Transcript of Andy Richter Returns

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Hi, my name is Andy Richter. And I feel resentful that it took me to be on dancing with the stars for Konan O'Brien to remember that I'm his friend.

I'm not offended at all that there's a hitch in your voice after Konan because you were searching for my last name. After we've known each other since the summer of 1993. After Conan O'Knell.

It's just because it's just an Irish thing. I understand. They all look alike.

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking loose, climb the fence, books and pens.

I can tell that we are going to be friends.

I can tell that we are going to be This is a very special episode. Yes. Where we talk about kleptomania. No, this is a very special episode because you're on Dancing with Stars. I am fascinated with what goes on at these reality shows. This is one of the big ones. I know I brought in... I wouldn't even allow... I fired Matt Gourley, and I brought in David Hopping because David loves all reality shows.

Well, something good has already come from this. He's not- Fuck you, Gourley.

Yeah. Who's going to force James Bond into the conversation? Me talking to an A-list star. I understand you just had a battle with cancer. Yeah. The third James Bond, Terris Billick.

Tropic of Cancer was an alternate title for Moonbreaker.

It was originally Jawbreaker, about a candy, but they changed it. Listen, you're going to listen to me.

I am.

We have been good friends and Confederates. I like to use the word Confederates. Yes.

Because we've been involved in many heists.

It's my secret Confederate, Andy Richter. We've known each other a long You're doing this show. We can talk about other things as well. But I brought you in here because I thought, I said, Get me Andy Richter. They said, He doesn't want to come on. Yeah, that's not true. And then we met your friend. I'm here twice a week. I know you're here all the time. It's ridiculous. But anyway, I want to know, first of all, I was watching you do your routine the other night, and I was thinking, I couldn't remember all of that. I just couldn't remember. You could. My mind would go blank. Whenever I I had to do any choreography, I've told them, You need to keep it to three moves like I'm an old pony.

On Andy Richter Controls the Universe, they had, and it was very... I objected to it because I just thought it was hacky and overdone. They had a fantasy musical sequence that they wanted to break into, and I was like, Really? Okay. They said, Yeah, we're going to have it, and it'll be choreographed dancing. I said, and just because I was exploiting being number one on the call sheet, I was like, I will come in at the end and do jazz hands, but I will not do anything else. Because anytime I had to learn choreography, Hulk Smash. I'd get so mad.

I've seen Hulk Smash.

I'd get so furious because I couldn't get it from here to there. Also, Jen, my wife reminded me that on our wedding, she said, What about our dance together? I was like, Shortest song possible. That was my only... There was no, let's go to Arthur Murray and learn something. I was like, No, I don't want all those eyes on us for that long.

Don't you feel... I know you're not- You went on dancing with the stars. I know. Listen. That's what I'm thinking right now is that there is a God, and he watched all that and said, He shall go on dancing with the stars.

Here's your hubris. It's an email from your agent. Oh, no. Yeah, no. In April, I got an email about doing it, about being... Here's your invitation to be on dancing with the stars. I was home at the time. It was in the morning, and my Honest to God, my first reaction was, Turn it down and don't tell anyone. Don't let anyone know that I've been asked. Because they'd be like, Why wouldn't you do it? It's like because crabby baby does not want to be pushed out of his comfort zone, basically, is the long and short of it. But of course, within two seconds, I was like, I have to do this. I have to do this. It looks like fun. It is pretty fun. Also, it's like, I'm 58 years old. I got problem knees, all kinds of stuff going on as a side note, too.

Just who should be dancing on television. Yes, exactly.

Also, too, what's even better is it like, this was April, I said yes. Then in July, they figured out what all the leg pain and stuff had been going on is because I need a hip replacement. Oh, wow. I need a new left hip. I was like, Hey. The minute I was like, I'm supposed to be doing dancing with the stars, which was a violation of the NDA, and I could have been fired to tell my doctors. But they're like, Yeah, you should be all right. I got some injection that was supposed to help, and it did help. But this is like a big bond voyage to my old arthritic hip. You know what I think would happen?

Because this is what comes to mind, because I'm always trying to gain the system, and I very much want you to do well on this show. You've got judges that are looking at you. I think you should begin every number with us. There's a silhouette of someone walking out, and it's your orthopedic surgeon. He has actual imaging of your decrepit hip.

On the big screen, it comes- It's my MRI.

It's your MRI He says, as you can see here, there's the flaring of the joint where the bone slips into the socket, and we've lost too much calcium there. It's cracked. That should be like a golf handicap. Absolutely. They should add 15 points.

