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Despite their efforts, a club full of Andy Kaufman's fans couldn't will him back to life. The comedian/amateur wrestler often joked about faking his own death and then returning 20 years later, and this Sunday was the 20th anniversary of his passing from cancer. Bob Zmuda, Kaufman's writer and partner, threw him a party at the House of Blues in West Hollywood just in case Kaufman pulled off the stunt. Two Defamer operatives filed their disappointed reports after the comic failed to rise from the dead. The consolation prize? Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch (Kaufman's favorite brothel), promised all ticket holders a free round with a prostitute if they showed up on Monday night.

It was...well, one of those nights that if you are a fan you are glad you were there for the historical record, but a very long evening otherwise. Andy did not appear, although many testified that he had talked about faking his death in the months before. Yes, the evening was not alive with thrills. Bob Zmuda, Andy's best friend, and the organizer, did a little on-stage interview show that was sorta weirdly out of place in the big House of Blues, followed by four stand ups, who were fairly funny, but nothing out of the ordinary.

This was followed by the most gossip worthy part of the night, but the most hard to watch for the people there forced to stand up in the overheated back of the HOB: a 90 minute film from the set of Man on the Moon, featuring Jim Carrey who decided to become Andy Kaufman for the duration of the film, tormenting the rest of the cast and crew, making their lives miserable.

After Zmuda and Andy's ex, Lynn Marguelis shot the thing, Carrey's management realized it made him seem insane and ridiculous and refused to give clearance for it to be shown, until Zmuda ran into Carrey a couple months ago, and got him to agree to let them show it once at this party. Which is too bad, because it wasn't the right setting for it at all. Especially as most of the crowd of Kaufman devotees is ambivalent at best about Man on the Moon followed by a Tony Clifton performance, milk and cookies, a wrestling demo, and a 2 AM walk to Andy's old apartment on La Cienga, which had been turned into a little shrine of Kaufman artifacts.

Compared to him coming back from the dead, definitely disappointing, I don't think anyone outside of hardcore fans could've enjoyed it, and they were let down that he didn't show up, so a tough night.

Yes, consolation prizes don't count for much, but there was one thing that perked up the diehards. At 2 AM, it was announced that the show would continue Monday night at Andy's favorite brothel, Reno's Moonlight Bunny Ranch. Dennis Hof (the Ranch owner) was there and announced that all who show up Monday night with a ticket, will get a free round with a prostitute there, on the house. That lifted a few spirits.

And another report:

It was kinda lame. I arrived at 7:30 (the time the tickets said the doors would open.) There was a decent sized line that stretched up to the front of the HoB. Not too intimidating. But we remained in that line for almost 2 hours! What the fuck? There was a fake, thin Tony Clifton walking by the line and a bizarre masked death-clown hanging around out front. By the time we got in the show had already started. Only 2 of the 3 bars were operating inside. Andy Dick was there as well as Paul Rudd. The whole thing seemed poorly planned and awkward. The comics were pretty standard. Nothing too experimental or unusual there. Then they closed the bar (11pm) and started showing this movie. It was a doc starring Jim Carrey about the making of "Man on The Moon!" I was disappointed. I was pretty sure that Andy wasn't coming back from the dead that night. But after the show I couldn't really remember what he looked like or what his material sounded like. Maybe someone else can give you a less jaded picture of it. I saw one guy there wearing a shirt that said: "If Andy doesn't show tonight, I'll kill him."

I mean, how fucking cool whould it have been to have woken up this morning to the news that Andy Kaufman had risen from the dead and faked his death?