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Welcome to Literally... You know who I am. Well, let's hope so at this point. We're very far into the season. Andy Richter. I mean, he's a funny, funny feller. I record these intros a lot of times after I've done the interviews. This is one of them. And I think this is a very unexpected where this conversation goes. To put it mildly, and if you have any interest...
In the late night wars, Conan versus Leno, and the Tonight Show hangs in the balance. This is the podcast for you. So without further ado, let's get cracking. This is the first time I haven't seen you separated by Conan or somebody. No, yeah, he and I were a package deal for a number of years. I'm sorry for that. That's okay. That's okay. It was great. How are you? How's things? How do you like podcasting?
I love it. I thought I would like it because I always liked being on them. Yeah. And then, you know, we're...
you know, into the second year of it. And I haven't done like 70 yet, but I don't know. I can't even count anymore. And I love it. And I find that like there's sort of two types of interviews. One where it's somebody that I, you know, know like you and we've had interactions and stuff. And then it's people I've never met before. Yeah. And they're both really super different, but
Totally different gears, but really fun. Really, really fun. Yeah, it is. It's I mean, it's not anything, you know, I sat next to interviews for many years, but it wasn't anything, you know, that I set out like I want to interview people. But then, you know, I decided to do the podcast that I do. And it's you know, it's it is it's fun. It's like, you know, and I I
pick the people that I talk to. So how do you pick them? I mean, other than just pin the tail, like I like to put their names up on a wall and throw a dart and wherever the dart lands, those are the people that I have on the show. Yeah. Wow. I'm glad. Isn't that cool? Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad it like didn't land on Richard Karn or somebody else. Yes. Or Judy Karn for that matter. Or Judy Karn. Yeah. Whichever.
I pick them by the – well, some of them I say, hey, let's get that person on. And then other times they pitch me people and I go, yeah, sure, that would be a fun conversation. Or I go, eh, no, that'll be boring. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here. It's not often I get somebody who's put in the reps that you have, you know, interviewing around interviews. Yeah. You sat next to Big Red for many, many years. Yes. You know, and –
What would you say to somebody who was just starting their career as an interviewer? Oh, let me rephrase that. What would you say to someone who was just starting their career as a celebrity interviewer? Oh, you mean interviewing celebrities or celebrity interviewing other people? Ooh, now you're confusing me. See, you're smart. And let's go with just someone just interviewing celebrities. Okay. Well, first of all...
I would say, you know, there's the obvious thing of like, treat them, you know, don't treat them like they're any different than anyone else. But that's bullshit because they are different than other people. They need much more smoke blown up their rear ends. You do have to indicate some kind of notion of like, well, I'm so lucky to have you fill in the blank here. So you do have to do a little bit of that. But.
If it's all that, it's gross. So the main thing is listening. You've got to listen. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But in terms of being deferential to the stars and everything like that, Letterman made a career of being a dick mostly to stars. Yes. Yes.
Well, A, he's a genius. Right. And B, he was just being himself and he was just doing what his instincts told him to do, which the world was ready for that after, you know, years and years and years of celebrity interviews that were sort of fawning PR horseshit. Oh, have you ever seen a Merv Griffin interview recently? I mean –
I've seen more Mike Douglas because. Oh, well, also, I mean, those two and God bless the departed. They were and they were very nice men. I did both their shows and they were super, super nice. And in fact, I did their shows when I was very, very young and they were mentions to have me on and treated me great. But man, you look back on that. And my favorite is Merv Griffin's like fawning, like, ah, I see. Yeah, yeah.
I don't know that anyone ever thought about, like, does anyone want to see this? You've been doing this a long time. So have I. I you ever have things in your career or your life that happened years ago? But so much has gone on and you look back and I go, wait a minute. Did that happen? Or was it something that was pitched to me and I didn't do it? Or I don't know. Did you play Bartman, Steve Bartman and my show, The Lion's Den?
Yes, but I only saw you briefly because I was a B-plot. Okay. Yeah. So after The West Wing, my next show was The Lion's Den. Yes. And I got a- L-Y-O-N.