Yeah, absolutely. Instead of the tape package about me and Emma practicing, it should just be like his hip bone has always or his femur has always had an impingement, which means that it's not spherical, it's egg-shaped. So his entire life, it's been building up and bone on bone rubbing against each other.

But also your surgeon should be doing commentary as you're dancing. Well, that's a major load-bearing move. The pain he's reaching now would be at least an eight. If 10 is visibly uncomfortable, he's at an eight. Now, he's at a nine. Now, he's at a two.

He's just twirling around the dance floor.

Yeah, he's twirling. Do you think about it? I think that would be a hero.

I just am powering through it. I do take solace in the fact that the people who are much younger than me, which is everybody, But the ones that are even much younger than me in their 20s are like, my legs hurt, my knees hurt. I go home and just ache, and I certainly do. At night, it's like I lay in bed and it just hurts. It's just lots of Advil and ice, and that's it. But then I thought, no, I need to do this. I need to do this just to get moving. It got me to go to the gym and do cardio, which I loathe. Started to do a lot more stretching just to prepare myself. Then the week before I met my partner, I was having stress dreams. I was just dreading it and just felt I was like, crap for the whole week before, just like,. That crabby to my family and stuff. Then I went, but I signed up for it. I was going to do it. Was terrified that I was going to get injured, that I just wouldn't be able to do it. Like you said. I'm not going to be able to remember all that.

I'm not going to. Then would have to pull out and be embarrassed as one is when one pulls out. I didn't think you'd go there.

I I did, though. I thought, no, Andy's before I would do it. I thought of it and I... You know what? I thought of it and I let it go. That's how low this is.

That is bad.

Thought of it and pulled out. Sounds like my wedding night. You did it though. Pulled out and I was embarrassed. You still did it, though. I did it afterwards. I know. Now I win.

Exactly. I'm guilty and you're innocent.

That's right. Enjoy your jail while I get on my victory yacht. This is all happening in my head.

But then I Luckily, was paired with just a sweet angel of a ballroom dancer named Emma Slater. Yeah, her name is Emma Slater.

Emma Slater.

She seems lovely. She's fantastic. There were so many people around her, like from promo people to security guards to different people. Stage hands are like, Oh, you got the best one. Oh, nice. Yeah, because she is just so much fun. You rehearse four hours a day, seven days a week.

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to bring up something that I think is your secret weapon, which is you've been making these videos, and Emma Slater is in a bunch of them.

No, she's the Cecil B. Demille of our TikTok presence.

You've been doing a bunch your videos. I started watching. I started looking at your videos. I don't know how to access these things.

No, I know. Someone showed them to you.

David brought me this. Your dog. My dog brought me what's, I think, called an iPhone. But I was looking at it and I was like, Andy's really funny, and he's making these funny videos, which you did at our late night show thousands of times. And I'm looking at you just be super funny. And I was like, Oh, this is great. If there wasn't If you didn't even get to do the rest, if they somehow said, No, we're canceling the dancing part, you're just going to make these videos, I think this is a home run. Yeah.

Oh, thank you. Well, I went into the thing, as I said, dreading it, but still resolved to be open, resolved saying yes, resolved to being compliant, which is really in these days.

But I started- I will not have political commentary on this show. Back to how much Advil you're having and what inflammation you're suffering from. This is a medical show, not a political show.

But so I started doing the rehearsals with Emma, and it was like Hulk Smash was there. She was trying to just show me the basic steps, and I'd watch her do it and then try to do it myself. And it really was like I couldn't do it. But then slowly, with repetition and commitment and dedication to not just throwing a fit and running out, it's like the wiring starts to be built up, or whether it's like wiring that was there that was somehow crusted over. It's now we're going from the first dance into the second dance and from a cha-cha to a tango, and it's much easier to learn the second one. I'm assuming it's going to be easier to learn the third one, God willing and America willing. If you people vote me off, you're making a big mistake.

I always find that if you want people to vote for you, it's really good to threaten them. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

You should do it on the show. Oh, you better. You better. I know who you are.

The doctor could also do that part.

The doctor can do that part.

My partner on Tuesday because Bruno, one of the judges, gave me a four, and they mentioned that- I don't know, four out of what? Four out of 10. I tied with Corey Feldman for the lowest score. But I'm like, I'm 30 years older. Fucking everybody, what do you want from me? But when we were up in the sky box with Julianne afterwards and they gave the scores and he gave a four, and everybody in the place went, Boo. And I went, Yeah, get him. And she said, No one has ever done that. Get him. Never done that before. I told the crowd, Yeah, get I'm not a judge.

