Andy Richter
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Welcome back to Everybody Knows Your Name. Today I am talking to the very funny comedian, actor, and writer Andy Richter. We pass each other pretty much every week in the hallways because we both work hard.

at Team Coco. I'm very excited to sit down with him and learn more than the, you know, hey, how are you? You've loved him for many years from his time on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Tonight Show, and Conan on TBS.

He has a podcast called The Three Questions with Andy Richter. I was a guest. I think I may have bored him. He only asked me two questions. But anyway, more recently, he has been hosting a live SiriusXM call-in show called The Andy Richter Call-In Show. Can't wait for you to meet him. Here he is, Andy Richter. Let's talk about wives for a minute. Okay. Because last night I was, you know, researching you more because you think you know somebody and you really don't.

And I came across photos of Jennifer, your wife. Yes. And I don't know that much about her and I didn't go, you know, research her or something. But I all of a sudden went, oh,

Andy. Yeah. He's the man. Oh, Andy. I look twice at you and people do that to me too. Yeah, yeah. They go, hi, Ted. And then they go, oh, Mary Steenbridge and you're with him. All right. I'll give Ted a second chance. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, no, she's a beautiful woman. And I mean, but I mean, that's sort of... No, it was something else. Because, yeah, she is beautiful. But there's... Anyway, tell me about her and how you met and all of that. We met...

Because I had, you know, I got I split with my wife of 25 years. So I was on my own and and then COVID happened. And, you know, and I did I didn't date a ton, but I did date somewhat. And I, you know, had a couple of different relationships, but ones that that happened.

were for one reason or another, weren't meant to be long lasting. And, uh, and then I finally decided I got to do something to meet somebody. So I'll try these apps because I'm old enough that the notion of trying a dating app, it's,

To me, it's like, oh, that's what losers do, because you'd hear about dating services in the old days. And that was what people did when they didn't have any social skills or the ability to meet anybody. But two seconds after trying and I had tried once I had tried the fancy celebrity one. I've talked about this in different places before.

My friend Nikki Glaser, you have to be recommended to this one called Raya. And it's like for celebrities or, you know, notable people.

And you do, when you go on, you do see, you know, some famous people as you're thumbing through. And Nikki... In your mind, famous losers, right? No, no, no, no, no. Well, I mean, if it's men, it's famous horndogs. And I mean, and I had always heard stories about there were like certain guys that just...

You just, every woman that ever happened to be on there would just, oh, there he is. But I was on, and it was also kind of too soon for me, but I got on there and just was like, I can't do this. I made a profile and I felt so old and I just...

You know, like they want you to pick a piece of music to play underneath it. And I couldn't find it. Oh, my God. And their music was, I didn't, everything that I suggested that was not there because it was all too old. Right. You know, I think I ended up finding, I don't know, Stevie Wonder or something. Kingston Trio. Yeah, right, exactly. You don't have the four freshmen? How dare you? I mean, really, truly, I was on there for about an hour, maybe. Yeah.

So I didn't go on those for a long time. End of 2021, I was like, okay, I'm going to get on these. So I got, and I even did like a Google search basically to say, which is the most grown up dating app. And it seemed to be Hinge. So I got on Hinge.

And I had a very lovely time. And I met Jennifer very quickly. She's a single mom. She had a daughter who was a little less than two at the time, which was not a problem to me. She owned her own business. She has a company that reps directors, mostly for music videos. And she's had this business. She moved to London. She lived in London for 10 years on her own.

Came back here because she wanted to have a child and she's from here originally and had a child on her own. And I just found myself leaving her house and driving home and feeling very, very happy and really feeling surprised at how happy I was. And also really loved the feeling that she didn't really need me. Like I just added value to her life. I did not, I was not like,

filling in holes. You know what I mean? Yes, I do. I wasn't like filling in any red lines. She was in the black in her life. And was that one of the first times that you were with a woman like that? Because I did the same thing. I used to

My mode of seduction was to find somebody's gaping wound and fix it. To an extent, probably. And then when I met Mary, it was like, whoa. Yeah. She has none. Yeah. She doesn't need that kind of part of me that doesn't work that well anyway. Right. It was...

It was amazing. Yeah. And I, I mean, well, and now she needs me, you know, I, and now I, I've done too many chores and I, I, I, you know, I do too many school drop-offs that now she needs me, but you know. How lucky are we? Very lucky. Yeah. Very lucky. I can see it. You're blessed. You have children. I really, really am. And you get to do what you like. I do. The thing that they don't tell you about being alive is that

It takes four or five decades to get the hang of it. And I truly believe that. I do think that, like, you know... I was in my 40s before the lights went off. Yeah. Truly. Yeah. And I've had trouble with depression my whole life, and I just kind of got past that. And, you know, and it's still there, and I'm medicated, and I go to therapy and everything. But I have a handle on that. That seems to be sort of more of my past, and I just...

Really am feeling like I'm living for today and enjoying my life and just trying to be satisfied with what's around me rather than the sort of laundry list of shortcomings that I've assigned myself. Right.

It is a discipline. Gratitude, man. The older I get, because I'm 77 and things start to ache and, you know, life's real. Aging is real. And if I just keep gratitude and going, oh man, you are so fucking lucky. Yeah. You know, I don't know what you do when you prepare, but you kind of binge people for about 24 hours before you sit down and talk to them. Yeah. I watched you, that little clip,

uh, with Chelsea Handler. Uh-huh. And she said something, you know, uh, like about the swimming thing and floating and all of that. And you, you, there was a beat and then you fired back. Yeah. And it made her laugh. So this, I can say that it wasn't me. She loved it. She loved it. But it was like, oh, fuck me. No, fuck you back. Yes. And it was so startlingly, uh,

effortlessly... No, I may be sitting in the sidekick, you know, side of the couch or something, but I'm all over you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, to me, stealth-leading man. And I think it would be amazing for you to do... For real. I'm not trying to fluff you. Because you're a really good actor. Thank you. You know, I had three shows of my own. I was number one on the call sheet, as they say, three times. And I did...