Yeah, don't you get it? See? And you were lying. I was lying in wait for the drama that was to come. And I play, it was sort of like a John Grisham, you know, character-driven, you know, lawyer show. Yeah. And it was pretty good, certainly not great, but pretty good. And the cast, I was really, really happy with. We discovered, I hired Kyle Chandler,
Before he was anybody. Yeah. Elizabeth Mitchell before Lost or any of her stuff. David Krumholtz before Numbers or any of his stuff. Matt Craven, who is great, has always been great. And I feel like I'm going to... Oh, and gosh, the head of the stuff who's been on Grey's Anatomy now forever, who's the head doctor. I have never seen a second of that show. So... Well...
After I turned it down, I never watched it. I don't believe in being on hits. Yeah. It's beneath you to watch that crap. Yeah. I'm surprised you watch anything that you're not in.
Well, there isn't much. So so we do the lion's den. It's after the West Wing and there's a lot of focus on it. I remember coming home from the the upfronts where you go to New York and you announce the schedule and it's all very fancy and all the buyers are there. And Warren Littlefield, the great president of NBC through all of the glory years, tightened the legend who is had.
moved on to other things. And that was a producer walked up to my seat and said, Oh, I see that they put the lion's den on it Sunday at 10 PM. Woof pride of the fleet. And that phrase made me super nervous. First of all, it was weird pride of the fleet, but, um, so the pride of the fleet, you know, it can go one of two ways. It can, it can end up being the queen Mary or the Titanic was the pride of the fleet. Yes. Yes.
So you just don't know. Yeah. No one ever knows anything. No, you don't know anything. And so it debuted and it debuted to the it was the first year that network viewership began its precipitous decline that continues to this day. Every year we know you could lose almost 30 percent of your numbers a year. That's accepted now. People know it.
This was the first year it happened. Uh-huh. So people were like, oh, this show's in trouble. Yeah. From the jump. And meanwhile, I think our ratings were like, we had like 14 million people a night watching. Which would be a mind-blowing success nowadays. That's the people, yeah, that's like the Olympics now. Yeah. So to put that in perspective, everybody was panicked and we were scrambling to do anything to inject some...
into the show. And it was the year of the Chicago Cubs finally getting almost to the World Series. And, you know, there's the fly ball and the ninth. And walk me through, and we'll get to why this all happened, but walk me through
that inning just for people who may have forgotten about it or aren't baseball fans because you're a huge Cubs fan yeah and I don't I don't remember who they were playing which is like I mean I should I but it's me neither but it's irrelevant but yeah that's just that's not about my baseball fandom that's about my broken brain yes um but they were there was a fly ball they were
One out away. Yeah, one out away from ending the game. From going to the World Series. Yes. One out away from going to the World Series, breaking the curse that's been forever, and there's a...
This is it. Oh, I remember now. So this is it. It's a lazy fly ball down the outfield line, drifting foul, but catchable. The Cub runs over to get it. He's right at the stands. He reaches up to get it, and a fan reaches out into the field and catches the ball. Yeah. The player would have caught it. They would have gone to the World Series. Instead, the batter is still alive. Yes.
He hits a routine ground ball into the infield, which is booted for an error. Yep. The inning continues. The Cubs lose. They don't go to the World Series. Yeah. That fan had to be protected from being torn limb for limb. Yeah. Steve Bartman. Yeah, I think he, I believe he changed his name too. Oh, he had to. Had to go like incognito.
But I mean, you do sort of feel for the guy, but also, come on, what the fuck? And also he had this particularly great look where he had like a bad Walkman on. He was like the cover of Dork magazine. And so we decided to do it was all over the news and we decided on the show to do a story about a
That situation and then the fans, I think, were going to sue him. I was hired as the Bartman alike. And was that was Lion's Den? Did they ever specify the geographic like what city it was in or was it like fake city? I think it might have been fake city USA. Yeah, because it was.
I was Bartman, and the reason that I came to the lion's den to talk to Matt Craven and David Krumholz, who were doing a good cop, bad cop thing on me, was that the newspaper, which in Chicago terms would be like the Chicago Tribune, had printed my home address and phone number, which is just bonkers.
But I had come to the lines then to sue the newspaper because the newspaper had endangered my family, which I mean, of course they did. And like what kind of what like I could try that case like I could represent them, of course, like the newspaper can't print your address and phone number. The judge would be like, I agree. Here's a zillion dollars. That's probably why the show got canceled. If those were our cases.
