When describing Bobcat
Goldthwait’s stand-up act it is useful to
mention that he used to open for Nirvana.
As with the grunge gods’ music, Bobcat’s act
was vulnerable, self-immolating and studded
with bursts of spangled vitriol. He sounded
like a weasel trapped in a gearbox, but if you
listened with the right ears, it all made mad,
beautiful sense. Enough sense for Hollywood
to blindly thrust this crass, raging hard-on into
the PG-13 applesauce of Police Academy 2 as
Zed McGlunk, leader of blow-dried splatter-
punk LA street gang The Scullions. Bobcat
had been successfully neutered – even if he
did refer to the films as the ‘Police Lobotomy’
series. Tinseltown’s miscalculation came
when it tried to turn him into a leading man for
1988’s only truly seminal talking horse movie,
Hot to Trot. Yet both Bobcat and audiences
were ill at ease with the three-piece suit and
ponytail, and so he was carted off to the glue
factory. He did get one last lead role in the
self-directed, liquored-up circus folk parable
Shakes the Clown, which was defended by
no less than Martin Scorsese as “the Citizen
Kane of alcoholic clown movies”. A pervertedly
hard sell, the film lost a lot of money. The film
was produced by record company IRS. Back
in the day, successful bands were encouraged
to invest in risky films as tax-loss wheezes.
These three facts are unrelated.
Where Are They Now?
Bobcat parlayed his bulging contacts book
into a successful directing career, the dark
pinnacle of which is 2009’s World’s Greatest
Dad, starring Robin Williams. You’ve taken your ‘Macho New Jersey Bozo’
act all the way from The Chuckle Hut to
Madison Square Garden. You’re offered the
chance to star in The Adventures of Ford
Fairlane, the story of a cocksure rock ’n’ roll
detective (!) in which all you have to do is look
cool, tool around LA in a swanky car and wear
a succession of increasingly ludicrous leather
jackets so intricate, tricked-out and sparkly
they could double up as pinball machines.
Life’s a dream. Do you: a) bitterly call out the
studio for not supporting the film’s release?;b) get banned for life by MTV for busting
out your patented scatological takes on
nursery rhymes at an awards ceremony
(before introducing “personal friend” Cher
to the stage)?; c) alienate your core audience
by releasing an unscripted live album – ‘The
Day the Laughter Died’ – in which your improv
skills are laid so bare that you turn very nasty
indeed?, or d) all of the above?
Where Are They Now?
Clay had a long stint on the naughty step
before being brought back in from the cold for
stellar supporting roles in Woody Allen’s Blue
Jasmine and Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born. As Seinfeld’s Cosmo Kramer, Michael
Richards was an impact player – a blaze of
kooky, pratfalling intensity. A liminal man-child
skulking between the base and the ineffable.
Crash into Jerry’s apartment, swipe some
food, say something kray-kray and boom.
Giddy-up and gone. But as his (only) starring
role in 1997’s Trial and Error – an insulting
courtroom-com co-starring Jeff Daniels that
looks like it was made in 1983 – was to prove,
following Kramer around all day is wearying,
repetitive and actually quite annoying.
How many ways can you fall off a chair before
it stops being funny? Too many, it transpires.
As Seinfeld once said, in one of those
grim, undercooked nightclub vignettes that
besmirched his otherwise pristine sitcom,
“You gotta give people a chance to miss you a
little!” No matter how talented and beloved you
are, having your mug in people’s living rooms
twenty-two Thursday nights a year might just
be the Goldilocks zone. The Kramer Reality
Experience nudged Richards into hot porridge.
Where Are They Now?
After a well-publicised 2006 racist meltdown,
no-one would touch Richards until he was cast
as Kirstie Alley’s chauffeur in one-season no-go
Kirstie in 2013. Since then, nada, Jerry. Nada!033