I didn't enjoy it as much as I don't know. I thought I would or I didn't. It wasn't the sort of intoxicating high that maybe I might have thought it was before I did it. And possibly because I had been so used to being number two and had had lots of time to appreciate it.

Like all the benefits of being number two. And especially as they dovetail with my personality and what I like out of life and how I want to spend my time. You know, a big one being like meetings with people I don't want to have meetings with.

Nobody gives a shit about talking to number two from the network or the studio or whomever or advertisers. They're like, yeah, oh, hi, Andy. Bye. But they do want to talk to Conan and not doing those kind of meetings is a blessing. But so, yeah, being number one, it's not and it's nice to be listened to. But the attention I found out the attention I don't even like.

need that. I like attention and I like people to like what I do. But in terms of, you know, the old stories of somebody, you

you know, a second or third character being given a joke that scores. And then in the next run through that joke magically gets in the stars. Yeah. Redistributed to the, to the star. I, uh, that to me is just madness, you know, absolute madness. And if you were the star, you mean it's madness. Absolutely. No, no. It's so stupid. It's the dumbest thing in the world because it's,

they gave that guy the joke or that woman the joke for a reason like it works for that and and just and also aren't you ashamed aren't you just ashamed isn't it that it's so naked that somebody got a cookie and you're like go get that boy's cookie and give me that cookie you know i'm the star i get all the cookies yeah you know jesus christ i learned early on in cheers that

You didn't, you didn't have to have the funny joke. No. It was nice if you were in a two shot with the funny joke. Yes. You know, because then you get the same credit in a way. And I learned that early on, you know, it's like you'd have barely anything to do in an episode because it was ensemble. Sure. And people would come up to you and go, oh my God, you were so good. That was the best show ever. And you were barely in it. Yeah. It doesn't matter. Just be, be,

be in the side, the proscenium arch next to something funny or good or whatever. And you'll get credit. Yeah. When the team wins, you all go to the Super Bowl. You know, I got that from wanting to be a basketball player. Yeah. The team is the thing. And when I, my big kind of,

You know, I did some films, but it was my entry level job was Cheers. And it was so beautifully written and it was so clearly ensemble. Yeah. You could go anywhere in that cast and have that character be the star of the show. Yes. Run the story. And to me, that is. It was pretty amazing. It was. It was. Wall to wall. And then as time went on, the casting got good. You know, even, you know.

They replaced people with solid, solid people. Yes, and because the writing, the story worked. But the satisfaction you get out of passing, you know, you get an assist, which is a very big deal in the NBA. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's a big deal when you set up Conan or you set up somebody and you're, you know, and the joke really works. Yeah. Because you can fuck up a joke by setting it up.

Absolutely. You know, so I love that. I am of the same thing. I like playing the tall guy. I do. But I mean, that doesn't take any homework.

Right. Yeah, yeah. No, but I mean, I like, yes, I'm okay to be quote unquote leading man, but I'm not. I'm a character actor. Yeah. And I'm a part of an ensemble. That's what brings me joy. Yeah. You know, and yes, I like being the talk. Yes, I like being more involved in a script than less. Yes. Because it is more, it does engage you more and you're, I don't know, it's fun. Well, and also if you, from, from, for me personally, I,

um i think i have good taste and i was born with good taste and then i got to work with somebody who completely allowed me into the process of producing create and creating and getting out the door every day a strip show you know which is a talk show you know a sketch show uh and conan

Let me into that process. I didn't just sit there during rehearsal and had him dictate. He would turn to me and say, what do you think? What should we do? And over the years, I got to be pretty good at... Being right, having an opinion, being discerning. Yeah, and also on the spot fixing, you know, this...

Or diagnosis. You know, it's a very triage. It's very medical. Here's a sketch. What does it need? Cut out the middle part and it needs a new ending. You know, just... And then you figure it out. And it's not always...

you know, this is the most brilliant thing ever. A lot of it is, it's not up to our standards right now, but if we make these changes, it's not going to be the best thing we ever did, but it's going to be able to go out the door in a way that we can be proud of and that will work and that will be to our standards. And I got to do that day after day after day for years. So now,

I definitely feel like if you want an opinion on this scene and how it's going to be funny and how it's going to be good and how we can put it up on its feet and get the most out of it, I feel like I have a pretty good point of view in that. And that's why being number one, I feel like,

Let me, let me, you know, I often would joke on the Conan show when I was disagreed with, I'd say like, you guys, you should know, just, just do what I tell you to do. It's going to work out best if you just do what I say, you know. Said in a way that they could laugh at it, but.

It's the truth and you know it. Yes. Part of it is me believing that. And that isn't to say too that I'm a megalomaniac. Everybody can be wrong. And everybody can... And I've learned... That's the other thing you learn from doing a show, especially that's such a high volume. As I... The metaphor I always said, we were...

laying tracks for a train that we could hear coming. So there's not a lot of time to romance any one thing. Just get it down and get it, you know, that's good. Move, you know, now go on to the next thing. But I know plenty of times I, oh, this is a funny idea. Clickety clack. I write it out. I bring it in and everybody's like, yeah, it's okay. You know, do this and do that. And then

And I'm like, I really thought it was really great. But then you get three people you know are really funny to say, it's okay. Then you're like, you know what? I guess, you know, being a believer in democracy, maybe it's just okay, you know? Maybe, you know, maybe my child isn't as beautiful as I think it is. Yeah. I had the reputation on Cheers. If I said, suggested something, pretty much...

this is not self-deprecating humor or false humility. I was dead wrong. And if they did the opposite, if they did the opposite, it would work brilliantly. Here's one of my... Did it continue that way? Did it never change? No, I know. I will tell Mary, Mary said, turn right here. And I'm saying, I'm...

