Andy Kaufman did not let his contempt for jokes get in the way of being America's funniest performance artist in the late '70s. He did not let his lack of wrestling ability get in the way of wrestling Jerry "The King" Lawler in front of a packed Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis in April 1982. And he's not letting his untimely 1984 death at the age of 35 get in the way of a new tour in 2016.

Thanks to the technology that brought a deceased Tupac to play at the Coachella festival in 2012 and a late Michael Jackson to perform at the 2014 Billboard Awards, Mr Kaufman will play live across the US next year.

According to Alki David, the founder and CEO of Hologram USA, Mr Kaufman and African-American comedian Red Foxx are comedy "icons" who will be shown at venues across the country.

Hologram USA is a venture of Mr David's FilmOn Networks, an online streaming TV platform that has disrupted network television along a series of legal fault-lines. The association with Mr Kaufman - the character actor from Long Island, New York, who loved to disrupt all forms of mass-entertainment - seems apt.

As well as previously recorded routines, Mr David and the Kaufman estate promise simulacra of his characters performing. However, it is difficult to imagine how a canned Mr Kaufman could match his peerless ability in life to get under the skin of other performers and creatively upset audiences.

Thirty years before Sacha Baron Cohen brought his foreign man to America, Mr Kaufman's Foreign Man conquered America's clubs and then, as Latka Gravas, America's number one sitcom, Taxi. Now, nine years after Borat, Mr Kaufman will return from the great beyond to reach the internet generation.