← Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
Andy Richter on Late Night’s decline, “Dancing With the Stars,” and new media
00:42:16
Loading summary
Transcript110 lines
- [00:01]
Andy Richter
A lot of the old timers would come on and they were used to this sort of this structure of I'm talking to the guy, the host here, and then if there's something where you gotta go, and then there's this idiot, there's the idiot that is sitting to your left or your right, depending on how the thing. And people would find out like that our audience, they didn't think I was an idiot. And they wouldn't go, yeah, that or, you know, or this drunk over here. There was much more of kind of a clown, buffoon kind of role for that kind of person. Like a little bit of a whipping boy.
- [00:45]
Max Tawny
Welcome to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore Media. I am Max Tawny. I'm the media editor here at Semaphore. With me as always, from across the office in a very well and normally lit room is our editor in chief, Ben Smith.
- [01:02]
Ben Smith
Okay, I'm persuaded we're gonna get a studio in the office.
- [01:06]
Max Tawny
But we are always excited for our guests. We never introduce our guests without any excitement. But this week we have somebody who I think will be a real treat for many of our listeners, particularly those who grew up watching late night television. Our guest this week is Andy Richter. He is the famous game show host, a sidekick for Conan o'. Brien. He hosts a podcast. He was on Dancing with the Stars. He's been in about every single sitcom you can possibly imagine. And we're gonna ask him a little bit about 30 year career and how the shifting media landscape is impacting kind of a jack of all trades, such as Andy. Ben, you know Andy Richter a little bit, right? This is my guest booking. But you know him a little bit.
- [01:48]
Ben Smith
I know him a little. And then when I sort of started digging in, realized I have been seeing his face here and there for years. I mean, this is a guy for whom it's always been television.
- [01:56]
Max Tawny
We have a lot of questions that we want to ask Andy about his long career in television and his new career as a TikTok star and a dancing sensation. And he is actually right on time. He's waiting for us. So why don't we bring in Andy right after this break.
- [02:13]
Ben Smith
There's new content waiting for you on Think with Google that you won't want to miss. Think is the destination for marketers to access things like first of its kind research on AI adoption with the Boston Consulting Group. Insights on four key consumer behaviors. Streaming, scrolling, searching and shopping. And deep dives on emerging technology and strategies that drive real Growth. Get all of that and more by heading to thinkwithgoogle.com.
- [02:40]
Max Tawny
Andy, we are very excited to have you on the show with us this week. Ben and I have been doing this podcast for a little bit less than a year together. We've got a nice little audience. We feel like we're starting to do okay. But one of the things that we've realized over the course of the year that we've been doing the show is that, like, our interviews tend to get better as they go on for longer. As, you know, people get warmed up, especially with people who don't know us kind of going into it. And so we're kind of curious, like, how should we start interviews? How do you get guests warmed up? How did Conan get guests warmed up? Like, what is actually the secret to getting these things going, do you think?
- [03:18]
Andy Richter
Well, I would say what I like to do, and I often do this on my podcast, is that I have the engineer start recording the second the person walks in the door. And often people, I'll start talking to the person and we'll be talking for five minutes, and they'll say, like, wait, is this the podcast? I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's. I very much value authenticity in conversation. And so when you tee something up with my next guest is a blah, blah, blah, blah. You're already putting it into a framework that isn't conducive to real human interaction. You're already putting it into a commercial vessel when you set it up that way. You know, I'm trying to get laughs. I'm a comedian first and foremost, so I often will try and start with something that just maybe throws them off just a little bit. You know, not like, tell me about the affair you had, you know, just. But just sort of be like, tell me about that guy you worked with. I bet you hate him, don't you? You know, just like something that's an obvious silly joke and that tends to get you right into, you know, an actual conversation. I will say, though, that, like, this kind of conversation is completely different than talk show conversation. Talk show conversations are. They're like gas station food to real conversations, you know, fine dining. Because everything is so commodified and so quick and so compressed, and it's about getting it over within six or seven minutes and hitting a laugh. I've watched late night talk shows, and I was always annoyed where the actual story would seem unimportant and the person there would be a big laugh, and then the host would change the topic, and I'D be like, wait, we never found out what happened at the youth hostel. What? Go back, I want to know what happened. So I think just try to keep things as low key and as conversational as possible, and you sort of get people to ease into it.
- [05:19]
Ben Smith
Well, thank you for starting this, Max, in such a strange meta way.
- [05:24]
Max Tawny
But this is one of the great things about our podcast is we get to invite people who are like amazing talkers onto the show and be like, tell us exactly how we should do this thing. And that's like, that's one of the privileges.
