KKKramer?

We’ve all read about celebrities from Charles Lindbergh to Mel Gibson become infamous because of their racist or anti-Semitic ramblings, but thanks to today’s technology we can all witness these fascinating meltdowns ourselves. If you’re one of the few who have not witnessed Michael Richards’ career self-destruct before your very eyes, make sure you check it out here.

It’s all a shame, really. Like you, I was a big Kramer fan. He was by far the goofiest and most likeable member of the whole Seinfeld ensemble. I’d first seen Richards in a dumb movie called UHF, a Weird Al vehicle that didn’t even become a cult classic. But Richards, playing a dimwitted janitor, was the highlight, using his lean body and bizarre facial contortions for good laughs. Then he had a guest role on Night Court as a defendant who tries to convince Harry Anderson that he’s invisible. His dues finally paid off in the Kramer role he was born to play. I still watch the reruns and even though I’ve seen all the episodes plenty of times, he still makes me laugh. He’s one of the best physical comedians ever – not quite Belushi, but better than Chris Farley.

And now we watch the sad and pathetic racist tirades, all because of him being bothered by a heckler! You’d think someone like Richards would have developed thicker skin after all the years of hard work and obvious rejection that every struggling comic must go through. It also shows how tough it is to be a truly great stand up comedian. Someone like Lenny Bruce or George Carlin, whose talents lie with using language and twisting it to both reflect and belittle societal norms in a humorous way, could have taken “those words” as Richards calls them, and not only made them into a Teflon joke but also gotten the crowd behind the comedian and against the hecklers. Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat character is a current master at this very tricky type of humor. Unfortunately, Richards’ talents lie more with scripted and physical performances, and he was too far out of his element here.

And if the stand up routine sent Richards’ career down in flames, the Late Show mea culpa on Monday night was even more awkward and painful to watch (which is why it was such great television). Richards was obviously still rattled and unprepared for a public apology, and he should have rehearsed his performance with a good publicist beforehand.

The American public tends to forgive its celebrities, but the forgiveness is often dependent on both the celebrity’s stature and what they did wrong. Sexual scandals like Hugh Grant’s, Marv Albert’s and Kobe Bryant’s are quickly forgotten. Drug and alcoholic binges that result in public humiliation are overlooked too, although not as quickly. But when racism or anti-Semitism is involved, the road back is much longer because the transgressions move from self-inflicted wounds to offending a large portion of the population. Fans can quickly become alienated. This is why Mel Gibson tried to spin his anti-Semitic rants into an alcoholic problem. Time will tell if the public will forgive him.

But Richards’ road back will be much more difficult, and not just because he is a smaller star than Gibson. To watch the hipster doofus we all loved as the goofy next door neighbor scream racial epithets, even in botched jest, may have been too much of a character shock for many of us to forget or forgive.