Tonight Show sidekick Andy Richter recently had some choice words for New York magazine’s Vulture blog on the subject of NBC and TV comedy in general.
The chat coincided with the DVD release of Andy Barker, P.I., created by Conan O’Brien and Jonathan Groff and starring Richter.
Regarding any future projects, Richter told Vulture, “Well, you know, I’m the announcer on The Tonight Show. That’s enough for a while. Who knows what’s gonna happen. Good God, with the network, and what’s happening. I feel like there’s storms brewing and we’re just clinging to our little Tonight Show buoy trying to put on a funny show and trying to see how it all shakes down. But there’s so much with the network getting sold and ratings turmoil. We just keep doing it, and until that calms down, I’m not going to be thinking about game shows I can be producing.”
With a deal expected between Comcast and GE that would see the former take a 51% ownership stake in NBC Universal, Richter spoke of certain concerns. “The direction that the network is in right now, and the choices that they’ve made, have been made by a current regime. And if the network is sold and you have brand-new owners, you don’t know whether that regime is the same. You don’t know anything…It’s not necessarily insecure, but everything’s a variable.”
He does allow, “If it’s for the better, then great,” then adds, “Because things at the network are not in good shape.”
On his choice to go back to work with O’Brien, Richter notes “how shitty it is just trying to develop comedy right now. How dumb ideas are seeming to be rewarded. How a lot of the networks seem to have basically thrown in the towel on comedy and said ‘We just basically don’t know what we’re doing or what works.'”