- [05:35]
Andy Richter
Nice. Yeah, it's on the job training.
- [05:38]
Ben Smith
Exactly as you said, Andy. Many years in late night and really big part of American popular culture for three decades. Done a lot of different things, you know, game shows. You starred in our producer Josh Billinson's favorite sitcom, which ran for nine or 10 episodes. But I am curious. And you're now producing a podcast. What kind of keeps you doing it?
- [05:58]
Andy Richter
Because it's what I do. I'm a tradesman and this is my trade. Quite frankly, the industry has been so weird and so sort of fractured that I am just trying to keep irons and fires and keep things going. I mean, say I got on a TV show or a single camera television show, and I was working 12 hour days, five days a week. I don't know if I would be a podcaster anymore because this is something I do that is in the absence of other things. And I started doing it while I was on the Conan show still. And I enjoy doing it, but it is, you know, it's not my first thing. It's, you know, this is something that I'm doing, like I said, in the absence of other things. And I hope that doesn't seem like I'm devaluing it.
- [06:48]
Ben Smith
It's just, I know that makes me feel kind of bad.
- [06:50]
Max Tawny
Why?
- [06:51]
Ben Smith
I don't know that we're like, this is the side gig, not the real thing.
- [06:55]
Andy Richter
No. Well, you mean for you or you mean for me?
- [06:58]
Ben Smith
For both of us.
- [06:59]
Andy Richter
Oh, well, I can't help you with that. For me, podcasting is a real thing now. And I had been approached years ago. I've been doing mine since 2019, and I had been approached for years before that with people saying, you should do a podcast. But podcasting I keep doing. Cause it's fun. It's fun and I have time to do it. You know, I do game shows because I make television and they hire me for television jobs. I just was on Dancing with the Stars. It was a TV job. For me, it wasn't because I have a deep love of ballroom dancing. It was cause I make television. I'm lucky that I can do different kinds of things in television. I can produce, I can write, I can act. So that's what I did. It's the same way if I get a part on a. On a sitcom or on a drama, I have to know my lines. This was like I had to dance, and I had to dance to the top of my capabilities. And I kind of like that. I like that I do game shows. I like that I do. This morning I just recorded some. I'm a villain on a new Disney or a new Disney DC comic kids show. You know, I was doing battle with Captain America and Hulk this morning as my character, which I probably can't mention because I'm sure there's some contractual reason it can't be mention, but so I do cartoon voices, I do game shows. Honestly, it really all isn't just in the absence of acting work, because that's truly what I set out to do, is become an actor. And acting work is. It eludes me at times. For some reason. I don't think I'm bad at it. I just think that the industry is weird. I'm hoping now that I was on this ballroom dancing show that people will remember that I'm an actor and hire me to be an actor.
- [08:45]
Ben Smith
A lot of media executives listen to this show, too. Okay, good call in.
- [08:48]
Andy Richter
Hire me.
- [08:49]
Max Tawny
Yeah, that's right. But no, but we want to get to the Dancing with the Stars stuff in a bit because we've got a lot of questions about that. Oftentimes I'll announce to the segment of the Office, you know, who we're having on our pod. And generally I like to gauge the reaction. And, you know, if the reaction is very flat, I'm like, oh, no, we're. We're fucked this week. But this. We had a lot of Dancing with the Stars fans who are very excited about this one, so. But I want to go back to something that you just said. It does feel like there's a big conversation going on right now in Hollywood and the entertainment industry about kind of contractions and the changes. Is that something that you felt, especially post 2020 and post strikes?
- [09:24]
Andy Richter
Can I say, fuck, yes. The only solace that I can take from the underemployment, let's call it, that I have experienced is that I have many, many peers who express the same kind of thing, many of whom are podcasters and many of whom are Podcasters who will tell me, this person who is a comedic actor of our sort of, you know, colleague and sort of the same general demographic type, just called me and said, well, what's this podcasting about? Like, there are so little work for people, you know, and there always is this. Well, it's getting better, and it is kind of getting better, but there's so little work that there are people who never would have considered podcasting or like, I guess I'm supposed to podcast now. It has been really, really weird. I don't know exactly. You know, there were strikes. There's the contraction of the economy in different ways. There's the vertical integration that makes it so there's only three outlets pumping out shit. You know, there's just so few shows, so few places making shows now that I think that has something to do with it.
- [10:36]
Ben Smith
It's funny. Cause I think of you as having been kind of ubiquitous for my entire life. Was there a moment in your career where you felt like this was the moment you were working most? This was the moment when the industry was at its peak?