So I was like, Oh, okay. You always know what to say in those situations. It's funny. You brought that up, and you always know what to say in the right situation. And I remember one time we were in this studio, and we're in 30 Rock, and we're in our studio, and there's no windows or anything. It suddenly the power went out, and the lights went out, and it went pretty black. Just was like, the lights went out, went black, and Andy, without missing a second, went, My pearls. In like old 1930s movie. That's an old thing. My pearls. My pearls have been stolen. But you just said, My pearls. That's what comes to mind now when you say, Get him. Those are the things that are just going to come out of here. There's nothing that can be done.

Absolutely. No, it's like, I don't even It's not like I sit around going like, Now, when the lights go out, remember, say, My pearls. It just comes out.

It's the delicious chocolate bubbles in Aero that make it a joy to eat. Aero. Feel the bubbles melt. Forget everything you think you know about golf, because there's nothing like the Ryder Cup. It's Europe versus the USA, 12 of their best versus 12 of ours. It's unmissable. It's glory. It's chaos. And there's no golf like it. Enjoy every moment of the Ryder Cup with Now, just 20-year-old month for 12 months. Cancel anytime. 18 plus. Membership Required. Content streamed via the internet.

Terms and conditions apply. I did slowly learn it, and I did slowly get a handle on it, and you would be able to do it. But it is like, I wouldn't be doing this for fun. I'm doing this because I got hired to do it. And I've said this, too, over there. A lot of these people, they're reality stars or they're athletes and things. And it's like, for me, this is a TV I take all different kinds of TV jobs. I've been on all different kinds of TV, and I'm doing basically the same thing in all of them. But not so much when I'm acting, but certainly with these live and live-ish shows, I know like, Okay, I understand how all this works. I understand how it's put together, and I'm here to serve a purpose of adding fun and value to this production. We'd be doing these rehearsals, and then some of them should be like, You got to sell it more. I was like, You turn it on. Make the faces and stuff. But it's like, I'm not going to waste the faces when we're doing it for the 17th time on Thursday.

We went into the camera rehearsal on Monday, and I saw a tape of it. What I thought was, given them the camera version of selling it, I realized was nothing. It didn't look like anything. So I was like, Oh, okay, tomorrow. Bigger. Got to really go big, big, big. My daughter, my older daughter, did say, Dad, Don't smile too much. She's like, Don't. I know what she means.

Well, she's probably saying, Because then you're not you.

Andy Rickert as you walk around. She's saying that, but you also have seen people on TV.

They give it 10,000 in Megawatt.

Yeah, like Lawrence Welk dancers. They always were grinning like, I don't know, like they were in the afterglow.

I think he would shock them if they didn't. He had a big generator out back. How scary is it when you're just about to When you're standing there and you're in silhouette and you're facing away from the camera and you know this music's kicking in, is it fight or flight stuff?

No, it wasn't.

Can you redo it if something goes horribly wrong?

No, it's live. It is really, truly live. It's live. That's scary. In fact, they give you a little talk beforehand. I mean, the direction was like, If you're hurt, keep going. Unless you're really hurt, and then you'll put your hand up, and then I'll cut away from you. But if you hurt yourself or fall, he's like, I want to keep the camera on you, and I'm going to keep the camera on you. He said, But if you really hurt, raise your hand, and then I'll know to cut away to somebody They got to someone being sawn in half.

Somebody eating a human hand.

But one day, about a week before, all four couples that were there at that point We all did our dance for each other. They call it a show and tell. It was Baren Davis, Jen Affleck, Danielle Fishell, and me. It's NBA All-Star, a reality star, one of the Norman housewives. Danielle was on Boy Meets World and was like everybody's teenage crush, and me. It's like people from different accomplished backgrounds all being scared kids in front of each other, doing this thing for the first time for somebody other than just their partner. It felt like everyone, we all cheer for each other. When they were all done cheering, I was like, I said, I feel like I've joined a cult because my heart was singing, and I was just like, I did it. And somebody said, now you're going to have to do that in front of the studio audience and on TV in front of people. I felt like, well, this is the bubble being burst. I did it here. And so like, okay, now I did it right. And I did it. That's the thing. Did I do it right? Did I screw it up?