Thank you, but I know it's left. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. You were right. It was right. I just do it. I love being able to have an opinion, and I don't really have that much at stake if it's wrong. I'm okay to be wrong. Right, right. No, that's its own superpower in a way. Here was one of my first obvious ones was,

Cheers, casting, Shelley Long. And I'm going, oh no, not Shelley. No, no, no. That's all wrong. She'd be terrible for that.

And she, you know, right out of the shoot, she became this instant brilliant, brilliant character actor doing a brilliant job. Right. Oops, wrong. And serving this entire thing perfectly. No, I mean, truly, I think this, it sounds like I'm discounting all the other actors, but that first year she put us on the map.

She really did. Did she ever know that you had had that initial... I've said it enough. Yeah, yeah. She may not. Maybe she's never listened to anything I've ever said. I say it as a form of compliment. Yeah. Because my God, she is astounding. Yeah. I loved working with her because it was like we were so different. Yeah. Totally different human beings. Yeah. That when the audience came, it was like a fist fight. Yeah. In a good way. In a good way, you know. Because acting is kind of...

pushing each other energetically around. Yeah. You know, it's like, you wait for the other person to go smack so you can...

You're often running in the world of real reality. Absolutely. You're not making shit up. You know, you're depending on the other person. And you'd hit her and she'd hit you back harder. Absolutely. And often the most interesting things happen in the tension between what seemed to be two opposing forces or two different forces. And that's why, like, for me, too, one of the things about comedy is

The kind of thing that I have always and I think Conan, too, for that matter, that we've always tried to strive for was the tension between what you as the creator or as the joke maker wants and what the audience wants.

Because you can make jokes all day that just tickle you and your, you know, dark-hearted friends, you know, and it just, and it's not going to work. And there's plenty of comedy out there that's kind of like that. It's just like, it's too much. It's too...

Yeah. Too heartless, too just intellectual, too kind of mean and dark and scary, you know, which, and I say this as somebody who has sat in rooms with comedy people my whole life, the shit that makes us laugh is not. Sure, sure. No.

No, no. It is rank. It is bad. You would have been me too'd by every group in the world. People will ask me like, what's the funniest thing Conan's ever said? I said, I cannot tell you because it would ruin us both. But that's also part of the job. And this is for real. You got to go, where's the boundary? Yes. That's it. Yes. But you can't tiptoe up to it. You need to go, boom. Nope. Well, yeah.

Yeah. And it's like, you know, it's also too like it it's like we need the hard stuff to get off, you know, to make it seem, you know, really puerile. It's like we need the hard stuff to really. But then there's you know, we know that there's the good stuff that we put out there that's that's high quality. But.

You can't just put that out there. And you also can't just give the audience what they want. Because if you just give them what they want, then you're, what are you doing? You're just not looking for that. Yeah, you're just a cheap order filler, you know, and you're chasing their sort of,

I don't know, admiration or you're chasing them as opposed to giving them something that elevates everybody a little bit. And surprises. And surprises everybody. That's what you want to be as an audience. You want to be, oh, didn't see that coming. And that's even like, especially comedy with a message. You know, if you want to like kind of get a point across,

I don't think to say it overtly is never as interesting as sneakily putting it inside a sketch, you know, making people think, you know, maybe there is wealth. There is income disparity in a way that, you know, that's not what the sketch was about. The sketch was about like, you know, I don't know, a robot or something, you know, some other nonsense that we used to do.

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Where, you know, how did Andy, the formative years, how did that, can you look back and go, yeah, that was me even then or whatever? Well, all of that. Midwest definitely, I think, is a big part of it. What? What does that mean? Just a politeness, a sensitivity to other people.

a kindness, a neighborliness kind of way, you know, sort of thing. And, and also, you know, I think don't get too big for your britches to kind of, you know, that sort of, there's a humility to it. And part of that humility is there's an innate sort of kindness and otherness about it. That is, you know, my, my great aunt, my aunt Viola, she used to give us really like,

She'd buy from the Lillian Vernon catalog a hundred pens, you know, that you'd get for the printed, you know, the custom imprint. And they were terrible pens that ran out of ink in five minutes. But like they would say things on them. Jesus loves you and so do I, Aunt Viola. And so often her notes are.

to accompany the gifts would just say, others with an exclamation point, love Aunt Viola. As a reminder to you? Yeah, to, you know, a selflessness, a Christ-like selflessness, basically. And there is, you know, and that's, there is something that's beautiful and there is something that's honest and, you know, intentional about that. But then there's also the other side, which is like,

You know, there's also this sort of like self-aggrandizing, you know, the martyry sort of, you know, like I am so involved. You know what? No one is holier than I am because I am so about other people. You just described me. Get a load of me. Seriously, you just described me. And if Mary were sitting here, she'd be rolling her eyes. She calls me her faux F-A-U-S Christ. My faux Christ. Yeah.