- [10:48]
Andy Richter
Well, def. Yes. And I was always aware of this. When I first did Late Night with Conan o', Brien, I knew from having seen other people that had done shows in New York, namely correspondence on the Daily show when they left that and came to la. Very dumb place. Show business is dumb. I can't really say that LA is dumb, but it's very simplistic. And so there's a shiny new thing that they haven't been able to get. And everybody says, I have to get that shiny new thing. And I was a shiny new thing when I left the Conan show. Like, at that point, I came out here for a couple of meetings, and it was maybe a trip of like five days, and I went home with parts in six different movies. Like, it just happened that fast.
- [11:33]
Ben Smith
This, back in. When was this.
- [11:35]
Andy Richter
This would have been right, like 2000, 2000, 2000. I mean, none of those movies end up being. I mean, Elf is good, but that. And that was kind of a little bit later. But, you know, these movies are mostly forgettable, but that was just the way it was. And it still kind of is like, you know, it's like, new, hot, fresh. And that's, you know, this dancing thing that's. Now I'm new, hot, fresh. I've been sitting in Pasadena walking dogs and driving kids to school and gardening, and nothing has changed. I just had. And now all of a sudden, I'm a hot commodity. But it's like, no I'm the same guy just with a little dance experience, but that's not what people are calling for. That would have been the time. That would have been the time. And then I. And I had in succession, I had three sitcoms that I was number one on the call sheet that I was the star of, two of them I was an executive producer on, and one of them I was just a star of and didn't really have anything to do with it. But every time one of those shows goes away, there is the, oh, shit, what if nothing else happens? And it's. I have had. I've certainly had periods where not a lot happened. And the Conan Show. I was on the Conan show on TBS for 11 years. It ended in 21. And I enjoyed working on this show. I was happy to work on this show. I got to see my older kids grow up because I was home for dinner five nights a week, which there's not a lot of people that are on a regular TV show that can say that. It certainly wasn't as lucrative for me as a lot of other kinds of shows. Like, if I'd been on a sitcom the same amount of time, I wouldn't have to probably worry about money.
- [13:13]
Ben Smith
Not to be rude, but I'm actually curious. What's the comparison? What do you make on a sitcom versus roughly on a show like that?
- [13:20]
Andy Richter
Well, I'm not gonna give you numbers' cause I honestly don't know. But I can tell you that if you're on a popular sitcom for five or six years that goes into syndication, it's an annuity that you can relax and live a very nice life on. Whereas what I made as the sidekick on a cable talk show, it was a very good living, but it wasn't. It isn't the kind of money that piles up like it does when you're on a. I would say it's probably a 5 to 1 ratio. That's just. That's just a guess.
- [13:54]
Max Tawny
And we want to ask you about that because I think that's the way that probably most people, listeners of the show are familiar with, which is, you know, your 18 years that you spent in two separate chunks on Conan's show. I was listening to another interview that you did. It was really interesting, and you said that you didn't want to be Ed McMahon, who was Johnny Carson's famously sidekick. What do you mean by that, and how did you avoid it?
- [14:18]
Andy Richter
What I meant by that was that I had higher aspirations just in terms of being a comedic performer. I had gone into The Conan show. And it was a kind of a. We were starting from scratch and we were kind of doing, I don't know what the phra. You know, post modern, you know, a comment on a talk show more than a talk show. And I didn't mean any insult to Ed McMahon. I just meant that he was part of an old paradigm that I didn't feel like we were going to be indulging in and that I felt that, like, Conan's and my partnership and our relationship and our whole way of doing business would have a lot more sort of equity and there'd be more equality between the two of us than there would be between, like, Ed and Johnny. And as I was saying, a lot of the old timers would come on and they were used to this sort of this structure of I'm talking to the guy, the host here, and then if there's something where you gotta go and then there's this idiot, there's the idiot that is sitting to your left or your right, depending on how the thing. And people would find out like that our audience, they didn't think I was an idiot. And they wouldn't go, yeah, or, you know, or this drunk over here. There was much more of kind of a clown, buffoon kind of role for that kind of person. Like a little bit of a whipping boy.
- [15:41]
Max Tawny
It's like the Hank Kingsley situation.
- [15:44]
Andy Richter
Yeah, exactly. Not necessarily a fully fledged character that could stand equally with the fully fledged character of the host and the guest. And then, you know, it was funny because when he got the Tonight show and asked me to come back to work for him, I was kind of like, well, I guess I'm gonna be fucking Egg McMahon. Oh, well, could be worse, you know, But I just think I always, you know, especially in the early days of the show, I did remotes on my own and I did, you know, and I was a writer for the show and I would. Of my own pieces and other pieces that people would write for me. So I just kind of felt like I was gonna do more than just say, here's Johnny, and then laugh. And I just think that wasn't even necessarily personal mission. That was based on, you know, strong convictions. It was just. I knew we were gonna do a different show.
