Entertainment - Media News Watch originally published at Entertainment - Media News Watch
In Hollywood it only takes one role to turn you into an icon, and one moment to take it all away. Before cancel culture became a thing, an iconic celebrity had a meltdown that was of epic proportions. This helped usher in the era of viral videos. Many TV stars have discovered that life after a highly successful show can be difficult for some. It’s time to find out what happened with Michael Richards. As always, we must start at the beginning. And the beginning began in Culver City on July 24, 1949. Richards’ career took off in 1980 after he began performing on the stand-up circuit. Richards’ role in one of the most memorable moments of the show, which aired for only three seasons, was so well-known that it was recreated by Norm MacDonald as Richards in the 1999 movie Man On The Moon . Richards was standing up to get the cue cards when guest star Andy Kaufman refused to deliver his scripted line. This led to a small explosion with Kaufman throwing his beverage in Richards’s face. Richards, like Kaufman, would later claim he knew the joke was coming. And funny enough, it was Norm MacDonald that had an interesting take on the public meltdown of Richards.
Back to the 80s! Richards’s star was slowly rising on the comedy scene. He would appear in a number of films, including the spoof Young Doctors In Love (1982), The House of God (1984), The Ratings Game (1984), Transylvania 6-5000(1985), while he also appeared in shows like Night court, St. Other shows include Cheers, Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice . The overarching theme in his work during this period was to parody cliched television motif’s. It was therefore no surprise that he was cast as “Weird AL”, Yankovic’s cult film
UHF- (a film which is very popular amongst JoBlo’s staff). Yankovic wrote the role of Janitor for Richards specifically after being a fan. Richards’ agent initially turned down the offer, saying that Richards was suffering from Bell’s Palsy. This is a condition that causes temporary facial paralysis. He recovered quickly and was astonished by the response he received when he came in to read for the movie.UHF-would be released in theaters on 21st July 1989. It was a financial failure, only making $6.1 million from a budget of $5 million. However, it would soon be considered a comedy classic. A TV series starring Richards aired on NBC a few weeks before UHF-in the theaters. The show had low ratings. NBC offered this series to FOX, but they declined. This decision would be regretted as the low-rated series would be renamed to Seinfeld- and go on to become one of the most popular television shows in history. The show featured a number of crazy, kooky characters, but the most kooky of them all was Jerry Seinfeld’s eccentric neighbor Cosmo. Michael Richards, who played the role to perfection, was reluctantly brought onto the show by Larry David after Jerry Seinfeld demanded it. Michael Richards’ outrageous physical comedy. Kramer became the most popular character in the series, with the audience erupting into rapturous applause each time Richards burst through the door of Jerry’s apartment. Michael Richards’ talents and skills were perfect for this character. He could enter any scene, take over, or tear it apart. He was not just a clown who fell, he was a wrecking-ball. Richards was nominated five times for the Emmy Award in the Supporting Actor Category, winning it three times. He also received five additional nominations from the Screen Actors Guild Awards and won the award twice. While he was a television star, he also appeared on the big screen in roles as diverse as a motel clerk who didn’t ask questions in Coneheads ( 1993) to a man who was insensitive in So i Married an Axe Murderer ( 1993) to a cowardly accounting in
Airheads( 1994). In 1995, he received some acclaim for his paranoid performance as the axe murderer in Diane Keaton’s Unstrung Heroes. He was nominated at the American Comedy Awards for Funniest supporting actor. He continued to receive acclaim when he voiced The Wolf for the Academy Award nominated film Redux Rider Hood after that he got his chance to star in a big studio comedic film when he co-starred with Jeff Daniels and Charlize Theron. While the critical reception wasn’t as bad at first, many pointed out that Daniels Richards had a solid comedic chemistry. However, the film ended up being unmemorable. The audience felt the same way when they only gave this $25m budgeted movie $14.5m at the box office. With one tanked movie, Richards’ big screen career was basically over, luckily he still had Seinfeld.And then on May 14, 1998, the series finale of Seinfeld aired to historic numbers. The Series Finale of the Seinfeld was watched by 76.3 million people, which is nearly 60% of the total TV audience that night. It was followed by the finales of the
M*A*S*H and