No, but it was, I mean, Matt Craven was the good cop. Krumholz was the bad cop. And at one point, you know, they're doing sort of the intake interview with me. And Krumholz is steaming because he's been a fan of this team forever. And he finally goes like, why did you do it? Why did you do it? And my line, and it was one of the hardest lines I've ever had to deliver was,
Because I'm not used to, I just, I can't, you know, like real emotion, delivering real emotion feels like the most ridiculous clown suit. And I had to say, because I thought if I caught that ball, my kid would think that I hung the moon, which is like such a TV writer line. Like nobody fucking says, my kid would have thought I hung the moon. Nobody talks like that. Do you know who says hung the moon all the time? Who?
Aaron Sorkin, and the guy who wrote On the Lion's Den is...
was Aaron Sorkin's protege, Kevin Falls. So I now, when you tell me that, I know I play that up the writer family tree. Blame Aaron Sorkin for that. Yeah, we did a DNA test on that line. Now, meanwhile, listen, just full disclosure, I think Aaron Sorkin hung the moon. So it's all good in the hood. Right, right. But you know, so we were on the bubble. They were ready to cancel us. That episode had been, it was done.
Your story wasn't in it. There was no, there was no Bartman story. Nothing had nothing to do with it. And we're like, I know we can break the episode open. We can go shoot some shit on the side. We'll create this thing. Andy Richter is going to be in it. That's really cool. We'll put it in the episode. We'll send it to the network and they won't cancel us. Yeah. Because literally Bartman happened on, I want to say a weekend game.
And we shot this next week to air the following week. Like no one can turn around network television and be that not even Dick Wolf with his rip from the headline shit can do that kind of stuff. And I remember getting a phone call. They're saying, cause I was also the executive producer. The network has seen the episode. They're on the phone. I was like, here we go. Fuck yeah. This is great. They want to give you the keys to Hollywood.
No, I got on the phone. They just canceled us. I got on the phone. There's a guy you're shutting down. Oh, my goodness. So that episode, did that never make it to air? It never aired. Wow. I don't think it ever aired. And then and then what they did, and this has never happened to me in my career. They canceled the show and made me kept shooting it. Yes. So we had a 13 episode order. They canceled us, I think, around episode eight.
So I, we, they, and by the way, never explained to us why we had to keep shooting. Right. But maybe they were going to sell it in foreign territory. Who the hell knows? Yeah. Financials. I never understood it. But the good news was.
No one paid any attention then. And we turned my, and it was a traditional generic leading man, heroic. And once we were canceled, we were like, I know let's turn your character into a psychopathic murderer. And we did. Oh my God. Really? And yes, we did. Oh, that's fantastic. And the show ends the last episode, which I've never seen, but every once in a while I'll get an email from,
Yeah. Where it clearly has aired. It ends with me calling Kyle Chandler into my office. And the whole show had been predicated on finding out who killed my mentor. Right. Who killed my mentor? The whole, it was threaded through the entire series. Yeah. So, um, he realizes that I killed my mentor and that I have, I'm a, um, I'm a paranoid schizophrenic because he discovered my medicine.
And he comes in to tell me, and I'm eating a steak in the conference room late at night. And he tells me, he says he's going to go to the police. And I walk over eating a steak and stab him with the steak knife in the heart. Go back, eat another bite, walk to the open doors and throw myself off the top of the building. And that's the end of the show. Oh, man. Insane. Insane.
That is really fantastic, though, that you guys did that.
Like, see, that's and it's it's crazy for someone to not release that under those circumstances. It's the it is mental. Yeah. We just burned the place to the floor. I get it. It's it's nerve wracking to spend a bunch of money on a TV show and be responsible for it when you're not really responsible for it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like you're just hiring somebody to make this TV show and it's going to be air quotes your TV show because you shepherded it through and.
So, yeah, I get that that's sort of nerve wracking. And I also feel like if it were up to me to program a network, there'd be six people watching and everyone else would be like, what is this weird combination of Antiques Roadshow and Columbo? Yes. No one would want to see what I want to watch. But I do think it is amazing to me how they –
They hire talented people. I liken it to – and I said this on my podcast the other day with Tim Meadows –
It's like if there's a restaurant that opens in your town and you see that it's coming and you're like, oh, that sounds good. And then it opens and you see people going in and then it quickly fills up with people and it's busy all the time. You read a good review of it. Your friends tell you, yeah, this place is really good. So you think, okay, fine. You make a reservation. You go there. You sit down.
