text: Fridays incidents In 1981, Kaufman made three appearances on Fridays, a variety show on ABC that was similar to Saturday Night Live. In the last sketch on his first appearance, the cast were to deliberately break the scene and improvise an argument. Kaufman broke character first, announcing that he "felt stupid" and refusing to say his lines. In response, cast member Michael Richards walked off camera, returned with a set of cue cards, and dumped them on the table in front of Kaufman, who responded by splashing Richards with water. Coproducer Jack Burns stormed onto the stage, leading to a fake brawl on camera before the show cut to a commercial.
  Richards claimed that what was going to happen was known only to him, Burns and Kaufman, but Melanie Chartoff, who played Kaufman's wife in the sketch, said that just before airtime Burns told her, Richards, and Maryedith Burrell that Kaufman was going to break the fourth wall.
  Kaufman appeared the next week in a videotaped "apology" to the home viewers. Later that year, he returned to host Fridays. At one point during the show, he invited Lawrence Welk Show singer Kathie Sullivan to the stage to sing some gospel songs with him and announced that the two were engaged to be married. He then talked to the audience about his newfound faith in Jesus (Kaufman was Jewish), but the scene was a hoax. Later, following a sketch about a drug-abusing pharmacist, instead of introducing Pretenders, he delivered a nervous speech about the harmfulness of drugs while the band stood behind him ready to play. After his speech, he informed the audience that he had talked too long and that the show needed to pause for a commercial break.