Man on the Moon (1999) - 27 mistakes

Revealing: In the David Letterman scenes, Paul Schaeffer's head is shaved, which he just did recently (maybe within the last year to year and a half).

Factual error: In George Shapiro's office, the picture of Bob Newhart also includes Mary Frann, who didn't co-star with Bob until the mid 80's.

Continuity: Early into the movie Andy is taking part in a meditation session. There is a wide shot of the whole group, which is seated in four concentric circles. Andy is sitting in the second circle, with two more circles behind him. When the camera angle changes to a front shot on Andy the two people behind him have changed, and the outer circle has disappeared.

Factual error: When Andy first appears on SNL, the announcer says "Welcome back to Saturday Night Live." It wasn't called Saturday Night Live when it first started.

Continuity: When the ABC President is told about the "problems with the technical requirements on the Kaufman special" Andy is yelling "It's my special. I have creative control." To the right of this shot, you can see the actor who plays the ABC president waiting, he is standing right by a blue marker and some steel beams. Three shots later, the ABC President enters the area. (This is in chapter 8 on the DVD.)

Continuity: When Lawler smacked Carrey off his chair in the David Letterman scene, the hit was so hard that it made Carrey's mouth bleed (you have to look very carefully). When he stands up and is shown close up again, the blood is gone. (Incidentally, the reason Lawler hit him so hard was that Carrey constantly stayed in character throughout filming, and taunted him relentlessly. Lawler decided he'd had enough.)

Continuity: When Shapiro comes to see Tony Clifton for the first time the MC goes to get him from backstage. Watch the guitar player on the right: first he is holding his instrument with his fingerboard pointing up, then in a wide shot horizontally, then again up as before.

Continuity: After he gets expelled from his spiritual retreat Andy is seen in his bed, with his body tightly tucked under the blanket and only the head sticking out. Then Lynne comes, stretches out next to him (on top of the blanket). Then it cuts to a close up of both of them and Andy puts his arm around her - impossible the way they were lying before.

Continuity: When Shapiro meets Tony Clifton for the first time Tony is eating spaghetti, sucking them in in a rather gross manner. When the camera angle changes you see the same spaghetti disappear in his mouth again.

Factual error: Lorne Michaels didn't orchestrate the phone-in poll that banned Andy from SNL, as he wasn't SNL producer from 1980-85. Short-term SNL producer Dick Ebersol was behind it.

Continuity: In the scene where Andy invited the old lady to dance and she falls, apparently dead, she has both her legs fully extended. When she's about to "come back to life", her legs are crossed and she stretches them to get up.

Continuity: After his rather sad nursery rhyme performance at a small club Andy walks up to Mr. Besserman, the club owner, who is sitting with his elbows rested on the counter. When the camera angle changes he sits with his side to the counter and his hands in the lap.

Factual error: In one scene supposedly set in the late '70s (Andy was about to get/just got "Taxi"), Andy is playing Ms. Pac Man. I may be wrong here, but didn't Ms. Pac-Man come out in 1982 or 1983?

Continuity: In the office Kaufman's agent tells him that he has a gig with a major network - he doesn't say what network - yet Kaufman tells Danny DeVito that ABC has give him what he wants.

Continuity: On his first entrance in 'Taxi' Tony Clifton does a few dance steps on a car. Even though he comes empty-handed (if you don't count the two ladies who are with him) all of a sudden he has a whiskey bottle in his hand, which disappears again in the next shot.

Factual error: David Lettermen didn't wear glasses on T.V in the late 80's.

Continuity: When Lynne steps out of the audience to wrestle Andy, just as they had it planned, Lynne takes off her cowboy hat with her right hand and puts the hat somewhere. When she approaches the wrestling-ring, she not only has the cowboy hat again, but it's in her left hand.

Revealing: When young Andy Kauffman is performing the "Animal Song" for his sister, he mouths the words "Meow meow" along with her. Although one could argue that he was expecting her to say that, how would he know she was going to say the word "meow" twice?

Factual error: In the film, Andy plans the Carnegie Hall gig after learning he has cancer. The actual concert took place in 1979, when Kaufman's popularity was at its highest, not near the end of his life and career (1983-84). (Regardless of the writers' intent when writing the script for this film, it is still a factual error.)

Continuity: In the "Taxi" scene when Tony Clifton appears, the actress playing Andy's girlfriend/wife has pigtails in one shot, then in the next shot her hair is let down.

Factual error: When Andy is in the club with his future manager in the audience, he tells the crowd (in his Foreign Man persona) that he is going to imitate President Carter. After hooking up with his manager, he gets a gig on the first episode of Saturday Night Live, which debuted in 1975. Jimmy Carter wasn't President until 1976.

Factual error: Although tall glasses of milk look better, the milk that was given to the audience members of the Carnegie Hall performance came in 1/2-pint paper cartons.

Other: Tony Clifton comes on the 'Taxi' stage accompanied by two prostitutes. He introduces one as Melonia, squeezes her breasts and asks 'how is our produce department?' The German subtitles read 'production department'.

Factual error: Pyro effects weren't used in pro wrestling until the late 80's. The Lawler/Kaufman match took place around 1983.

Factual error: Andy didn't meet his girlfriend Lynn when he was wrestling women on the Merv Griffin show. They actually met in 1981-82, when his "wrestling career" was dying down (incidentally, if you rent the movie "My Breakfast With Blassie", you actually see Andy meeting, and hitting on, Lynn for the first time. They had never met prior to the filming of their improvised scene. It's pretty funny-rent it!)

Factual error: At Andy's funeral Jerry Lawler's real life wife Stacey "The Kat" Carter can be seen sitting next to him, but the only problem is Andy supposedly died in 1984, and Jerry Lawler's wife would've only been 14 at the time. I don't even think that they met till a couple of years later, yet she's still there and looks to be about 29 or 30 - her current age.

Factual error: In the scene that depicts the infamous Andy Kaufman vs. Jerry Lawler match, the movie has Jim Ross as the play-by-play man for the match. In the actual match it was the ring announcer in the movie, Lance Russell, who was the original play-by-play man, not Jim Ross.