Michael Richards

[Mutagen]

Holy Jesus B. Christ in a chicken basket!

When I first saw this thread, I had the old "Oh no! Not dead?" reaction. Now... I think that might almost be preferable to finding out Kramer's a racist lunatic.

Damn.

[Deleted]

Kramer? WTF? Are you kidding me?

I guess my mother's Seinfeld DVDs will be thrown out with the trash this week.

[roobarb]

Ugh, I kind of wish I hadn't read that. That's fucking disgusting, and depressing.

[billdozer74]

Well, there go my plans to buy the UHF DVD.

[Deleted]

berrybearie said:

greenapple2 said:

Could he have been on something or hopped up on booze or something?

Yeah, if he's a graduate of the Mel Gibson-Mark Foley School of Booze-Made-Me-Say/Do-Something-I-Never-Would-Have Otherwise.

That's my guess as to how he'll spin it.

I can't even believe people paid to see him do a comedy routine. I thought he hightailed it to the Wacky TV Neighbor Rest Home in Oblivionland after Seinfeld ended. Oh well, he was a washed-up has been to me before this incident; now, he's just a washed-up, has-been racist.

[Deleted]

I remember seeing the clip of Andy Kaufman just going nuts and refusing to read the cue cards or do the sketch on Friday Live (or whatever that sketch show was called). Michael Richards was a regular performer and instead of just letting Andy do what he was going to do, he became very angry and agitated. He went and grabbed the cue card and shoved it at Andy and they started fighting. For whatever reason, that always rubbed me the wrong way. Although I like Kaufman, I can see how that sort of behavior can piss people off but I don't think that throwing a hissyfit on the air as mayhem breaks out (thanks to the antics of a guest performer) is the right way to handle the situation.

It doesn't surprise me that he is a jerk in real life, but I am surprised that he is a racist (or ok with using racist language in front of an audience) in real life.

ETA: My co-worker insists that the whole Kaufman thing was a joke and that Richards was in on it. If true, that does change my opinion about the whole thing but I suspect that the "We were all in on it!" is a bit of revisionist history.

[Deleted]

They have the actual stand-up routine. He and an audience member got into it. The audience member called him a cracker and f-ing white boy and said what Kramer said was uncalled for. He said, what, am I going to go to jail for calling someone an n-word? It was just ugly. When he first said it, people didn't know if it was a joke or not. There was just uncomfortable silence. The video is on ohnotheydidn't.

Seriously, how can he defend himself on this? I think both he and the audience member were wrong for making racist comments. That's inexcusable on both their parts. I don't care who started it.

[underjoyed]

Wow. Sometime last week, without knowing it, I watched my last episode of "Seinfeld". There's no way I'll be able to watch another one knowing that Kramer's a racist nutbar.

flamethrower said:

They have the actual stand-up routine. He and an audience member got into it. The audience member called him a cracker and f-ing white boy and said what Kramer said was uncalled for. He said, what, am I going to go to jail for calling someone an n-word? It was just ugly. When he first said it, people didn't know if it was a joke or not. There was just uncomfortable silence. The video is on ohnotheydidn't.

Not that it actually matters, but did the audience member heckle him with those remarks in *response* to the rant or as a precursor to it? (I can't watch it - I'm at work.) Either way...bleah.

[Shanmac]

Are you kidding me? Kramer, you are dead to me.

You know what, if someone heckles you, take it like a man. Or call the hecker as asshole and leave it at that. What a raving fucking lunatic. The truth hurts, doesn't it, Cosmo?

[india7]

Well, there goes my Kramer love. I'm sure he'll try to put the, "But I was drunk, doing the same thing I did with Kaufman!" spin on it. Racist jerkoff.