Why? Because you're so humble that you're like a superstar of humility? I grew up forced to be that way by my mom. Yeah. You know, she was brilliant. And all the stuff above the line, the positivity as opposed to the negativity, the positivity was real. Yeah. She was astounding, giving, generous. People who were suffering would flock to her for...

you know, console and things like that. She was the real deal. Anything negative, petty, jealous, angry, evil, you know, all of that stuff that's there in all of us, she could not, it was, instead of admitting she was angry, furious or something petty, she'd come down with the flu, you know, you know, it was that much of a thing. So I was taught that,

Phrases like, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. All of that, I was their sensitive little boy. And it took me a long time to realize that

you're doing a silhouette of nice unless you can allow the shit. Yes. The shitty side. Yes, yes. Because then it's a choice. Oh, I can be shitty in this moment or I can be nice. I'm going to choose to be nice. That has value. Yeah. As opposed to the knee jerk. So anyway, your aunt who? My aunt Viola. Tell her to call me. Aunt Viola.

I'm a kindred spirit. Well, yeah, she's long gone, but yeah, yeah. That's okay. I can talk to her because I am Christ-like. I'll give her your number. She'll come to you in a dream and give you some Lillian Vernon pens. But yeah, but that's also combined too with...

And I mean, true, but I shouldn't, I should continue with that and say like, but truly kindness was always important. Politeness was deeply, deeply important. Work ethic. Is that a Midwest? Absolutely. Work ethic, work ethic was there too. Your mom, the cabinet designer maker. Yes. She, yeah, she, which she kind of came to by chance. She was, she and my dad,

She was just a mom. You know, she had been like a history major. But I think but she even said like she didn't really have you know, she said if she had really had the nerve, she probably would have been some kind of engineer. Like she was into math. She was good at math. She liked math. But that was not what women did. And she wasn't particularly brave in that sense. So she was a history major.

She married my dad. My dad, uh, taught Russian. Yeah. Became a Russian language professor. Um, which he, he came by that by chance too. He started out in college. Uh, he was, uh,

very much musical, loved classical music. And I think he was aiming to be a choral director. He liked singing. He liked choral singing. He went to DePauw, Indiana, or DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, was a music major, decided he didn't like it. He said he didn't like music majors. So he dropped out, went back to Springfield, Illinois, and ended up in the Army.

And they gave him an aptitude test and he scored off the charts with language aptitude. And so they said...

They sent him to Monterey, California, which he said was the most beautiful place he'd ever been in his life. And they said, what do you want? Do you want, there's all these languages that'll keep you here six months, or there's Chinese or Russian being the Cold War, and those will keep you here a year. And he was like, Russian, because he just was like, I want to stay in Monterey for as long as I possibly can. So that gave him his vocation. And they ended up

Fluent? Yes. Oh, absolutely. And became an expert in phonetics, like in terms of like going, because he used to take groups of students to Russia every year in between the end of the school year and the beginning of the summer language institute at Indiana University. He would take a group of students for about six weeks and

And they'd study for four in either Leningrad or Moscow. And then they'd travel for two and then come home. And when he, excuse me, when he would go there, people would not believe that he was not a native speaker because his pronunciation was so perfect. And it's very much, he's a very particular, you know, like he doesn't do things halfway. Like just like his handwriting is.

He just is a very, you know, very precise person. Okay. Let me ask you, jump in real quick. So that's going on. That's your background hum in your life. Yeah.

Mine was science. My father was an archaeologist. Science, museum, all of that. Went over my head because I was off playing, fantasizing, doing games with my friends. Yeah. Never really stuck. I heard it. Never stuck. Where were you? Where was your desire or your thought? Oh, maybe I'll do it. Where were you at that early age? Oh, it was, well, being funny.

I was always being funny. And my dad was, my dad's one of the funniest people I've ever known in my life. Just a incredibly quick wit, but a wit that can either be a slap or a tickle. A little scorpion. Yeah. And I'm not exaggerating. I've numerous times seen him make clerks cry. Right. Just because he felt he had been wronged in some way by a clerk.

And then even sometimes those moments can be fucking hilarious, you know. But he was funny. And the connection between him and my mother was that he and my mom's older sister, my Aunt Pat, who was my mom's best friend throughout her life, and my sort of superstar relative.

Um, my aunt Pat was hilariously funny too, and they were best friends. And in a, because my dad's gay in later terms, they just would have been, you know, like the gay kid and his funny, wise ass, you know, chunky friend. And, uh, but my mom was sort of the tag along little sister and she and my dad, uh,

And, you know, they did fall in love and everything. But, you know, it's being a closeted gay man in the 50s. That's the only choice you had. I can't even begin to understand what that was like or what that would do to you. But they divorced when I was four. So I didn't have my dad around a lot.

So I was home with my mom who also, you know, the other sort of thread that runs through all this is depression. There's a lot of depression, a lot of sad people wanting to be polite, wanting to be kind, and then also kind of being cutting and judgmental. You know, it's all this weird sort of mix together. But early on, learning that being funny is good, right?

Um, it, you know, it, it gets, I get to stay up later because I'm making my grandma laugh. Um, but also too, you're lightening the mood. And even as a little body feels better. Yeah. As a little kid, you know that this is, you, you don't know exactly it, but you live around a lot of sadness. You live under a dark umbrella of,

You know, that keeps the sun out and then you make everybody laugh and it's like, holy shit, I think some sunshine just got in here. And so that just becomes an almost kind of subconscious mechanism, you know, that and and and then I and then also to like my aunt Pat, she passed away a few years ago.

And we had a little service for and I and I kind of my my mom was supposed to speak and she said, Andy, get up here and say something. And I wasn't expecting to say anything. But one of the things that I said about her and I didn't expect to say this was that she insisted on having fun and that you could not be around her without fun.