You order your food off the menu, and then you run back to tell the chef how to cook it. You, like, grab his hand as he tries to put salt in and go like, no, no, no. Are you sure you really want to put salt in there? And it's like, yeah, he's the goddamn chef. He knows what he's doing. And you have all this information backing up that he knows what he's doing, and yet you think you're going to be a better chef than the chef. And I just...
cannot understand how that works. All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm gonna leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.
Tell me about Andy Richter Controls the Universe. That was your first show, correct? Yes, that was. I left the Conan show...
In 2000. And I just, I'd been there seven years and I just was antsy. I wanted to be an actor. So I missed acting and I missed storytelling. And also I was young. I didn't have any kids. So I could afford to be dissatisfied. I should try and trade up and see what I can do. You know, and that was basically it. I thought, yeah, let's, you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So, yeah.
I said, yep, I'm going to go. I gave like a year and a half, literally like a year and a half's warning and came out to LA and there was going to be a show for me. So they, you get set up. I'm sure you've been on a thousand arranged dates, you know, with, with creatives who are going to tell you something. And I'd been making TV comedy, pretty good TV comedy for seven years at that point.
and been making comedy generally for over 10 years. And it was amazing to how many writers I met who treated me as if I had just been born. Like if I was still wet, you know? You know, like lots of pronouncements about... There was one couple, it was a pair that I met. And one of them was going like...
The key to comedy is that the lead character wants something. They're missing something. They want something. And I was like...
I don't know about that. And they're like, no, no, think about it. I mean, virtually every... And I was like, I would think about it. I'd be like, Archie Bunker. Archie Bunker wasn't missing anything. He just was trying to live his life. And all these people kept getting in the way. So I guess he was missing peace and quiet. No, no, that's not... And I'd be like, Mary Tyler Moore. I mean, she wasn't bereft of anything. She...
had an exciting new life and lots of challenges and full of crazy, you know, I mean, just being talked to, talked down to like that. But, you know, that happened. But I met up with a guy named Victor Fresco, who is an incredibly talented, hilarious writer. And he had this idea for a show called
in which he called, uh, like that had like an untrustworthy narrator. So basically it would be told by a narrator, uh,
with flights of fancy sort of, you know, like that. So, you know, he'd tell us, say like, and then this happened. Well, actually, wait, that didn't happen. Here's what really happened. So you get to back up or, and, you know, and it just was a great gimmick to be able to sort of visualize flights of fancy, like I said, you know, and, and the guy was, and we made him a writer. So he was, you know, it was all part of his creative process. Um,
And then it was just kind of basically an office comedy, which at the time from the get go was a problem because the people at Fox were like offices will never work. No one ever watch a show about the office. Fox comedies. Fox comedies are about families.
And we were like, well, these people are sort of a family, right? You know? And it was weird when they said it because I was like, oh, yeah, right. I guess that's true. Yeah, all Fox. I'd never thought of it. So obviously it didn't matter that much, but it was not going to work. And also, too,
We were – the people that developed the show and then what they call the current execs, once we were purchased and into regular – like onto the regular schedule. Because we were mid-season replacement twice. We had two seasons, but we were – they were like shortened little seasons both times. We had great people up to – Gail Berman was in charge of –
Sure. The studio at that point, I believe. And she then went on to run everything. But there were still some men above her who...
I they they they didn't they didn't get the show. They didn't like the show. And it's because of the lack of what I what I refer to as exploding titty, which is just like explosions and titties. Because the show that they were really pushing was one with.
I think it was like some kind of mod squad-y kind of thing. And I believe maybe even McG directed the show. It might have been a McG show. I'm having such an early 2000s-like heebie-jeebie-
Yep. Tingles all over my body. Yeah. So that was what they were really into was that. Because also at the same time, as we were, oh no, it wasn't at the same time. Because then the next thing that I did was Quintuplets, which was a show for Fox again, because Andy Richard controls the universe got canceled. But it was a good show though. I thought it was a very good show and I thought it had an excellent cast. And
And that's like 85% of it is the alchemy of casting and making sure that you get a group of people. We were kind of just starting to hit our stride. It takes a few to sort of figure out, well, for everyone to figure out who they are and what they do best, but also for the writers to figure out what everybody can do. Like they figured out like a couple of the people in,
in the show were way better actors than the writer ever gave them writers ever gave him credit for. And the writers figured that out. And we're like, Oh, we can give this person a lot more stuff to do. Um, and then it all just vaporized. It was just, it was just,
It's a bummer. The next show I did, Quintuplets, was just, I just was an actor in that. That actually went on for a season. That for a long time was like the most lucrative thing I ever did because it was the actual full 22 episodes. But then that got canceled. And it really does feel, as much as you can sort of galvanize yourself against rejection by being in this business for a while, it is a unique thing to be rejected by America. Right?