Did I forget anything? And no, I didn't. So I was already ready. And then you get to the ball room and you have all day Monday where you run it a bunch of times. And then Tuesday Okay, you're in that thing from 10: 00 AM until 10: 00 PM, because afterwards, there's all kinds of press and stuff to do. So by the time it's my turn to dance, A, I was 12 out of 14. I was just like, Let's get this over with. And I'd been in the room all day, so I was comfortable in the room and comfortable in front of the people. So it was just like it wasn't hard. And I knew that I knew what I was doing. There is a moment of, Hope I remember everything. But other than that, it's just... And I do love Emma so much, and we do have so much fun together, and she's been so nice and so supportive that I'm also not alone in it. She and I have been cooking up these things for people and then making silly TikToks on the side. It's all pretty fun.

Is there a way to harm anyone else that you're competing against? Oh, no. Because this is where my head would go. I don't mean physically harm them, although if there's an idea for that, we'll take it. What I mean is, is there any way to get in their head or somehow sabotage them or that's not cool?

The only thing I've been doing is lead in lunches. Just a little bit of lead in different lunches. But you know what?

It does. It's been proven and your doctor will tell you this, it slows down the neural responses. I would give them the poops. What's that? I would do something with their lunch and give them the poops.

To give them the diarrheas.

Yeah, because they're all wearing really tight costumes. Oh, so you wanted it to happen. On live TV? I do. Yeah, I know. I don't know.

But lead is good.

Let's do long term. Lead is funnier because they just can't. Their brain working right. This is long term damage. Yes, long term.

Oh, absolutely.

The poops, they're over it tomorrow. You're talking about permanently impairing these people.

If you shit on TV in front of a millions of people, would you be over it the next day? No.

That would scar you for life. You get a sympathy vote. No, people would be just so horrified by the whole thing.

Nobody relates to pooping. Would they have to raise their hand to cut the camera? Yeah. Cut the camera.

No. The director What's wrong? The poops.

It's a coming.

It's a coming. They would zoom in. Then just cuts your studio audience. It's a crane shot from outside the studio at ABC, and people are just streaming out, running for their lives. Well, thanks, Sona, for bringing it around. I'm helping. No.

We did say one of the stars, and you all can look up who it ever is, just gave birth four weeks ago, and we have been making jokes about the strength of pelvic floor. Oh, boy. And is there urine being sprayed around during tosses and things?

This is the stuff I wanted to get to.

Well, I also will tell you, too. I mean, This is the good stuff. Dancers are very physically oriented and there's not a lot of body shame. Earthy. Yeah, exactly. There's something almost like animal. It's just a bunch of beautiful, incredible animals that are doing animally things, jumping and leaping. There's just very little personal boundaries. But they're athletes. They're just great athletes. Absolutely, athletes. Yeah, definitely. And also you're holding on to somebody through this whole thing. There's a lot of physical contact. But yeah, especially because Eastern European, it's just another sport. It's just You can be a gymnast or you could be a soccer player, or you can be a ballroom dancer. And it is incredibly athletic and sporty. It is. It's all competition.

Okay, this is coming out six days from now. What's your next hurdle? What's it going to be? What's coming up that you have to overcome in order to stay on what I call DWTS?

Wow, that was good. It looked like you were really- It took longer.

I think it took longer. I'm going to be honest with you. Yeah. I had a lead burger this morning. So I'm doing pretty well.

Yeah, we have a pizza. Lead pizza, please.

Instead of the pepperoni, now. Giant lead coins.

Wait, what was the question?

I don't know.

What's next? Oh, what's next? We are doing a tango to It's Raining Men, which will have already happened.

But as we're speaking right now, How many days out are you from that?

This is Thursday, and that'll be Tuesday.

Okay.

And you said this is airing Wednesday. Right. So my fate will have been decided by America then. But I feel like I'm remaining very hopeful that I'll stick around for a little bit because I do think it's a TV show, and when people are voting... And also, I am, again, relying so much on Emma's online presence and her military campaign to get people to vote for us. I think I'll stick around because I do feel like it is a TV show, and the question isn't, who is the dancer? It's who do you want to see in the TV show? Is That's ultimately what it ends up being. If you're going to watch this show next week, who do you want to see in the TV show if somebody has to go? One of the ERP said at one point, and it struck me, was they're asking you to vote for your favorite dancer, not the best dancer, the favorite dancer. So that can be whatever it means to anybody watching and anybody taking the trouble to vote, which the voting is weird. And I guess I knew this, but I didn't understand it. You only vote while the show is on live, which is from 8: 00 to 10: 00 on the East Coast, 7: 00 to 9: 00 in Midwest.

So that also means here, you got to vote from 5: 00 to 7: 00. You got to vote 3 hours before the show airs in order to have vote count. So if you're watching it on ABC or Disney Plus or whatever here in Los Angeles, and you're watching it in the tape delay, you can't vote. So it's like for people on the West Coast and in Mountain Time, if they want to vote, they're voting based on their preference from last week, I guess, because you don't know what the dance is.