Her insisting and I and and I inherited that from her. I don't know whether I had that in me and she just but I have learned that. And and I'm very much the same way, you know, without extenuating circumstances. Everybody's got a shitty day or has a shitty day now and then. But I in large part, I like to make people laugh. When did you get out in the world then? When did you leave that place?

I went, I went, I started at University of Illinois for two years and I went away, you know, which was only, you know, two and a half hours away. And then I transferred to a film school in Chicago called Columbia College. And I moved back in with my mother who had moved to a different town by that point.

Um, and so for two years I commuted back and forth to school, which was really difficult. Knowing this is where you wanted to go. You wanted to be entertaining. Yes. Somehow. Yes. Somehow. So I wanted to figure it out somehow. I got halfway through college and realized, uh, I want to be in entertainment somehow. And, you know, and it's a big admission and it's, and it's, you know, you can't,

I did not feel like saying, I'm going to be on TV and I'm going to be an actor on TV. I was like, well, you know, they're making a lot of movies in Chicago and there's probably something for me to do in there. And then that just...

That that's, it's a breakdown of compromises that eventually gets you to, well, yeah, sure. I'll stand in front of people and all the lights will be focused on me and I'll do the talking and they'll do the listening, you know, but you don't start, I didn't start out feeling like that. Right. Um,

So I went to two years. And then the second I was done with college, I moved into the city and started. I worked for a moving company, but I also had been interning for a film production company. So I started working freelance in film production. Student films. Well, that was in school. This is commercials. I worked for a company that made commercials and industrial films.

And I worked for the moving company while, you know, just until I got that career off the ground. And then for a year or two, I did exclusively film production work. And I did, I started out as a PA, but then I did a little bit of everything, you know, AD, second AD work. At the time they called video assist, you know, because the thing was shot on film, but there was a,

You could watch it on video back. But I ended up mostly in props because it was the most fun because it was, you know, it was art class. And the other thing I loved about it that was very suited to my personality on small jobs where I could be like the main prop person is they would give you and I'm not they'd give you cash. Like I'd get two grand in cash and a list of

things to buy or rent and would go out for two days and get them and completely unsupervised. And that was the part I liked. I liked, leave me alone. You know, just I'll get your stuff done. And a lot of it too was fun. It was fun. You know, like in the middle of June, we're going to be shooting a Christmas commercial in the middle of June. So in Chicago, they want you to find a living room set of furniture made out of logs, right?

And like, and there's no internet. So you became a scavenger. Yeah. Well, like a detective, like, you know, and you had the yellow pages and then there was sort of a prop resource sort of book. And you just sit down and you start making calls and, you know, and half a day of calls and you're in a truck driving to Wisconsin to a place that makes,

out of old birch logs. And then you rent them and drive them back. And then when you're done, you drive them back to Wisconsin, you know. That does sound cool. It's fun. It's really fun. And I mean, you know, doing a commercial where they want a baby elephant. So you got to go around and Polaroid baby elephants around the tri-state area. You know, it's the beginnings of just the childlike wonder of show business. ♪

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Take me up to right. Why did Conan even pass you in a hallway? Why? Where were you? Why did you get there? Well, you know what? Honestly, the first time we met or that we were around each other, as far as we can tell, was at Bob Odenkirk's house here in Los Angeles. Bob Odenkirk had an apartment. He was living here in Los Angeles. He was engaged to a woman named

with whom I had been on an improv team back in Chicago. And I don't think they ever married, but this, he had a party at his house and my old friend, Kate Flannery, who's been on the office, uh, and who I did my first improv class with. Um, she brought me to Bob's and I had met Bob because I had done, been on the improv team with, with his fiance. And it was years later, uh,

The Kona and I figured out we were at this same yard party together with about 20 people total, but just hadn't, you know, either clocked each other or talked to each other because we didn't know each other. But we had plenty of people overlapping, which is how we met in the first place.

I did improv in Chicago, was in New York doing a live show. A couple of friends of mine had been on SNL and through them I met Robert Smigel. And Robert and I hit it off, but just in like a social sort of way. Then I was in L.A. because the show had moved from New York to L.A.

And in the summertime off of SNL, where Robert was writing, he came out here to work on the ill-fated Hans and Franz movie and was working on that. And he and I hung out together and would, you know, just sort of socialize and hang out and got to know each other. And then that show ended.

I was back out here. I was doing the movie Cabin Boy, which I had auditioned for before I left L.A. I got the part and was back here. And I got a call from Robert out of the blue. And he said, and I had heard about this guy, Conan O'Brien, that was going to replace me.

replaced David Letterman. And in fact, with Kate Flannery, we had gone to see Jeff Garlin tape a pilot, a multi-camera show that he was taping a pilot. And I sat in front of Bob Odenkirk and Carol Leifer,

who I am interviewing later today, Small World. And I heard, I just eavesdropped on them, talk about Conan O'Brien and how he got the job. And because Bob had been part, was friends with Conan and had been part of that process. So I had had that in my head already.

He said, and Robert calls and says, yeah, I'm going to be writing this show with Conan. Do you want to meet him and maybe, you know, be a writer on the show? And there will be room for performers too. So we're going to hire writers who also perform. And I said, sure. So we met at Junior's Deli and had lunch and hit it off immediately. And I immediately knew, like, I just, you know, you just...