And you can tell yourself, and you are absolutely right to tell yourself, look, there's a dozen other things in front of the actual quality of the show that decide whether or not it goes or whether it doesn't go. There's politics, there's flaky cast members, there's showrunners that rub people the wrong way, all kinds of things that can go wrong before whether or not
It's just pure outright rejection of you. But...
Tell yourself, you know, you can tell yourself that, but it's hard to not feel like, well, they put me out there and America went, eh, that's always kind of like a little lump of shit that you get to carry around with you. Well, I know because, you know, Lorne Michaels, and it's been a number of episodes since I've imitated Lorne and I think we're overdue. Yeah. I'm reminded of walking through the Paramount lot with Lorne when we were making Wayne's World and Al Franken.
Before he was a politician, people, there was a moment when Al Franken, more than a moment, where he was a noted comedian. And Al pulled up on his bicycle in full makeup of his brand new show that was about to come out where he played like a newscaster or something. Yeah. Late Line. Late Line. Yeah. And they had a nice conversation. Then Al cycles off. And I go, Lorne, what do you think? You think Late Line is going to work? He goes, Rob, I think America voted on Al in 1977. Yeah.
He is a quotable MF-er, that is for sure. Isn't he, though? He says a lot of really, a lot of good stuff. And you know, it's like when I say that, you just know he said it. You're like, there's no way Rob Lowe made that story up because it's too Lorne. He really is like way more normal than people give him credit for. I mean, he definitely lives a weird life. His best friends are like Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger and things like that.
No, but Lorne used to say things like he would come by our Christmas because he was executive producer of our show, which was kind of a hilarious joke because I think he was there on our premiere night and then never came back. Had an office on the sixth floor where our studio was for like three or four years and never once set foot in it.
But he would come to like the Christmas party that we had in the studio and he came and he said, oh, Andy, you're still on the show, I see. You know, which is, and I even told him, I was like, you're the one that should fucking know. It's your job to be in charge of this thing. But he, one of the best things he did, and I know this is on purpose, the debut of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, which is somewhere in 1993, September something, I think, in 1993. Yeah.
Um, we finished the show. We'd done two weeks of test shows. So there was all this buildup. We did the show. We're going to be on TV. There's an after party down the street, but I go up to my office and on my desk is a box from Tiffany's and you open it up and it's this really nice heavy desk clock at with, you know, like late night with Conan O'Brien and then the date engraved on it. And there was a note that said,
To Andy from Lorne, it's been a pleasure working with you.
Which everybody got that same note. And so everybody got to experience, oh, fuck, I'm fired as a congratulations. Yes, I'll fuck with them a little bit. That's so also the days when there was people giving out Tiffany clocks. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Like 120 of them or something. It was a lot of Tiffany clocks. I remember the premiere of the show. I remember where I was. I remember watching it.
I remember the whole thing. I remember having a conversation with Lorne because we were very close at that point in both of our lives. And he was like, I'm thinking of giving Conan a show. And I was like, wow, Conan. Yeah. I knew Conan from the writing staff. Yeah. Because you know what? You know, the hosting, he'll figure it out. He won't figure it out. Whatever. But at least, you know, the writing will be good. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And there again, I don't know if it was genius or just, all right, you do it. Because he had been given the job of finding a host. And Conan, I think, I think Lorne's idea was that Conan would be the writer of it. And Conan said, I don't want to write it. I want to host it. That process took a while, but I think it was just Lorne going, well, all right. And then that was kind of his job of finding Letterman's replacement was done because-
Conan stepped up and said, no, I would like to do that. It's ballsy. Yeah. And the way Conan tells it, it's more sort of, oh, shucks, I was just sitting here kicking my heels over on the park bench at the Simpsons. And this fellow pulled up in a fancy car and said, get in. And it's not that way. He was he definitely he wanted that job. He's talked about how he knew he wanted to perform, but he knew he wasn't an actor. So he had to figure out what am I?
And he figured it out, you know. Well, I'll say. Yeah. All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.
Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. I was on the last week of the show when there was that awful, awful, awful, painful, weird controversy with Leno. Yes. Here's my memory. My memory was I'm doing an interview with Conan. It's three days before it's over. Literally, it was one of the last years. And behind every camera was...
were eight to 10 lawyers. I'm not kidding. Yeah. And Conan would get up at the commercial breaks and talk to the lawyers and come back ashen. If you can imagine Conan ashen face. Yes, I can. And then he would talk to me, but like he was, his mouth was moving, but his eyes weren't there. Yeah. And it was really, really gnarly. It was weird. I mean, the short history of what happened was in...
Well, it would have been about 2003, 2004. Conan was doing very well. I think he hosted the Emmys and Fox threw a bazillion dollars at him and said, come over here and do a talk show. And it was the kind of deal where even if it lasted two nights, he would have gotten a bazillion dollars. And he went to NBC and said,
Or NBC came to him and they were, he said, you know, I have this offer on the table and NBC said, well, we can't give you that kind of money, but how about in five years we give you The Tonight Show? Because by that time, in five years...
Jay will be ready to retire and you can take over for Jay. And Conan said, okay, like wanting to be, you know, like a team player and not rush off and chase money. Okay. And having the legacy of The Tonight Show. Yes, exactly. I don't know how much it mattered to him before he was the host of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. But I think after he was the host of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, the notion of being the host of The Tonight Show changed.
Became a real tangible thing. Yeah. So five years went by. It's all lining up to Conan doing the Leno show. And Jay does not... Jay is, you know, is a very...
Tenacious person. Like the guy wears the same, literally the same clothes every day. He has like 50 denim shirts, 50 blue jeans, and then 50 like red wing shoe, like shop shoes. And that's what he wears all the time. The guy does not have a lot of room in his brain other than being on stage, telling jokes, being Jay Leno.
He had clawed and fought to get the Tonight Show job. And even though, you know, Conan is coming along and I guess Jay had probably had it at that point. I'm going to say, well, 15, 15 years. Yeah. Something like that in that neighborhood. He doesn't, he's not going to let it go. So he starts putting up a stink. NBC, NBC,
doesn't choose where it just, it comes to a certain point where they, you have to choose. You promise something to Conan. You want Jay. You're going to have to tell one of them to get out, but no, they chicken shit their way into Jay being on for an hour before the local news, which was dismal because Jay outside of the container of the tonight show is
It was kind of the – in my opinion, the thinness of his show was laid bare outside of the kind of just the tradition of where The Tonight Show was and the institution that it was. Right. So he's on at 10.
We're on the – we take over The Tonight Show. Conan asked me to come back and I was very happy to go back to making daily television because I had just – I had been through developing things and all the bullshit of developing things and people – the liars and the madness of it. And also too, I –
I missed making TV that was on that night, which is a very unusual thing. You know, most people that work in comedy, they write something. It might not be on for a year and a half, especially if it's animation. Right. So I got to think of things on the way to work and put them on TV that night. And that's tremendously exciting. And for my short attention span, it's perfect.
We got on. Jay wasn't going anywhere. Jay's ratings were terrible. Our ratings were terrible. But the real problem was that the local news ratings were awful. The local news ratings dropped off the face of the earth.
And that's where the network makes their real money because they get all those ad dollars. So they got a strong NBC 10 o'clock show and they got a strong tonight show. They're just going to be raking in free cash because NBC doesn't get a taste of that money. Whereas
10 to 11 and 1130 on NBC. That's all NBC's money. So they were furious and they were saying, you know, something's got to get fixed. Who knows whether they were saying put Jay back or whatever. The compromise that was reached was that Jay was going to go on at 1130, do a half an hour, and then we would be the Tonight Show, but we would come on at midnight. Right.
And that was when Conan said, they're just canceling us slowly. He said this would be the death of a thousand cuts. And he was right.
So Jay got the Tonight Show back and we left and, you know, and then Conan got to we went on tour. What was the name of the tour again? It's genius. It was the legally prohibited from being on television tour. Because you couldn't. Conan couldn't be on TV for a year. Yeah, he literally not anywhere. He couldn't be on. Barbara Walters couldn't interview him. He couldn't be on TV anywhere. So we went on tour, which was really fun.
