Editing Man on the Moon (film) (section)

==Historical accuracy==
The film makes a few changes to Kaufman's life story. As Kaufman (played by Carrey) explains in the film's prologue, "All the most important things in my life are changed around and mixed up for dramatic purposes."

The famous [[Carnegie Hall]] "milk and cookies" [[Andy Kaufman Plays Carnegie Hall|performance]], portrayed in the film as one of his last performances after being diagnosed with cancer, had in fact occurred in 1979, five years before Kaufman's death and well before his diagnosis. Also, the film is deliberately ambiguous over whether Kaufman actually died or if this was a hoax as some fans believe.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/kaufman.asp |title=Andy Kaufman Is Still Alive? |website=snopes.com |date=2014-09-29 |access-date=2017-01-22}}</ref>

The film implies that [[Carol Kane]] was a member of the ''Taxi'' cast during the show's first season, which in real life was 1978–79. In actuality, Kane did not make her first appearance on the series until the episode "Guess Who's Coming for Brefnish", which first aired on ABC in January 1980 during the show's second season.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.allmovie.com/work/taxi-guess-whos-coming-for-brefnish-319871 |title=Taxi: Guess Who's Coming for Brefnish (1980) | work=AllMovie | publisher=RhythmOne | access-date=January 22, 2017}}</ref> The film implies that ''Taxi'' was canceled only once. However, the show went on for one more season on NBC.

Other inaccuracies include scenes supposedly drawn from ''SNL'', specifically the first episode's host, who is depicted as having been [[Richard Belzer]] but was [[George Carlin]] in real life. Belzer also erroneously refers to the show as "Saturday Night Live" during the sequence, but that title wasn't adopted until season two.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://time.com/3426553/saturday-night-live-history/ |last=Rothman |first=Lily |title=The Surprising Story Behind Saturday Night Live's Most Famous Line |magazine=Time |date=September 26, 2014 |access-date=April 4, 2022}}</ref> The Mighty Mouse segment also prolongs the "dead air" before the record starts playing (in reality he only paused a few seconds). The scene where [[Lorne Michaels]] asks the home viewing audience to vote Kaufman off the show happened in 1982, two years after Michaels left the show as executive producer and [[Dick Ebersol]] took over.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Shales |first1=Tom |first2=James Andrew |last2=Miller |year=2002 |title=Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live |location=Boston, MA |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=0-316-78146-0}}</ref>

After its release, the film attracted some criticism over various events in Kaufman's life that were left out. [[Max Allan Collins]] maintained that the filmmakers did not understand Kaufman, and that the film "does not give Kaufman the credit for his genius, that he had a complete intellectual grasp of what he was up to and a showman's instincts for how to play an audience."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hollywood.com/news/COMMENTARY_Man_on_the_Moon_Misses_Kaufman/311826 |title='Man on the Moon' Misses Kaufman |first=Max Allan |last=Collins |date=6 January 2000 |website=hollywood.com |access-date=31 March 2007 |archive-date=April 30, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070430121411/http://www.hollywood.com/news/COMMENTARY_Man_on_the_Moon_Misses_Kaufman/311826}}</ref> Significantly, these critics included Kaufman's own father Stanley, who was displeased that little of Andy's early life (before show business) and early career were portrayed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://andykaufman.jvlnet.com/realmotm.htm |title=The Real Man on the Moon Speaks |website=Andykaufman.jvlnet.com |access-date=2017-01-22 |archive-date=January 11, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100111075409/http://andykaufman.jvlnet.com/realmotm.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Sam Simon]], season 5 writer on ''Taxi'', stated in a 2013 interview with [[Marc Maron]] for the ''[[WTF with Marc Maron]]'' podcast that the portrayal of Andy on the show was "a complete fiction," that Kaufman was "completely professional" and that he "told you Tony Clifton was him." Simon also stated that sources for these stories were mostly from Bob Zmuda and a "little bit of press and hype," but conceded that Kaufman would have "loved" Zmuda's version of events.<ref>{{cite podcast|url=http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_389_-_sam_simon |title=Episode 389 - Sam Simon |website=[[WTF with Marc Maron]]  |date=2013-05-16 |access-date=2017-01-22}}</ref> As of 2020, occasional ''Taxi'' actress [[Carol Kane]] was the only ''Taxi'' cast member to have acknowledged attending his funeral.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/carol-kane-hollywood-eccentric-interview_n_5f9c78d8c5b60eefc852876d|title=Carol Kane Never Meant To Become Hollywood's Go-To Eccentric|first=Matthew|last=Jacobs|work=HuffPost|date=9 November 2020|accessdate=17 April 2022}}</ref>