I thought you were going to reveal that there's an electoral college, too.

No, oh my God.

In some states, there's- People have more electors.

I was doing interviews today. We rehearsed, and then I did interviews, and they were saying, It's a double elimination on Tuesday. How do you feel about that? I'm like, I don't know. I mean, what can I do? I did as much as I could, and I'll do as much as I can, which is- Until every other dancer has diarrhea, you have not done all that you can do.

Yeah, he came on. He came on to the diarrhea train. I have come around.

Every other dancer's family remains unthreatened, I have not done enough. No. We can always do more.

Colin and I can take care of it. We can take care of this. You take care of the diarrhea. I've got some very soft Roman lead. It's from the piping in Rome that brought down the empire, and I am going to be sprinkling that in the other dancer's burritos.

You know what I was thinking about? A lot of burritos backstage.

I was thinking about if I ever saw you do any choreographed dance, and I remembered your K video and how you just couldn't really get it. What do you mean I couldn't get it? I killed that thing. I don't know. I couldn't get it. Were you there? He was having trouble. He kept on like... I feel like you kept forgetting how to do this string dance. I will say, I think you did great in the K-pop video, but you did do an Irish dance where you kicked a girl in the face. You did kick a girl in the face. Well, first of all, she had a...

I don't know. What's more Irish than that? You're going to blame her?

I'm just saying she had a a little bit of an attitude beforehand. See?

Irish.

That's how the Irish take care of things. No, there is footage of me accidentally kicking a young girl in the head. I remember that. Then we showed it again and again in slow motion. I did bring her out in front of a massive crowd at the Chicago Theater and kicked her again. Such a good prank. All right, so, Andy, I'm your friend, maybe your oldest friend, maybe your only true friend, and I want to help you in your cause. Maybe you could give us some information. How can people vote for Andy and Emma?

They can vote for us. Again, you have to do it Pacific 5: 00 to 07: 00 PM on Tuesdays, East Coast, 08: 00 to 10: 00 on Tuesdays. That is your window for voting. You can text Andy, A-N-D-Y, it's with a Y, to 215-23. You can do that 10 times per Another method of voting. The other way to vote is online to dwtsvote, dwtsvote. Abc. Com. There, again, you can vote 10 times per couple. You don't have to vote all for us, but you'd be an idiot not to.

That's true. Well, Andy, good luck. Thank you. Keep enjoying it because that's key, and take care of yourself. I am. I'm just worried about your hip exploding midday.

Oh, no, no, no, it'll be fine. The doctor said, I did say, Yeah, but do I have to? I just said, Am I going to have to worry about it snapping at some point? He's like, No, no, no. What does he know?

I know. I know you. You didn't go to the best doctor.

I did. I did. Yeah, it's a mobile clinic.

You tore a piece of paper off a lampe post.

Yeah, yeah. Need a new hip?

Or reupholstery.

I teach bass guitar. I'm saving that for January. That'll be my big New Year's present to myself as a new hip. But everybody says that it's a wonderful thing to get done. Sure. That you heal up real well. It lasts forever. The consistent thing that everybody says is, I wish I'd done it sooner. I'm not somebody, when there's a medical thing that needs to be done, I'm like, Do it.

I'm that way, too. I'm not a guy that's like, You're 90% blocked in your heart.

We'll get to that later.

Now, I've got a mountain to climb and liquid cheese to eat. Once I'm done with my cheese-athon on the Matterhorn, maybe I'll come back and see. All right, Andy Richter, onward and upward.

Thank you. Thank you.

Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Konan O'Brien, Sonam of Cessian and Matt Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and nick Leal. Theme song by the White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our Supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our Associate Talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and Mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brenda Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnik. Talent Booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Brit Kohn. You rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Konan? Call the Team Coco Hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It, too, could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of Serious XM when you sign up at siriusxm. Com/konan. If you haven't already, please subscribe to Konan O'Brien Needs A Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

It's the delicious chocolate bubbles in Aero that make it a joy to eat. Aero. Feel the bubbles melt. Forget everything you think you know about golf, because there's nothing like the Ryder Cup. It's Europe versus the USA, 12 of their best versus 12 of ours. It's unmissable, it's glory, it's chaos, and there's no golf like it. Enjoy every moment of the Ryder Cup with Now, just 20-year-old month for 12 months. Cancel anytime. 18 plus membership required. Content streamed via the internet. Terms and conditions apply.