Andy Richter is Still On TV

Photo: The Howard Stern Show

Andy Richter stopped by to promote ‘Conan’ and catch up with the crew about what he’s been up to since Conan lost ‘The Tonight Show.’ Howard joked that Andy was here to announce that he’s still on TV, a gag that Andy, in typical form, ran with: “I’m still on TV, mom!” Asked if TBS really spent $1 million to come up with the name of ‘Conan,’ Andy laughed: “That has to be bullshit. No, no, no.”

A Sidekick In Wartime

Howard referenced Bill Carter’s book about Conan’s struggle with Jay, ‘The War for Late Night,’ a book Andy said was surprisingly accurate–Bill (somehow) even knew about the time NBC forced Andy to call Jay to apologize for saying Jay wasn’t “classy.” Andy said the comment was in response to Jay publicly floating a return to ‘The Tonight Show’–before anyone else had–and vividly remembered how guilty Jay sounded: “Right off the bat, he’s explaining himself to me.” Andy said he still harbored a little resentment toward Jay–and the network: “He got 2 whole years before he was beating Letterman. We got 7 months and already we were failures.” Further, NBC never stepped in to prevent a booking war. Jay got all the big guests: “We were still the little brother. We were still going to get hand-me-downs … [and] he wears the same damn clothes every day.”

Leno’s Still In the Closet

Howard thought it was par for the course, noting that Jay (admittedly) hid in NBC closets to undermine Letterman’s efforts to usurp Carson, an incident Andy said was emblematic of Jay’s “spectacular” neuroses: “[He’s] a desperate, desperate person.” Andy says Conan’s deal with TBS is definitively Jay-proof: “He owns the show. He owns the Web presence, he owns the name, he owns his likeness.”