- [16:37]
Max Tawny
And how did your approach to that and your role on the show change over the course of 18 years? And obviously you came back after taking, I believe it was something like an eight year break or something like that in between. How did your approach change over those 18 years? Or did it not really Change. Was it very similar from when you started to when you ended?
- [16:58]
Andy Richter
It was a homecoming, definitely. Although they were coming to LA for me. And there was definitely an adjustment period when I came back because he had been doing the show for eight or nine years by himself, so he had a rhythm to himself. So I had to kind of. He had to learn how to have me back on the show and I had to learn how to be back on the show with him. But very quickly we regained that kind of equilibrium, I guess. And then once we got to tbs, you know, there's the kerfuffle with Jay Leno and then we went on tour and then we got to tbs and. And once we got to tbs, the difference in the way that I ran things was just that I wasn't looking outside the window at what was going on outside like I was when I was younger. I was on that show. I was happy to be on that show. I had children at this point. I had what is a rarity in this business, a steady paycheck. A couple years into it, I moved just kind of coincidentally 10 minutes away. I had a 10 minute commute. As I said, I was home every night from my kids and I was a very happy denizen of Conan island. And I lived on Conan island for 11 years. And it was a wonderful time that afforded me a lot of wonderful things and a lot of wonderful experiences, but it did kind of take me off the market.
- [18:23]
Max Tawny
Well, we have a lot more that we want to get to with Andy, but we have to take a short break. So we'll be right back after this.
- [18:35]
Ben Smith
In this week's branded segment from Think with Google, I spoke with Google's VP of Marketing, Josh Spanier, about Google's annual Year in Search project and what it means for marketers. Google just published the annual Year in Search. What have you found?
- [18:50]
Josh Spanier
So, Ben, I'm jaded and cynical most of the time. Maybe that's why the two of us get on. Well, one thing that is going to bring a tear to my eye every year is our Year in Search video. It's actually going to make me feel something. So our creative team goes and looks at the 5 trillion searches and they distill that down into this wonderful emotive 92nd film capturing the flavor of everything in the year. And it's this incredible window into the good, the bad, the happy, the sad that the whole human species, what we're doing, what we're thinking, what we're passionate about every year. And then Year in Search just brings it together and it's just a wonderful reminder of the year that it's been and look forward to next year as well.
- [19:31]
Ben Smith
What have you learned this year?
- [19:32]
Josh Spanier
Particularly the theme of this year's video is reimagining and renewal. And I really, really love it. I'm not going to give away the film. You should all go to YouTube or think with Google to watch it. But renewal kind of speaks to some of the stuff that we've done inside of Google. This year. There's been more innovation put into Google search than probably in any year in its history, with the addition of AI overviews, AI mode that has led to people searching with queries 10 times longer than they were using with search previously, which is really, really fascinating.
- [20:00]
Ben Smith
What does this mean for marketers?
- [20:02]
Josh Spanier
What it means for marketers is richer signals. It means we understand what people are looking for, what they're shopping for, what they're trying to get. And that means Our Holiday 100 gift guide is incredibly insightful and a great place for you to head over to to find gifts for your family. All powered by better insights from Search.
- [20:19]
Ben Smith
Where should people go to find out more about this?
- [20:21]
Josh Spanier
Head on over to YouTube and search year in search to watch the film itself. Or you can find great materials and the video@thinkwithgoogle.com thanks, Josh. Thanks, man.
- [20:43]
Ben Smith
You're one of the real sort of stalwarts of late night. You know, kind of one of the great broadcast formats from the old days that went through the kind of explosion of cable and the proliferation of shows and is now part of this kind of diminishing, splintering broadcast world. Do you think late night survives? Does late night still mean anything?
- [21:01]
Andy Richter
I don't think it does, to be frank. I think there will always be people that sit at a desk and interview people because it's cheap. It's a cheap, easy way to get content. I mean, talk shows exist because they're cheap. There's a publicity machine that needs places to display their wares. And so networks figured out, well, we just get a desk and a band and a couch and we can get stars in here to fill the time. And we can say we have stars on. And then they sell their movie or they sell their TV show or their book or their personal brand of chili or whatever they're doing. And then you write some jokes in the middle and it's all very cheap. And I have people, obviously, obviously, that I know and love who still work in that industry. And, you know, like I had Jimmy Kimmel on my Podcast. And I said, well, you know, the ratings are down all over the place. There's just not that many people watching. And he said, no, no, no. You know, there are the same amount of people watching. They're just watching in different ways. And I was like, all right, because I love him. I'm like, okay, fine. But in my head, I'm like, okay, yeah, they're watching different ways, but there's a lot less people watching. There just is.
