Talk:Man on the Moon (film)

Man on the Moon (film) was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
March 31, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
April 7, 2007	Good article nominee	Not listed

Current status: Former good article nominee

Accuracy[edit]

I believe the film was largely accurate (except maybe for the bit at the end when it implied that Tony Clifton was someone other than Paul Giamatti's character - it was trying to suggest that Kaufman's death was a scam obviously, unless Clifton is actually a real guy??). Anyway, if anyone's seen his films themselves, or was around when he was big could comment on the accuracy of the film, I think it'd help this section. - Drrngrvy 18:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the fact that the movie begins with Andy saying that his life has been switched around seems very appropriate. The "milk and cookies" performance was NOT his last, and actually occurred in the Seventies. The SNL stuff is EXTREMELY inaccurate - Lorne Michaels did not produce the show when Kaufman was banned (that would be Dick Ebersol), Richard Belzer wasn't the host of the first episode (that was George Carlin), the show wasn't called SNL then (it was called "NBC's Saturday Night"), and Andy didn't just stand there in silence for a long time before doing Mighty Mouse.

Move this page[edit]

This should be a disambig page. The R.E.M. song A. came first and B. provided the title for the movie, as well as being equally, if not more popular than the movie was. This is a joke that the movie gets the regular page. 65.254.4.231 14:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC) - this is Bsd987[reply]

Meh. People are always offended at "their" topic not appearing where they want it to, which is silly. The only thing that matters is whether you can find what you're looking for quickly, not if something got dibs on a title.

With quick navigation in mind, I've added a disambig header to the song, since it does seem to be buried in the article. 82.92.119.11 20:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I actually agree on this one. In 10 years' time, "Man on the Moon" will be better known as the hit song for REM, not some film which, to be honest, flopped. You could say that's already the case. The song came first and was more successful and should have the main page. It's not to do with "your" topic. It's to do with "first to the waterhole". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.10.175.54 (talk) 23:32, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The song is far more famous than this pretty unsuccessful film. Why has the film taken over this page when the song was released 10 years earlier? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.10.177.249 (talk) 15:19, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of the name[edit]

What is the origin of the title, i.e. the association between "Man on the Moon" and Andy Kaufman? Was it started by the R.E.M. song, or was that just a reference to an earlier association? --Saforrest 17:37, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe R.E.M.'s "Man on the Moon" was inspired by (and a tribute to) Andy Kaufman, and when they went to make the movie it seemed the obvious choice for a title. teh TK 23:00, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I actually ended up at the page looking for neither the song nor the movie. I was looking for actual "man on the moon" stuff (after seeing a reference to how people in Japan see a rabbit on the moon.) Turns out I should have been looking for Man in the Moon. --PatrickD 22:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The title comes directly from the song but Man on the Moon refers to the story that the Apollo moon landing was fake, like something Andy Kaufman might have done.

75.33.64.120 (talk) 06:43, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jim Ross[edit]

In 2000, Jim Ross reported in his Ross Report that when he met Carrey for the first time during shooting, all he wanted to talk about was wrestling. The question he is said to have asked constantly was along the lines of, "What's [insert wrestler] really like?"

Rubbish. Haas nothing to do with article. Seems like vandalism. Maybe something worse. Removing. TommyStardust 17:23, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trivia[edit]

{{spoilers}}

Carrey and Giamatti both played Tony Clifton
The final scene of the film contains what can be thought of as a sentimental tip of the hat. In the scene, we see Tony Clifton perform in front of a packed club in front of many of Kaufman's friends. The scene then pans over the crowd, finally resting on a neon caricature of Andy on the clubs wall. However, the last person who the camera passes is Bob Zmuda. Since this scene takes place a year after Andy's death, it is assumed that it is Bob playing Clifton on stage. This is most likely a nod towards the many theories that Andy faked his death, and therefore was on stage with Zmuda watching from the crowd.
Nearly the entire cast of Taxi reunited for the film during the Tony Clifton scene. The main exceptions were Tony Danza and Danny DeVito, who played George Shapiro in the film.
During the scene where Jerry Lawler brings out Foxy Jackson, as well as later on in the film during the match between Kaufman and Lawler, the play by play announcer is played by Jerry Lawler's long-time fellow RAW commentator Jim Ross. Oddly, the person who was the commentator during the real-life Kaufman vs. Lawler feud, Lance Russell, appears in the film as the ring announcer.
Several actors were considered for the part of Kaufman, such as Nicolas Cage and Sean Penn. John Cusack, Kevin Spacey and Hank Azaria auditioned for the part. According to Milos Forman, they were brought down to Edward Norton, Jim Carrey and another actor but the studio preferred Carrey. Carrey shares a birthday with Kaufman, and acquired his actual bongo drums for his audition.
The real Lynne Margulies was a creative consultant for the film. She is also in the funeral scene.

