Absolute Proof: Bob Zmuda Not Dead
Yesterday rumors flew around the internet that Bob Zmuda died Friday night at the Bunny Ranch, but Jeffrey Gurian, has comedy covered and has absolute proof. Bob Zmuda is not dead. We trust you Jeffrey, but how about getting a newspaper in that shot next time?
Not only is Bob Zmuda not dead, but he swears he wasn’t responsible for the rumors of his demise.
Tom Rhodes is in town after his 2 month European tour and he’s staying with me in my home.
I went to the Rockers on Broadway annual charity event tonight honoring Cousin Brucie, Frankie Valli and Mickey Dolenz. Tom did a set at Caroline’s and went down to The Cellar. When my event was done I texted Tom and he told me he was down at The Cellar and that Bob Zmuda was there. I hadn’t seen Bob for a few weeks since the Andy Kaufman Awards, for which I was a judge, so I drove over to say “Hi” and Bob laid this story on me.
He asked me if I knew that he died this morning. Zmuda told me that he’s convinced he got “out-Kaufman’ed” by a guy named Fugly The Clown, who was a diehard Andy Kaufman/Tony Clifton/Bob Zmuda fan, who he says put up something on the internet that Bob had died Friday night during a romp at Dennis Hof’s Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada. Of course its all alleged, and I have no idea who is responsible, but that’s what Zmuda told me last night as far as who he thinks is responsible. Bob flew in from South Lake in Tahoe, where he lives, specifically to do a Sirius XM radio show to plug his new book “Andy Kaufman- The Truth, …Finally!” and called his answering machine to get his messages and found like nine messages on his machine. So right away he knew something was wrong.
His first thought was “Who died?” Imagine his astonishment to find out it was him!
Whoever did this also did a mock-up of a Chicago Sun Times story about Bob’s death and since his sister Carol Petersen lives in Chicago she heard about it right away and was crying hysterically thinking that her brother was gone. Bob told me she collapsed in her kitchen. When she finallly spoke to Bob she was very angry at him because she thought that he was behind this in order to promote his book.
Bob said she screamed at him and said, ” This Andy Kaufman hoax shit has to stop. You don’t fuck with family like that! You’re hurting people’s hearts! ”
Bob said it took him a good twenty minutes to convince her he had nothing to do with it. He said he had them track the I.P address of the perpetrator and it led to Fugly The Clown.
Bob said that both Ron Jeremy and Mancow the radio guy both called Dennis Hof in tears thinking that Bob had died. Dennis knew it had to be a hoax, because they said it happened this past Friday night and he would have known if anything like that had happened, but he was reluctant to say anything because he knew that Bob had frequented other brothels, and thought that maybe it had happened at one of the other places, and he didn’t want to mislead anyone.
Bob said at first he thought it might even have been Michael Kaufman who hates his new book, and may have wanted to discredit him, which is why he hired someone to trace the I.P. address. He said that not only does Michael hate it but legendary comic Elayne Boosler hates it so much she called Bob and his co-writer Lynn Margulies “maggots living off Andy Kaufman’s body.”
Bob said the photos here are the first ones taken of him to prove that he is without a doubt alive and well. But he was so overwhelmed with everything going on that he missed his Sirius XM radio show and didn’t even call to tell them. He feels terrible about it and hopes they can re-schedule him to come on again.
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