When Conan O’Brien returned to television on TBS four years ago, we were all thrilled to learn that he’d be bringing Andy Richter back with him. For the first seven years of Conan’s Late Night, Andy gave us countless memorable bits and quips. Since his reunion with Conan, he’s been as funny as ever. Today, to celebrate Andy’s 48th birthday, let’s look at some of his finest moments on Conan.
When he had the perfect comeback for Chelsea Handler.
Andy Richter is a rather large gentleman. He knows this, and is probably quite used to hearing about it. But that doesn’t mean he has to take your insults lying down, Chelsea Handler! When Andy mentions that he likes swimming in the ocean, Handler asks him if he floats a lot. His response is just absolutely perfect.
When he auditioned to replace Barbara Walters on The View.
Earlier this year, David Letterman announced he was retiring. While that job would ultimately go to Stephen Colbert, Andy set his sights on another gig: taking over for Barbara Walters on The View. He claimed that he wanted to be the grand dame of day time television, and as you can see from his audition tape, he’s easily the best candidate for the job.
When he created the greatest piece of workout equipment of all-time.
Andy Richter’s Dreamtime Abdominalizator is a workout machine with a simple premise: when something startles you in the middle of the night, and you bolt upright, that must be a great workout! With this machine, you get the crap scared out of you until you have a six-pack. What really makes this commercial great, however, is the reactions of the man in bed as Andy barges into his room. Clearly, he had no idea a commercial was supposed to be taking place.
When he took us along for his paper turkey hunt.
Finally, a turkey hunt that the Tofurky crowd can enjoy! Andy hunts paper turkeys by going into the woods, drinking paper beer, and firing paper bullets out of a paper gun until he finally gets one. Unfortunately, he gets captured by some Deliverance-style rednecks who, naturally, are also made out of paper. He escapes by crafting a construction paper saw, and they eventually fall victim to his sasqutach summoning machine. And that’s the story of that one time Andy took LSD!
When he played his Halloween “prank” on La Bamba.
Since Halloween is just a few days away, let’s all reminisce about the time Andy played a hilarious Halloween prank on Richie “La Bamba” Rosenberg. And by prank, I mean he murdered him in cold blood. But it’s okay, because it turns out everyone’s favorite member of the Basic Cable Band is actually made of foam. To make him re-appear, all you have to do is place a La Bamba tablet in the bathtub, and he’ll grow in no time, probably wondering why he’s wet.
When he created the first ever Vine reality show
It was only a matter of time before someone used Vine’s six-second video format to create the world’s shortest reality show, and naturally, Andy was up to the task. This clip features Tony Hale (who delivers a fantastic performance), but other “episodes” were made featuring Zooey Deschanel and Bill Hader. One can only hope we’ll be seeing more of Andy’s Vine reality show in the future, because frankly, it’s a million times better than any actual reality show.
When he sneezed – and possibly gave everyone Ebola
The hysteria over Ebola has been a bit much lately, and this clip was a fine satire of that. Andy sneezed and all hell broke loose. He was immediately quarantined, while we were left to watch slow motion footage of the sneeze over and over again. The most amusing stuff here was the details, like the fake CNN host repeatedly getting Conan and Andy’s names wrong, and the end, in which the cast of The Big Bang Theory is blown to smithereens.