Cheers and the The Fugitive. Of the course, the finale polarized audiences with some calling it “the worst of all times”, but I understand why they did it. Bringing back all the iconic actors for the finale was brilliant, but maybe having your characters not go to prison would have made a better ending. Richards would play Wilkins in TNT’s broadcast of Charles Dickens David Cullfield (2000) before starting his own show The Michael Richardsshow. You’d think that a show named The Michael Richards would feature Michael Richards. But, it was actually Vic Nardozza, a private detective! He conceived of the show as a way to play a different style of character than his previous role of Kramer, but when test audiences didn’t respond to it, they had him add in some of those Kramer-esque characteristics while naming the character Nardozza as a nod to his mother’s maiden name, bad reviews and low viewership saw the show cancelled after just eight episodes leading the press to coin the phrase The Seinfeld Curse as Richards and his cohorts Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander all had failed shows in the immediate aftermath of Seinfeld.And then on November 17, 2006, what Richards had spent over forty years cultivating, a career in the entertainment industry, was essentially ruined in seconds. Richards was able to do what he has done for 25 years: get up on the stage and tell jokes. Comedy fans got to see a legendary actor in a new setting. What happened is now known as the biggest career implosion ever. In the #MeToo iPhone age, we’re used to seeing people’s careers ruined by bad behavior. But for Michael Richards, one terrible outburst, which pushed the boundaries of comedy beyond sanity, led to years of work being thrown away. The incident began when a group (whose skin color happened to beblack), entered the Laugh Factory Comedy Club in Hollywood. They interrupted Richards’ performance by being loud and yelling at the comedian whose skin color was white. Richards then launched one of the most vile rants ever captured on camera. A fellow patron recorded the confrontation. At first, the audience seemed to think Richards was joking or playing a role, but then he hurled out a racial insult. Which racial insult, you ask? It’s the one that begins with the letter N… that’s the one we call “the N word”… and after shouting this particle word that starts off with an N in a very hostile manner, his entire career was thrown down the toilet. In an attempt to repair the damage, Richards appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, via satellite, when Letterman’s guest was Jerry Seinfeld. Richard tried to explain and apologize for his outburst. The whole situation was so awkward that the audience couldn’t help but laugh. It is funny that his apology got more laughs than his stand-up set. Seinfeld was forced to tell Letterman’s audience to stop laughing because they were laughing so loudly. Imagine a comedian telling you not to laugh… Let’s talk about what a great friend Jerry Seinfeld really is! He not only stood by his friend when others wouldn’t but he also gave up some of his time to appear on a national show so that he could explain what happened. And Seinfeld would stand by his friend even further when he cast him as Bud Ditchwater in his animated film Bee Movie (2007) and would feature him on his short form series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee where they would discuss the incident and its ramifications even further. Richards would also help Seinfeld promote the series’ fifth season, appearing as President of Crackle, Dick Corcoran.Richards would stay out of the lime light for a while, retiring from stand up after the incident, opting to live a quiet life away from show business but would return with the rest of the cast of Seinfeld for three episodes of the seventh season of the Larry David show Curb Your Enthusiasm where the cast reunites to do a reunion show of the classic sitcom. Richards and the writers did not try to skirt around the controversy. Instead, they addressed it head-on with several incidents that referenced the laugh factory incident. Richards’ reputation was greatly improved by this. We all make mistakes, maybe not at the same level as he did but being able laugh about it and be the punchline of the joke helped me to move on. Richards made a brief comeback on TV when he appeared as the main character in the TV Land series, Kirstie. He was paired with fellow television legends Kirstie Ally and Rhea Perryman. The show was cancelled after only one season. Richards’ performance in the short Walk The Light won him a Best Actor Award at the Los Angeles Cinema Festival of Hollywood Awards in 2013. In 2019, he appeared in the faith based movie
Faith Hope & Love. Richards’ iconic role as Kramer on one of the most popular shows of all time meant that he could never work again. He was set for life and would have a legacy to pass down to future generations. It’s a shame he lost his temper that fateful day because Richards was a physical comedian who, when given the chance, would show us he was a great actor. Michael Richards hasn’t appeared in a project for four years and I think it’s time for him to make a triumphant return. And that is WTF Happened to Michael Richards!Check out more episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity here!