- [22:12]
Max Tawny
Yeah.
- [22:12]
Andy Richter
And the number diminishes. And the numbers like the Tonight show or Colbert's, like, big numbers now would have gotten US canceled at 12:30 back in the 90s, just because it's just such a different world.
- [22:30]
Max Tawny
Yeah.
- [22:31]
Andy Richter
And I also think that, again, it's podcasts and the Internet. They're just the notion of, oh, there's a big star that's going to be on and talk about themselves. Who gives a shit anymore? You know, it just. There's. That happens everywhere. And now people would rather see them eat wings with hot sauce on them than sit and talk to, like, a trained improv comedian.
- [22:56]
Max Tawny
Yes. They'd rather watch them, like, cry as they're trying to answer these questions.
- [23:00]
Andy Richter
And I don't blame them. Okay, yeah, I get it. Just to hear a movie star sit and tell about their ski vacation, it's not. It's been done, you know?
- [23:11]
Max Tawny
Yeah. And also, there's just all of these other. There's just so many more options. Right. Like, we had Adam Friedland on our show. Do you know him? Are you familiar with him? He's.
- [23:22]
Andy Richter
The name's familiar.
- [23:23]
Max Tawny
Yeah. He's got this, like, he's got this up and coming show. It's basically kind of like almost a parody of kind of a late night show where he kind of slips in and out of character and it's. I personally think it's really funny. The people, you know, a bunch of people my age find it to be funny. And he has kind of managed to nab these big stars who are on this promotional circuit who are all kind of weirded out by the whole thing, but there's just a whole greater menu of options now, which is kind of what you're saying. Although everybody comes on this show not because they're promoting anything or anything, but because they really want to. They really believe in what we're talking about.
- [23:53]
Andy Richter
They want to talk about the media.
- [23:54]
Max Tawny
They want to talk about the changing media landline.
- [23:57]
Ben Smith
What else is there?
- [23:57]
Max Tawny
You mentioned Dancing with the Stars earlier, and we want to dedicate a significant portion to that because it is. It's a big deal now. It's kind of this TikTok thing has this kind of social media and TikTok component. How did Dancing with the Stars change your career? Because it seems like it did, in addition to being another one of your fun gigs. Yeah.
- [24:17]
Andy Richter
How it has changed my career remains to be seen a little bit because I have a ton of new people who know who I am and who are interested in me. And I'm still seeing it being late November, and I'm still seeing TikToks from people that texted my name 10 times every week to keep me on Dancing with the stars. I see TikToks where people say, holy shit, he was on Elle. And it's lots of young women. There's lots and lots of young women that have taken me under their collective wing and that they were somehow touched by what Emma and I did on the show. So it remains to be seen, but it certainly has gotten me. You know, if I could show you my calendar. There's a lot more meetings now than there were back in August. Like, meetings with people that sort of can get things done or get me jobs. It's certainly made me relevant. It certainly, you know, I mean, I've been saying this because, you know, I'm on Sirius XM and I haven't done an interview through their PR department in probably two years, and I think I've done six in the last four days. So, yeah, I said to my wife, oh, SiriusXM has been reminded that I exist. So that's nice.
- [25:35]
Max Tawny
Yes.
- [25:36]
Andy Richter
But they actually have been really lovely. They gave me a billboard. They gave me a congratulatory billboard.
- [25:40]
Max Tawny
There you go.
- [25:41]
Andy Richter
For being on Dancing with the Stars. So I can't really complain.
- [25:45]
Max Tawny
So there seemed to be kind of this, like, meme or this point of view that you kind of lasted longer than you should have on that show. Is that, like, offensive? Is that an offensive thing for me to say to you?
- [25:58]
Andy Richter
Absolutely not. Absolutely not, no. Because I was, you know, and I've said this many times now, you know, people would attempt to insult me by saying I was the worst dancer on the show. To which my answer is, no shit. Really? I'm not aware of that because, you know, a. I'm the oldest person on the show. I took the job in April and in June or July found out that I need a hip replacement and was like, if. Can I do this? And the doctor said, yeah, we'll just, you know, shoot you up and it'll hurt. And I. And it has Hurt. It has been a painful journey, quite literally. And I had, you know, and my knees are a mess too, you know, so I don't move as well as some of these other people. And there also, there are world. There's a literal Olympic medalist, you know, in the cast. So, yeah, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna move as well as she does. I had no dance experience whatsoever. I don't think of myself as a particularly graceful person. But what I do know is how to be on television and I do know how to entertain people. And for some reason, one reason or another, whether it was a, you know, directive from the people up top or what, social media has become a very big part of this show. And my partner, Emma Slater, understood that innately, even though she's been on previous years and never had been as active as she was, but she just kind of had decided. And she told me the first time we met, we're gonna do two or three TikToks a day and that, you know, and then those TikToks go on Instagram. So it's, you know, it ends up kind of being cross platform. And I said, sure, I was up for it.
