts of their previously
recorded routines to create hologram shows that will be presented across
the country next year.
“They’re
comedy icons,” said Alki David, the founder and chief executive of
Hologram USA. “Both of them influenced so many comedians after them.”
Mr.
David, a billionaire entrepreneur, said in an interview that while the
company is “working with other estates of famous funny guys and funny
girls, these just happened to be amenable estates who see the vision.”
Foxx,
who released more than 50 albums of his material, was among the first
black comedians to find popularity with white audiences and to star in
his own network sitcom.
Kaufman
was a prankish provocateur and frequent guest of David Letterman’s
“Late Night” program. He was the subject of the 1999 biographical film
“Man on the Moon,” in which he was played by Jim Carrey. (He also
appeared on Mr. Foxx’s short-lived ABC variety show in 1977.)
Michael
Kaufman, the comedian’s brother and a representative of his estate,
said in an interview that the hologram show was “the right platform for
the new generation of audiences to experience Andy.”
In Andy Kaufman’s heyday, when he was picking fights on live television or feuding with the wrestler Jerry Lawler, Michael Kaufman said, such incidents “made it to the newspapers — that’s as much as you could do back then, as far as hoopla.”
If
his brother were getting up to the same antics today, Mr. Kaufman
added, “I think it would have busted the Internet. This keeps him
alive.”
Mr. David said that
the hologram shows featuring these comedians would include some of their
best-known material — say, Andy Kaufman lip-syncing the “Mighty Mouse” theme on the debut episode of “Saturday Night Live” — as well as narrative segments that dramatize biographical details.
Noting
that Malcolm X had known Foxx before his stand-up fame and described
him as “the funniest dishwasher on this earth,” Mr. David said, “We’re
going to have a scene with Malcolm X. We’re going to have various
notable names featuring in his story.”
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