Entertainment - Media News Watch originally published at Entertainment - Media News Watch
Entertainment - Media News Watch originally published at Entertainment - Media News Watch
In Hollywood it only takes one role to turn you into an icon, and one moment to take it all away. Before cancel culture became a thing, an iconic celebrity had a meltdown that was of epic proportions. This helped usher in the era of viral videos. Many TV stars have discovered that life after a highly successful show can be difficult for some. It’s time to find out what happened with Michael Richards. As always, we must start at the beginning. And the beginning began in Culver City on July 24, 1949. Richards’ career took off in 1980 after he began performing on the stand-up circuit. Richards’ role in one of the most memorable moments of the show, which aired for only three seasons, was so well-known that it was recreated by Norm MacDonald as Richards in the 1999 movie Man On The Moon . Richards was standing up to get the cue cards when guest star Andy Kaufman refused to deliver his scripted line. This led to a small explosion with Kaufman throwing his beverage in Richards’s face. Richards, like Kaufman, would later claim he knew the joke was coming. And funny enough, it was Norm MacDonald that had an interesting take on the public meltdown of Richards.
Back to the 80s! Richards’s star was slowly rising on the comedy scene. He would appear in a number of films, including the spoof Young Doctors In Love (1982), The House of God (1984), The Ratings Game (1984), Transylvania 6-5000(1985), while he also appeared in shows like Night court, St. Other shows include Cheers, Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice . The overarching theme in his work during this period was to parody cliched television motif’s. It was therefore no surprise that he was cast as “Weird AL”, Yankovic’s cult film
UHF- (a film which is very popular amongst JoBlo’s staff). Yankovic wrote the role of Janitor for Richards specifically after being a fan. Richards’ agent initially turned down the offer, saying that Richards was suffering from Bell’s Palsy. This is a condition that causes temporary facial paralysis. He recovered quickly and was astonished by the response he received when he came in to read for the movie.UHF-would be released in theaters on 21st July 1989. It was a financial failure, only making $6.1 million from a budget of $5 million. However, it would soon be considered a comedy classic. A TV series starring Richards aired on NBC a few weeks before UHF-in the theaters. The show had low ratings. NBC offered this series to FOX, but they declined. This decision would be regretted as the low-rated series would be renamed to Seinfeld- and go on to become one of the most popular television shows in history. The show featured a number of crazy, kooky characters, but the most kooky of them all was Jerry Seinfeld’s eccentric neighbor Cosmo. Michael Richards, who played the role to perfection, was reluctantly brought onto the show by Larry David after Jerry Seinfeld demanded it. Michael Richards’ outrageous physical comedy. Kramer became the most popular character in the series, with the audience erupting into rapturous applause each time Richards burst through the door of Jerry’s apartment. Michael Richards’ talents and skills were perfect for this character. He could enter any scene, take over, or tear it apart. He was not just a clown who fell, he was a wrecking-ball. Richards was nominated five times for the Emmy Award in the Supporting Actor Category, winning it three times. He also received five additional nominations from the Screen Actors Guild Awards and won the award twice. While he was a television star, he also appeared on the big screen in roles as diverse as a motel clerk who didn’t ask questions in Coneheads ( 1993) to a man who was insensitive in So i Married an Axe Murderer ( 1993) to a cowardly accounting in
Airheads( 1994). In 1995, he received some acclaim for his paranoid performance as the axe murderer in Diane Keaton’s Unstrung Heroes. He was nominated at the American Comedy Awards for Funniest supporting actor. He continued to receive acclaim when he voiced The Wolf for the Academy Award nominated film Redux Rider Hood after that he got his chance to star in a big studio comedic film when he co-starred with Jeff Daniels and Charlize Theron. While the critical reception wasn’t as bad at first, many pointed out that Daniels Richards had a solid comedic chemistry. However, the film ended up being unmemorable. The audience felt the same way when they only gave this $25m budgeted movie $14.5m at the box office. With one tanked movie, Richards’ big screen career was basically over, luckily he still had Seinfeld.And then on May 14, 1998, the series finale of Seinfeld aired to historic numbers. The Series Finale of the Seinfeld was watched by 76.3 million people, which is nearly 60% of the total TV audience that night. It was followed by the finales of the
M*A*S*H and