- [27:31]
Ben Smith
How does TikTok compare to other forms of comedy? Stand up, late night sketch, like as a professional, almost as a medium, how do you think about it?
- [27:39]
Andy Richter
It's very well. If I look at my life in sort of like the last 40 or 50 years as just a campaign to erode my attention span, it is now leading the pack in terms of just. I've read articles about the actual sort of what happens with brain chemistry when you're flipping through such, you know, quick hit, endorphin, kind of rush, you know, one after the other. As far as, like the comedy in it, it's another place to be funny. It's another vessel. It's just a very quick vessel. And it's not dissimilar from vine, if you'll remember. Vine was sort of the same thing. Or. I mean, I was never on it, but like a chat roulette, it's short, quick bursts of people doing visual things. And so that's nothing. It's just an empty spot. It's what you fill it with. And there's very funny people that are filling it very well, and there's very tacky people who are filling it with tacky stuff. The most striking thing to me about it, as far as other social medias or as comedy in general, and I would say this to Emma, in the beginning, she would say, let's do this. And I'd say, wait, this is something other people have done? Yes. Wait, aren't we gonna do something different? No. Just do the thing that everyone else has done, the trend. And I'd say, well, why don't we try and think us? That's not the point. Just do the thing that other people have done. I'd go, okay. And then I would do it. And I did start to understand, like, it's not just. It's not just that, like, all creativity has been squeezed out of everyone till there's just no drive to do anything different anymore. It is that there is a communal sort of fun to everybody doing the same thing. And I've likened it to the slide on a playground. You're not going to go down the slide any different than the kid in front of you. But everyone wants to go down the slide. And you see a kid go down the slide. I want to go down the slide, too.
- [29:43]
Max Tawny
Did you, in all the time that you were on Conan, who was your favorite guest? Who was like the best guest? When you saw them, they were going to be in the lineup. You're like, great. We're going to have fun. It's going to be awesome.
- [29:52]
Andy Richter
Will Ferrell was one of those. For me, Will Arnett was always fun. I mean, it's people that I'm close to and friendly with anyway. But, like, there were people that I definitely would get really excited to have on. And there was a period where we would have David Bowie on very frequently. And I got to be friendly with David Bowie, which is just insane. But he was in town, you know, he was local and he liked the show. He liked doing the show. He's a very personable, funny guy. He came and did a lot of bits for the show. So, I mean, that was. He was probably the main one.
- [30:27]
Max Tawny
Yeah.
- [30:27]
Andy Richter
Cause the people that I would really be impressed by, like, we had Michael Caine on. Michael Caine. I didn't say two words to Michael Caine. You know, the people that I'm really impressed by, I have nothing to say to them. Cause I just feel like I'll. Cause what I'm gonna say. I'm a fan. Yeah. Okay.
- [30:47]
Ben Smith
You know, I'm curious between sort of all these things we've talked about acting, being a game show host, being a sidekick, voice acting. Is there one you find the most satisfying?
- [30:58]
Andy Richter
Acting? I would say I like acting. And I also. I do like directing. I've only directed well. I mean, I kind of directed bits on the Conan show in that I would write them Cast them, pick out the costumes, decide how it was cut, you know. But you're not technically the director. But I've directed television commercials and I very much enjoy that. I very much enjoy.
- [31:22]
Max Tawny
Wait, which ones did you directed?
- [31:25]
Andy Richter
I directed a series of them for the Illinois State Lottery, Missouri State Lottery.
- [31:31]
Max Tawny
All right.
- [31:32]
Andy Richter
The last ones I did, I did some for Regal Cinemas. I haven't done a lot lately, but that's really fun. It's fun. It feels like Beat the Clock. You've got a shot list that you gotta get through and you have a certain amount of time. It in itself feels like a game show.
- [31:47]
Ben Smith
A lot of creative people are very like kind of snobbish about the marketing industry.
