Andy Richter Addresses Future With Conan O’Brien on New HBO Max Show (Exclusive)

Conan O’Brien’s late-night talk show Conan on TBS might have ended its 11-year run two weeks ago, but his best friend and longtime sidekick Andy Richter went through a “weird period” with the show coming to an end — at least this iteration of it. In an exclusive with PopCulture.com detailing his new Audible Original, The Incredibly Inaccurate Biography of Andy Richter, the comedian and TV icon admits that while the show’s end still doesn’t feel quite “real” for him, there are no plans just yet to join O’Brien for the new HBO Max show.

“I honestly have no idea and there’s no deception. There’s no sort of like, conspiracy to hide the truth. There’s a difference of opinion and kind of like just not knowing exactly what the next show should be, will be, what has the best chance of being fun and working,” he said, adding how O’Brien did the cast and crew all a “favor” by letting them know he was unsure what’s happening next. “[That’s] kind of given us permission to go out and see what’s happening out in the world, other employment. […] It all depends on what that show is and if it makes sense for me to do it. By then, my line of celebrity chili might’ve really hit the shelves and then I won’t need him anymore.”

With the finale still fresh in fans’ minds following a late-night offering of more than 1,500 episodes that provided an “intersection between smart and stupid” per O’Brien’s last words on the show, Richter says he hasn’t done much “emotional work” to manage through his feelings. “I still kind of feel like I’m on vacation, which I just was texting a friend that you don’t get to say you’re on vacation if you don’t have a job, like, you have to have a job in order to say you’re on vacation,” he laughed. “So, I have to get past that soon. But I’m fine. I’m having a nice summer and hanging out with my kids and my dog and doing projects like [the Audible Original].”

While Richter works through his feelings, he also admits he’s incredibly humbled by the love fans have been showering him with since the finale aired on June 24. “It’s been really wonderful. I mean, like, it’s ridiculous in a way. Like, people aren’t made to hear so much nice stuff about themselves,” he said. “When something like that happens […] it is wonderful to hear all this stuff, but it is also like, ‘Oh my God.’ I don’t know what to do. I’m really happy that the stuff that we did meant a lot to a lot of people, and especially to a lot of people who are like we were when we were younger and looking for shows that kind of were strange.”

Richter reveals how one of O’Brien’s last guests, Bill Hader put it best when he shared a story of how the comedy featured on Late Night With Conan O’Brien impacted him growing up. “[He] put it perfectly — he said he used to watch VHS recordings [of Late Night] at a friend’s house and he said it was the first show that was his. The first show that his parents did not get and probably didn’t like and that’s pretty great to affect somebody who does such good work as him with the work that we were doing back then,” Richter said.

While Richter is unsure of what’s to come for O’Brien and the future of his HBO Max show, he has been busy with his podcast series, Three Questions With Andy Richter, and is currently “developing things” though he can’t say exactly what. “Nothing that I could really say anything about because it’s not real,” he said. “It takes a long time before it’s even worth it to talk about anything. But I’m developing an animated show and there’s a game show that I’m connected to that’s being pitched and I’m supposed to be writing a lot of stuff, but I’m not. I should be, but I’m not. I will be.”

Richter can currently be heard in the new Audible Original audiobook, The Incredibly Inaccurate Biography of Andy Richter, a laugh-out-loud “lie-ography” divided up into “chunks” of his actual life but turned into a humorous and oftentimes slanderous take on the comedian. “It’s a different concept,” he said of the project created by him and The Simpsons writer, Joel H. Cohen. “[He] came to me and said, ‘I have an idea for biographies that are written by different people, like a chapter a writer, comedy writers and it would be a biography of a willing subject who would be in the project, too. But all the stuff is BS. It’s all lies and kind of like a roast, basically. A chapter-by-chapter roast of a subject and the subject gets to interject within the story or between chapters and refute these things.”