Cheers and the The Fugitive. Of the course, the finale polarized audiences with some calling it “the worst of all times”, but I understand why they did it. Bringing back all the iconic actors for the finale was brilliant, but maybe having your characters not go to prison would have made a better ending. Richards would play Wilkins in TNT’s broadcast of Charles Dickens David Cullfield (2000) before starting his own show The Michael Richardsshow. You’d think that a show named The Michael Richards would feature Michael Richards. But, it was actually Vic Nardozza, a private detective! He conceived of the show as a way to play a different style of character than his previous role of Kramer, but when test audiences didn’t respond to it, they had him add in some of those Kramer-esque characteristics while naming the character Nardozza as a nod to his mother’s maiden name, bad reviews and low viewership saw the show cancelled after just eight episodes leading the press to coin the phrase The Seinfeld Curse as Richards and his cohorts Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander all had failed shows in the immediate aftermath of Seinfeld.And then on November 17, 2006, what Richards had spent over forty years cultivating, a career in the entertainment industry, was essentially ruined in seconds. Richards was able to do what he has done for 25 years: get up on the stage and tell jokes. Comedy fans got to see a legendary actor in a new setting. What happened is now known as the biggest career implosion ever. In the #MeToo iPhone age, we’re used to seeing people’s careers ruined by bad behavior. But for Michael Richards, one terrible outburst, which pushed the boundaries of comedy beyond sanity, led to years of work being thrown away. The incident began when a group (whose skin color happened to beblack), entered the Laugh Factory Comedy Club in Hollywood. They interrupted Richards’ performance by being loud and yelling at the comedian whose skin color was white. Richards then launched one of the most vile rants ever captured on camera. A fellow patron recorded the confrontation. At first, the audience seemed to think Richards was joking or playing a role, but then he hurled out a racial insult. Which racial insult, you ask? It’s the one that begins with the letter N… that’s the one we call “the N word”… and after shouting this particle word that starts off with an N in a very hostile manner, his entire career was thrown down the toilet. In an attempt to repair the damage, Richards appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, via satellite, when Letterman’s guest was Jerry Seinfeld. Richard tried to explain and apologize for his outburst. The whole situation was so awkward that the audience couldn’t help but laugh. It is funny that his apology got more laughs than his stand-up set. Seinfeld was forced to tell Letterman’s audience to stop laughing because they were laughing so loudly. Imagine a comedian telling you not to laugh… Let’s talk about what a great friend Jerry Seinfeld really is! He not only stood by his friend when others wouldn’t but he also gave up some of his time to appear on a national show so that he could explain what happened. And Seinfeld would stand by his friend even further when he cast him as Bud Ditchwater in his animated film Bee Movie (2007) and would feature him on his short form series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee where they would discuss the incident and its ramifications even further. Richards would also help Seinfeld promote the series’ fifth season, appearing as President of Crackle, Dick Corcoran.Richards would stay out of the lime light for a while, retiring from stand up after the incident, opting to live a quiet life away from show business but would return with the rest of the cast of Seinfeld for three episodes of the seventh season of the Larry David show Curb Your Enthusiasm where the cast reunites to do a reunion show of the classic sitcom. Richards and the writers did not try to skirt around the controversy. Instead, they addressed it head-on with several incidents that referenced the laugh factory incident. Richards’ reputation was greatly improved by this. We all make mistakes, maybe not at the same level as he did but being able laugh about it and be the punchline of the joke helped me to move on. Richards made a brief comeback on TV when he appeared as the main character in the TV Land series, Kirstie. He was paired with fellow television legends Kirstie Ally and Rhea Perryman. The show was cancelled after only one season. Richards’ performance in the short Walk The Light won him a Best Actor Award at the Los Angeles Cinema Festival of Hollywood Awards in 2013. In 2019, he appeared in the faith based movie
Faith Hope & Love. Richards’ iconic role as Kramer on one of the most popular shows of all time meant that he could never work again. He was set for life and would have a legacy to pass down to future generations. It’s a shame he lost his temper that fateful day because Richards was a physical comedian who, when given the chance, would show us he was a great actor. Michael Richards hasn’t appeared in a project for four years and I think it’s time for him to make a triumphant return. And that is WTF Happened to Michael Richards!Check out more episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity here!
Entertainment - Media News Watch originally published at Entertainment - Media News Watch