- [31:51]
Andy Richter
Oh no, not at all. The last time I directed a commercial, I just was happy to be on a set making something. It doesn't matter to me. I mean, the quality of the thing matters to me, but I don't. But a good, a funny, well produced, well thought out television commercial is better to me than a shitty, cynical television show, you know, than an actual sort of high budget television show that's just kind of like, this is the shit that they want. Just feed them this garbage, they've eaten it before. Like that I don't like to do. But acting for sure, I miss acting. I like acting. It's the kind of most mysterious one to me. I don't really have technique, I just have experience. And so when I get in a situation where I get to do it a lot, I feel like I get pretty good at it. And I really like that feeling. And I like to have people say, hey, you're a good actor. And it's frustrating when you are, you know, at this point in my career and I do a self tape for an audition and the casting director says he's a really good actor. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I just kind of. Anyway, yeah, I've done that before, you know, so. So acting is probably the one. But directing is fun. But I don't know if I could like directing a movie. That might be too much for me. That might be. It's just. You don't get any naps when you're doing that.
- [33:18]
Max Tawny
You. Yes. You can't go back to your trailer. Uh, you gotta actually be.
- [33:22]
Andy Richter
Be doing a lot more. Yeah, yeah.
- [33:24]
Max Tawny
So we want to end here. But last question for you. You crushed Wolf Blitzer on Jeopardy. I'm seeing this in the notes. In 2020, one of our team sent a screenshot of him with like, I believe he set the Record for the lowest score on Jeopardy.
- [33:38]
Andy Richter
I don't know if that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [33:40]
Max Tawny
Maybe not. Maybe he didn't set the lowest score, but you set a record, I believe, for the highest score on celebrity Jeopardy.
- [33:47]
Andy Richter
At the. At the time. I did. I think that is possible. Yeah. I mean, it always changes because the numbers go up, you know, like, they increase the. The value of the dollars. And then I. I've played again twice, and I lost both times. I played in the first episode ever of the primetime celebrity Jeopardy. When it went to Triple Jeopardy. And I lost it during Triple Jeopardy because. Well, largely because I was playing with people who are about 20 years younger than me. And this part, the clicking the indicator, whatever they call it, it is, in one part, an athletic competition. It is. You watch the lights and you have to click in. And I have lost my touch at that. Because the time I had been on 10 years prior, I could get the questions at will. If I wanted to answer it, it was mine. And this time I kept just going like, God damn it. Oh, shit. Damn it. And these younger people were just getting them all. And they got the daily doubles. And I. At the end of Double Jeopardy, the. The person with. I was. I had over 200% of what the second person had. So if we'd ended at regular Jeopardy. I could have bet zero and moved on. Then they got all the daily doubles, so I had about, like, 190% of what the second person had. And I missed the last question. And, you know, and Ken Jennings is a good friend of mine, and he, you know, told me once. He's like, sometimes you don't know the last question, you don't know Final Jeopardy and you're done. It just happens that way.
- [35:18]
Max Tawny
Well, it's a real bummer that they robbed you. They changed the house.
- [35:21]
Andy Richter
No, it's okay. I'll be back. The last. I just. I actually just did it a few weeks ago, and I had the flu. I had a fever. But that, you know, they had moved mountains to make time for me to get to do it on a Saturday when I was doing Dancing with the Stars. And so I went in, but I was like, there were two questions. And that, you know, sometimes when they're a word salad and you're trying to figure out what exactly are they asking? You know what I mean? Like, where. It'll just. They're just looking for the capital of Maine, but it's so dense that you're like, oh, the capital of. Okay. There were two of those that I just didn't get. Cause I couldn't understand what they were asking. Hopefully I'll be back soon and they can, you know, I can redeem myself or not. You know, I did pretty well there. I do love game shows, though, and I do love that it's something that I get to do. There's a studio in New York where they shoot him. And I was there once and I was walking down the hallway and there are pictures from, like, Truth or Consequences and what's My Line? And I'm like, I'm these people now. Like, I'm Kitty Carlisle, you know, I'm Paul Lynde, you know, I get to do these things. And it's really. It's delightful. It's truly delightful.
- [36:30]
Max Tawny
That's a great place to leave it. Andy, thank you so much for doing this. This has been very delightful for us.
- [36:34]
Andy Richter
Thanks for having me, guys.
- [36:35]
Ben Smith
Thanks, Andy. This is fun.
- [36:36]
Max Tawny
This is great.
- [36:37]
Andy Richter
Great.
- [36:46]
Ben Smith
In our show about media, our ads are, fittingly enough, about advertising. As we explore on the show, media and marketing alike are changing at a breakneck, disorienting pace. And Think With Google offers a compass in this shifting landscape. The platform brings you real talk from industry leaders, deep dives into trends and practical strategies for growth. Whether you're grappling with personalization or seeking the next big innovation, Think with Google has you covered. Visit thinkwithgoogle.com today and transform challenges into opportunities.