It's like in comedy, and it would happen a lot on the Conan show, where there's somebody...

especially if you know their work and they sit down and you can just, you know, like with my wife, I can just be myself and I can just say the dumbest, the dumbest, stupidest, most, you know, the sort of thing that would off-put any civilian. But with a comedy person, it's like, hey, do you speak the code of dumbness? And they go, yes, I do. And

And then you're off and running. And he and I were like that immediately. We just, we hit it off right away. And we just were silly and funny together the way we have been for 30 plus years. And apparently he,

Called Robert right afterwards and said, hire him, hire him, hire him. And and Robert said, well, let's see, you know, let him write a packet first. So I sat down and wrote a packet of a packet of ideas like, OK, we're doing a late night show. So here's some jokes, some monologue. I was given do monologue jokes, desk bit, character bits, just, you know, whatever you think.

You would see, and they don't teach that in school. You just kind of, being a David Letterman fan, think like, okay, I want to do some stuff. But also with the caveat of it not being too Letterman-y. That was one of our main directives. What word would that be to use to describe that? Well, you know what? It would be sort of, oh, a word that I would use to describe that. Letterman-ish. Yeah. Letterman-ish.

Kind of an ironic detachment. Right. Or, you know. That's great, actually. Yeah. You know, or also, too, like anything with a sort of a Larry Bud Melman, sort of a non-performer performer sort of thing. You know, it was we had a better idea of it. And honestly, you wouldn't know it until you saw it. We would come up with bits.

In the early days of the show and go, oh, that sounds really letter many. And we'd be like, yeah, you know what it does. And in fact, going out into the field and doing remote bits, which is what it's called when you go out and do something on the field. I was the first one to do those because we were so afraid of.

Conan going out and doing them and it seeming like, yeah, like an approximation of Dave going out into the field and giving, you know, gift baskets to RCA executives or whatever. Um, so I would go out and do it because I was like one, one step removed from being letter mini. Um,

And I submitted some material. I don't even really remember much, but it was good enough. And I was the first writer hired. And I was living in a furnished apartment in Westwood at the time. And I packed up what belongings I had into my Toyota pickup. And I drove them up to my fiance, who was living in San Francisco.

and left her with my truck and all the stuff and never saw the truck again. It got passed on to, you know, a bunch of different deadbeat friends, um, lost all my, all my LPs, all my records just scattered to the winds, um, and moved to New York and started on the Conan show. And, you know, and,

uh, it was a big empty floor, the ninth floor, nine West on Rockefeller center. And he had a corner office and Jeff Ross had a corner office. And then Robert had a, another corner, there were three corners and Robert had another one. And then I was just given, I mean, probably 30 empty offices, pick one. And I just, I went in and I took the one that was next to Conan. Cause I kind of just felt like, well,

That's why I'm here. Yeah, that's why I'm here and it feels lonely, you know. And it overlooked 6th Avenue. It was a nice office. It was kind of one of the bigger ones. And I shared it with a guy named Marsh McCall for probably the first...

I don't know, three or four years that I was there, you know, I didn't. And then when he got another, well, he became the head writer. And when he was, he was a head writer for about a year. Then I got to keep my office, just my office. And I got a couch instead of a different desk. And this is before you were up and running. Yes. The show. I, I, I got there in, I think, gosh, it might've been June and the show wasn't on until September.

And my first job was to go through a stack, and it was probably about 18 inches high of packets of material of the same thing that I had submitted and to help winnow through these, you know, trying to find a writer. And I was given...

the directive to have high standards, which I did anyway. Um, and which I had no right to, but I did sort of, I, again, I had pretty good taste. I wanted, I knew what I wanted this show to be. And if I saw stuff that I found to be boring or sort of derivative of other things that I saw, I had seen before I chucked it. And I think of that stack, I think I came out with two. Wow. Uh,

Did they make the show? Marsh did. Actually, one of them was the guy that ended up being my office mate, Marsh. I pulled his packet. And then the other guy, I don't think so. I don't remember what happened. How soon before you were on camera? When the test show started. That was, again...

A gradual process. And they started just putting him in front of cameras because we were in Studio 6A and 8H is where SNL was. And they used to send Conan to 8H for camera tests. And they would put him on just whatever set happened to be there. Bob Costas had a late talk show called Later.

that it was just two chairs facing each other. And the first thing they did was have Conan sit on Bob Costas' set because it was already set up and lit. And, you know, and it was lots of technical stuff to see what his lighting looked like, what his makeup looked like. And also, too, to just get him in front of camera, I think, you know, just to have the sense that you got to, you know, get out on the ball field and just play around before you actually have a game. And from that first time,

I was in my office and we always had the feed up from whatever was happening down on the floor at all the TVs and all the offices. And Robert called me and said, hey, will you go downstairs and just keep in company? Which I...

understood because Conan needs company. You know, you don't, he needs, he's, he runs on a high RPM. So he needs, you know, it's like, keep them in one place. I, you know, now that I have children that are, you know, running high RPMs, it's like, you got to keep them occupied or else they're going to, something bad's going to happen.

So I went down and I sat across from him and we just, you know, shot the shit like we always did. And also by that time, too, we had a rapport around the office. We were doing bits naturally together, probably to a greater extent than he was doing with other writers on the show. Right. And...

Then from that point on, every time he did, you know, then the next one was he interviewed a staff member on, you know, on a fake talk show set. And I was told, go down and sit there because there's a lot of downtime, too. So just keep him occupied, keep him laughing, keep him happy, because he also would get antsy, you know, and get like what's taking so long and let's keep going.

And then they had a chef come in with a cooking demonstration and I stand there with them during that. So they knew what they were doing. Yes, I didn't. They were putting you in. I just was, I'm very easy to fool. I take things at face value because I didn't understand. I'm serving a role here. I'm

And then one day before our real first test show with an audience, Robert said, would you like came into my office and said, would you like to be the sidekick? And at that time, too, we had these romantic ideas that the show would be as much a talk show as it was or a sketch show as it was a talk show that we'd have sort of this Steve Allen ish, you know, cast of characters that would be that, you know, the Conan troupe, the Conan players or whatever.