The above content has not been integrated into the article. It has been imported here so if citation can be found, it can be integrated into another part of the article. —Erik (talk • contrib • review) - 22:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for the reuniting of the cast of Taxi, www.imdb.com is a very good source. C. Pineda 21:24, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Failed GA[edit]

I find the plot overlong, with too many stubby paragraphs. The opening on how things are changed could be moved to the Changes from real life section. Always consider moving minor stuff to cast descriptions. There's no need to cite the film either, and all dates need links. Alientraveller 17:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Carrey's acting methods in this movie[edit]

I heard that Jim Carrey refused to acknowledge that he was anyone but Andy Kaufman while on the movie studio and just about drove everyone mad. If someone can find a source for that, it would probably be relevant information for this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.237.89.173 (talk) 05:15, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image copyright problem with Image:Manonthemoon001.jpg[edit]

The image Image:Manonthemoon001.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --00:25, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reception? Box Office?[edit]

i just somehow got to this article, and asked myself how was it recieved. the reception section is missing, and on such controversial film its a must have. i remember it was controversial (something with carey dressed as an hobo on some award ceremony), but cant remember the exact details. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.132.214.77 (talk) 23:13, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Its on the List of biggest box office bombs. It could definitely use a new section for critical reaction. Tehw1k1 (talk) 12:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've restored the old Reception section, which seems to have been inadvertently deleted by a new editor. It could still do with some improvements. - Kollision (talk) 12:34, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the reception section, it claims the film grossed about $47.5 million worldwide on an $82 million budget, but in the info box, it has it grossing about $85.4 million on an $85 million budget. Obviously one of these figures is wrong. 142.177.63.38 (talk) 22:06, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tony Danza[edit]

How come Tony Danza wasn't one of the actors from Taxi to make an appearance in the film?--Splashen (talk) 02:29, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Baloney[edit]

@JesseRafe: You've been editing here a lot longer than I have so I'm trying extra hard to figure out what you mean. When you change the justification for your preferred state from "that was POV" to "that wasn't proper English" I am left somewhat confused. It reads as English to me; perhaps it would have been improved by the addition of a comma. The {{what}} tag we've both left there indicates there is probably more work to be done. The "baloney" being referred to is the putative content of the film and that is no more clarified by "(due to massive editing)" than the bare quote of "baloney" but using "baloney" more closely conveys the joke and the remainder of the paragraph successfully clears up most of this confusion. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 00:07, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I initially thought it was a POV edit of the IP, then you called it a direct quote. Since this is incomprehensible:

Andy Kaufman's "foreign man" character appears in black and white, declaring that editing out all the "baloney," this is actually the end of the film, not the beginning.

, I reverted, because quote or not, this is the English encyclopedia. It has nothing to do with the word baloney, but rather almost every other word around it. JesseRafe (talk) 15:20, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@JesseRafe: I agree it was a little hard to understand, but all the version you quoted needed was a comma between "that" and "editing out" to be reasonably good English, even if it's a bit twisty and hard to comprehend.

I'm sure some of the comedy is lost if over-explained. Would the following be better?

The film opens in black and white with Andy Kaufman's "foreign man" character appearing to announce this is the end of film, not the beginning; once "all the baloney" was edited out, all that remains is to show the credits.

Is that sufficiently proper English? Is the sequence of events clear? Do you think we can we adopt this version and remove the tag? — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:21, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Since I can't stream it for free, I've requested the DVD through my local library. I'll check the wording by watching the opening segment. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 23:18, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]