And then he got an offer from TBS and he got to own the show, which he never would have gotten to do at The Tonight Show. And he got to do the show however the hell he wanted, which he never would have gotten to do on The Tonight Show. So it worked out OK. Oh, I'll do you one better. I'm a firm believer that all of it works out more than OK. Yeah, yeah. For everybody in life. You just may not be –
Able to see that at any given time. I mean, it would have been nice to been the sidekick on the Tonight Show for 10 years. I mean, I probably have my own line of barbecue grills or something. In terms of being in television comedy and being a comedian, I would not have done it any other way. Just in terms of the work that I got to do and that I got to do for an extended period of time with really great
big-brained, hilarious, silly, silly people. So just lots of love and lots of satisfaction, and a show that I think is, in comedy terms, our show is the funniest show that's ever been in Late Night. And I just, and I stand by that. I love David Letterman, but
Our show is the funniest one. It's just in pure funny. Absolutely. We win hands down. Oh, well, agreed. I think I read a quote. He's like, they never had a robot pimp. Yeah, exactly. Now, let me ask you this, though. If you'd have been the host on the Tonight Show, in the second chair on the Tonight Show, would you have ever been drunk routinely like Ed McMahon? No, I would not have. I...
Although there were a couple times and like over the years where we had drinks on the show and I had a couple of drinks and started and felt a little, as my mom would say, tipsy by the end of the show. And I would say 80% of those were Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart, she is a heavy pour. She would...
She would, you know, like, come on, guys, have another one. Like, I remember there was like some whiskey sour that she made. And then in the commercial break, like it was delicious. And I kind of like mine had maybe a third left. She said, oh, you're in the commercial break. Maybe another one. So three questions. How did you how did you come up with the idea? Oh, I just I it was the kind of conversations that I like to have during the
the commercial breaks during the Conan show. I'd like to ask people like, hey, how is that job? What is it like working on that show? Do you really like that movie? I'm interested in kind of the real stuff. The showbiz stuff is fun, but I like to find out the facts about people and then, you know, because then it colors in the picture of them. And so the three questions that I came up with to form it are, where do you come from? Where are you going? And what have you learned?
And I kind of feel like that covers what you might cover in therapy, which is kind of – I've been in therapy a long, long time and I really have found it useful and probably life-saving. Same, same.
So that kind of process and talking in that way, thinking about what you've done, thinking about how it's affected you and what you want to be in the future, it's a very useful process that I thought would be easy and fun to do and fun.
Funny, but also sort of like a little bit more than funny. So good. Mr. Richter, this has been great. I mean. Yeah, it's been fun talking to you. I haven't seen you in a while. I mean, I feel like you hang the moon. I mean, Andy Richter does not disappoint. He just doesn't. He's a funny, thoughtful, interesting dude. I hope you had as much fun as I did. Ah, the light's flashing on the big red phone in the lowdown booth. Let's go over and see what we got cooking.
Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep.
Rob Lowe. Morgan's from Tulsa, Oklahoma, which I know you know well from filming The Outsiders here. By the way, you should come back for a visit soon. But I wanted to ask you about the jewelry you're wearing in your Literally with Rob Lowe podcast cover image because I'm just going to say it's a lot of jewelry. I'm counting five bracelets, a ring, and some type of pendant. Okay.
And I was wondering, what's the story there? You're clearly a jewelry guy, but do those pieces have meaning to you? What's the deal? Thanks. Bye.
Well, thank you for that question. And it's my attempt to be the contemporary white Mr. T. And I thought that was a good sort of icon to follow. No, it's it's the answer is much more simple. My wife, Cheryl Lowe, has a company called Cheryl Lowe Designs, and it's sold in Neiman Marcus and a lot of wonderful places and also online. And she is one of the top designers.
jewelry designers in the United States. And those are all pieces that she designed for me. And her sort of design ethos is sort of very sort of rock and roll, you know, like
the kind of like bling that is like legitimate bling, but you can wear it all the time. Some of your, some of your bling, you only want to wear at night and you can't really wear it all, all the time. Her stuff, it's mostly women's by the way. Um, but she has a line called Mr. Low. Gee, I wonder who that is. And, um, those are Mr. Low items you're seeing there. Um, so if you like them, you can actually buy them yourself. And also I know never fight with, with the wife. If she says, um,
dress you know dress like mr t i'm gonna do it so thank you thank you for noticing uh next week um very special guest so wait for thursday hopefully you're getting these things um hopefully you've subscribed so they just show up in your life but if you're seeking these out individually just subscribe come on get with it anyway um see you next time on literally
You have been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Our talent bookers are Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn. And music is by Deventory Bryant.
Make sure to leave us a rating and review, and we'll see you next week on Literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.
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