And I said, well, I don't know, maybe I'd rather sort of be available, you know, sort of available to do other bits rather than just be kind of stuck on the couch next to him for the whole thing. And he said, well, think about it. And I also was sort of like, I said, you know, I got to talk to my fiance about it and see.

Just to see, you know, talk to her about it. The fiance who gave your records away, that one? Well, she didn't give them away. I think they, you know, she wasn't, maybe not. I mean, what are you going to do? 1,500 albums. You're not going to take them on the plane. But the minute he left my office, like two seconds later, I was like, who the fuck am I kidding? Like he just said, do you want to be on TV every night? And I'm going to demur. I'm going to go, what?

I don't know about sidekick. I don't know about being on TV every night. So I just called my fiance, my ex-wife, and I told her, you know, I'm going to be the sidekick on the show, I guess. And then we did a number of test shows for about two weeks. And, you know, they bought me like two sport coats and I wore a bunch of ties from the SNL, you know, the wardrobe vault show.

And there was one night after about four or five test shows where Jeff Ross said to us, this is full audience. This is full audience. Mickey Rooney is a guest. Uh, yeah, you know, um, and Al Roker probably three times. Um, and after, before one of the shows, uh, the last, I think it was the last test show. Um,

Jeff Ross said, "You guys keep your show clothes on because you're going to go to dinner with Lorne afterwards." Because Lorne was our executive producer.

And so we did. We got in Lauren's car and they drove us to a fancy restaurant on the east side. And we walked in and they showed us to a table and there was Lauren and Steve Martin at this table, which I was, oh boy. And it was my first sort of, my first experience of just sitting and not saying much. Like only speaking when spoken to and just sort of soaking it up.

And then the next day after that dinner, and I mean, I did talk, you know, there was some conversation, but mostly, you know, it's Lauren and Steve talking. And the next day, Jeff Ross said, well, I guess you're going to be the sidekick. And I was like, oh, I thought I already was the sidekick. I guess I passed a test I didn't know I was taking. So, you know, and then it just, it went from there, you know, and it was not easy. It was, there was a lot of, you know,

There were a lot of people at NBC, which I did not find out until years later, that did not like me. Had no idea why I was there. You know, in fact. That happened to me too, but keep going. Yeah, yeah. I was blackballed. Really? Do not hire this man.

And I didn't know it. This was before Cheers. And Joel Thurm, who was the head of Paramount Casting, told me after the fact, thank God, that Fred Silverman hated me. And I had destroyed a pilot that he was in love with and it didn't get picked up.

Anyway, Warren Littlefield called me that big fat dildo. Nice. Yeah. So did he put it in your book? His book? I mean, not that I'm aware of. But yeah, but, you know, here I am. Yeah. I mean, he's still doing fine, too. But yeah, but there were just people that did not like me. But they were also they were not.

If those years of the way NBC handled Late Night with Conan O'Brien would be should be in a business school about how not to handle talent, how not to like you're the idea is that you're supposed to be making a really good, funny TV show. And they did everything to make that difficult. Yeah.

Out of fear. Yes. Out of fear. Because it's like, we want you to be funny. So we're going to treat you like shit and make you scared and make you angry. Yeah. Which I just don't, it just boggles the mind how you could have an MBA and not figure out like, no, no, this, you know.

The best part about high ratings is those voices could recede into the background. Absolutely. But it took a while anyway, because they would set these ratings hurdles that we had to meet. You know, you got to have this number in the next three months. And we kept meeting them and meeting them and meeting them. And it never...

It was never like, okay, well, good. You know, you did it because it even got to the point where we had met all these ratings hurdles and they said, well, okay, yeah, great. You're getting, you know, you're getting good ratings. You're beating Tom Snyder, who was our direct competition. But Tom Snyder's show is so cheap.

That like, it doesn't even count. Like he can have lower ratings because his show is so cheap. They're probably still making more money over there than what you're making because your show's too expensive. So let's fire your band. They wanted to fire our band. And in probably the best thing that Jeff Ross, our executive producer ever did, he convinced them and showed them that,

our reruns, because we were still kind of catching on with the public consciousness, our reruns were doing about as well as our first run shows. That's amazing. Yeah. So he said, well, why don't you just put on reruns on Monday and that savings, you know, because that we already paid for that show. So, you know, we're, we're making money again without spending any money. Let's put a rerun on Monday and

And that makes more money, that saves you more money than firing the band. Wow. And so we got to compress our work week to four days a week, which strengthens the comedy gene pool because, you know, we'd have, you know, we'd have some middle acts on Wednesdays that were a little thin just because it's a numbers game. You know, you've got, you've got two acts you got to fill with comedy five days a week. All of a sudden,

the two weakest ones can go away because you've only got, you know, you've only got four, two a day on four days a week. And then also, too, a big turning point was Letterman came on and sort of gave us his papal blessing and was very flattering and very genuine in his...

regard and appreciation of what we were doing and, and set it in a way that was fairly undeniable, you know? Um, and that felt like a real turning point. Yeah. You guys were different. You guys were bold. You were not doing Letterman ish. Yeah. You were, who's magnificent and all of that. Yeah, absolutely. And a hero to all of us. But you were, you were taking big old swings, uh,

And like Saturday Night Live, in a way, you would take huge swings. Didn't I come on for a while and do in the year, da-da-da, whatever? Yeah, you might have done that as a guest. Because we sometimes would have guests sit down on it. Yeah, I did a couple of those. He and I did it for a long time, and then when I left...