- [37:18]
Max Tawny
So, Ben, I was afraid at the beginning of the interview that, you know, you and your candor, which I think is one of the great assets of this show is your ability to ask the difficult, tough questions, that we had actually offended Andy Richter, who is, I think, famously one of Hollywood's leaders, like, nice guys, which would have been amazing. But I don't think that we actually offended him by making the comment that you made, you know, about how what he was saying was sad.
- [37:42]
Ben Smith
No, I kind of meant more that it was sad for me. But no, I kind of, you know, honestly, I loved the extent to which we got a glimpse of just like a working guy talking about his job. Not somebody kind of idealizing and intellectualizing this business. Somebody who's been doing this a long time. I mean, the way he talked about Dancing with the Stars, just, you know what, like, the job is to dance. And so he dances.
- [38:03]
Max Tawny
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I mean, he had the same thing to say about podcasting, which is. He was like, and that's another job that I have, which is funny and. Right. He described himself as being a tradesman, but you Know, one of the things that is interesting about Andy is that he is more resilient than many people in Hollywood. Many people in Hollywood don't have a 30 year long career. Right. And aren't still making television and on television, you know, every night, or at least for a short period of time during the year, 30 years into their career. I'm a kind of a super fan of his. Always loved seeing him pop up and stuff.
- [38:35]
Ben Smith
But did, did he, did he live up to your expectations?
- [38:37]
Max Tawny
Yeah. You know what? You can see why he has been working in the industry for 30 years and why he's had success in so many different venues. Right. He's a likable person who's fun to be around. He has interesting things to say. I thought it was really nice how candid. He was the worst guests on the show and all of our guests are great. But the worst guests on the show have kind of dodged questions or have really been on message or haven't been as revealing. And I think that's understandable. But the point of the show, of course, is to pull back the curtain on the media industry and what people are really thinking and inform people about what really happens and where it's going. And I thought that Andy was accomplished. He was an A in that category. I don't know. What did you think though?
- [39:20]
Ben Smith
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I thought he was just so direct. That late night's gone.
- [39:24]
Max Tawny
Yeah.
- [39:24]
Ben Smith
And like, I mean, I'm kind of unsentimental about this thing that really, you know, powered most of his career. But then on the flip side of that, acting isn't gone, comedy isn't gone. And these same basic skills really do translate. I mean, in a way, I think what you're starting to see is a kind of professionalization of social media. Like he probably won on social media. Cause he's a professional comedian and that's what kept him on this show.
- [39:47]
Max Tawny
And this is one of the other reasons why I thought he would be fun to have on is he's a bit ahead of his time in that he's a generalist. Right. And I mean, there's obviously always been kind of Hollywood entertainment generalists, but I think that's contributed to his resilience and why he's any, you know, why he was able to be on television and succeed, you know, on TikTok in the year 2025, more than 30 years after he started his career in television, is the fact that he can do a lot of different things and do them pretty well and that his personality comes through in whatever those things are. I imagine if we look up the, like, Illinois State Lottery commercials that he did, I imagine they would have the flavor of, you know, of his personality in the. I assume.
- [40:29]
Ben Smith
Right. And the sort of commitment to doing a good job at his job. It's interesting. I was thinking, I wonder if listeners have any ideas, like, so interesting to hear from someone with that kind of arc of their career. And that's just kind of like just being in the trenches of an industry for that long at that level gives you a very particular perspective that you don't get from the top and that you don't get from the outside, but just kind of from the middle. I'm trying to think of, like, who's the Andy of the news business? Who is that in music? But these are interesting people to talk to about their perspective, which is just from right in the middle of the thing.
- [40:59]
Max Tawny
And I do think that while we might have caught Andy a little bit off guard, that I think he ended up having a decent time as a guest on Mixed Signals, which doesn't matter, of course, but we had a decent time.
- [41:09]
Ben Smith
Thank you. Thanks for bringing him over.
- [41:14]
Max Tawny
Well, that's it for us this week. Thank you so much for sticking around. If you're still listening, that's incredible. But we really appreciate you listening to another episode of Mixed Signals from us here at Semaphore. Our show is produced by Manny Fadal. Well, with special thanks to Josh Billinson, Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Anna Pizzino, Garrett Wiley, Jules Zern, Tory Kaur, and Daniel Haft. Our engineer is Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Steve Bohn. Our public editor is Jimmy Kimmel, for whom late night is still very relevant. Of course, Jimmy, come on the show. We'd love to hear more about that and a few other things that have been happening with you recently.
- [41:50]
Ben Smith
And if you're enjoying Mixed Signals, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe on YouTube.
- [41:56]
Max Tawny
And if you want more, you can always sign up to Semaphore's media newsletter, which is out every Sunday night.