2000. I was on for seven years and I left in 2000 and then he would have guests come on and do the other, the other. So you weren't there. It's not that you just forgot. No, I was gone. Cause man, that was, that was my big calling card in this interview. Do you remember that time? I, uh,

Yeah. No, there's lots of people will say like when they will tell me things about when they were on Conan and I'll say, what year was it? And they'll say 2003. And I was like, I wasn't there. So he's he he's the reason why Woody and I picked Team Coco. Oh, yeah. Come do this. Yeah. I mean, he is a remarkable guy. One of the nicest people. Yeah. In show business. Yeah. One of the.

Balzius with his comedy. I mean, he's really remarkable. Really big brain and incredibly high standards. And that's why it was, you know, we needed...

I very much appreciate what you're saying just in terms about, you know, that our show was unique and that we took big swings. But we were never, we never felt the urge to do anything but that because the person that was in charge of it would not have it any other way. And, you know, my standards for comedy have always been

not boring. Like I just, because I'll, and even when I was working on sitcoms or stuff, there'd be scenes and I'd just be like, this is boring. Like there's not, there's no snap to this. There's nothing unexpected to it. Um, it's like something I've seen before. Yeah. And, and I, I had that in me. And then luckily for me, the first big job that I had, um, was with someone who, um,

Felt the same way and never gave me any reason to feel otherwise. Never, we, I never felt like that I had to kind of

lower my standards to meet the audience's expectations. I need, I needed to express the silliness that was in me in as, as big and bold a way as I could and let them come to that and hope, hope and know that there are people that that's what's, that's what's going to work. And that's what, that's what you're there for. Like, you know,

to fill orders that someone else is just like, why are you doing this? You know, there's lots of other jobs in the world that are easier to get if you just want to fill orders, you know? Okay. Um, just quickly. Yeah. I, I, I know what three questions are. I, I, I love doing that with you. Thank you. Thank you. I was, I was so happy to have you here. You're so easy and fun and, and,

to be with. You make people feel good. And I do think that's one of the jobs of podcasts. I think so too. And I think you let people shine too so that

People who are listening get the best shot at your guest. And I think that's one of the things. Thank you. You do really well. Tell me about Andy Richter Colin show. That is a thing because, you know, Conan's company was sold to Sirius XM.

And so when I had a new contract come up, they were like, we want to do something more with, you know, we want you to do something more. And I was like, something more?

Uh, and then it was, we want to have, cause Conan has a radio channel on, on Sirius XM. We want it. And, and it's mostly just kind of podcasts. It's clips from the old show and podcasts and, you know, different sort of special programming, but not a lot of radio programming. And so they gate, they said, we want to do radio programming. How about something like a call-in show?

I said, absolutely. Get to play radio. And I mean, and I immediately knew what I wanted it to be. And it just simple, which is to propose a topic in the same way that at a cocktail party, people would say like, you know, what's your biggest dating disaster? Or what's the, you know, your biggest...

you know, family holiday disaster, you know, emphasis on disasters. Well, I've had people say like, well, why not good things? I'm like, cause who gives a shit? Like you had a nice day. You went on vacation and it was romantic. Who cares? Tell me about, you know, when your brother fell down the stairs at your bar mitzvah, you know, that's, that's the good stuff over there. It's funny.

Yeah. Here, not so much. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I have a guest host because, you know, I know well enough that you got to, you know, one of the things that keeps these things going is somebody that's there to plug something. So I get to have a guest host and I get to pick a funny person to come on and, you know, answer the questions with me because,

Something I learned from Conan from the late night show. It's more interesting to have two people than just one person talking directly to a microphone or a camera. Did you hear that, Woody Harrelson? Yeah, Woody, where the hell are you? Oh, he's acting around the world. Yeah, we're riding some battery powered motorcycle wearing a hemp helmet.

I love Woody. I did a movie with him and it was so much fun. Oh my God. He's a great guy. Now that guy's engineered a wonderful life for himself. He does. He lives the one he wants to live. And it seems like a beautiful one. Yeah. Hey, to me, the reason...

There are many reasons to do a podcast for me. But the main one is it ends up being a privilege to get to know people. And it is a privilege to get to know you. I will never bump into, because we're in the same building a lot. I will never bump into you again without going, give me a hug. And you shared stuff about yourself. Thank you so much. And that's a privilege. Well, and I feel the same way about having you here.

I mean, Woody's fun, but, you know, he's no Ted Dancer. No, no, he wears Ted. No, you are a mensch, as we say in German. Just German, though. Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!

That was Andy Richter. And it is a privilege to sit down with people and get to know them. And I love him even more after that last hour and a half. So do check out his podcast, The Three Questions. In each episode, he asks these three questions. Where do you come from? Where are you going? And what have you learned? He's done so many of these great conversations over the years. And if you're not sick of me, you can check out my episode that I did with him. It was much fun.

Andy also hosts the live Sirius XM call-in show, the Andy Richter call-in show. Tune in every Wednesday at 4 p.m. Eastern and 1 p.m. Pacific on Conan O'Brien Radio. That dude is everywhere. Conan O'Brien Radio, channel 104. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco and to you for listening. I truly love getting to share these episodes with you every week.

It obviously means a lot that you're there. Thank you. Once again, tell a friend about us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you're on Apple Podcasts, maybe give us a great rating and review. It actually helps. If you prefer to watch me and Woody in high definition, full episodes of this podcast are on Team Coco's YouTube channel. So check us out sometime. I'll see you next time where everybody knows her name.

You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, Sometimes.

♪♪♪

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