Andy Richter

Paul Andrew Richter (born October 28, 1966) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and talk show announcer.

He is best known as the sidekick for Conan O'Brien on each of O'Brien's talk shows: Late Night and The Tonight Show on NBC and Conan on TBS.

He was also star of the TV series Andy Richter Controls the Universe.

He voiced Mort in the Madagascar film franchise and Ben Higgenbottom in the Nickelodeon animated television series The Mighty B!.

Richter, the second of four children, was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to mother Glenda Swanson (née Palmer), a kitchen cabinet designer, and father Laurence R. Richter, who taught Russian at Indiana University for more than 32 years.

Richter was raised in Yorkville, Illinois.

In the late 1980s, Richter attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and Columbia College Chicago as a film major.

While at Columbia, he learned the basics of comedic acting and writing by starring in numerous student films and videos.

He graduated from Yorkville High School in 1984, where he was elected Prom King.

His parents divorced when he was 4 and his father later came out as bisexual.

He is of Swedish-German descent.

After leaving Columbia in 1988, Richter worked as a production assistant on commercial shoots in Chicago.

In 1989, he began taking classes at Chicago's Improv Olympic.

He went from student to "House Performer" within a year.

Richter branched out working with "The Comedy Underground" and the Annoyance Theatre.

Richter wrote for the short-lived Jonathan Brandmeier television show.

In the early 1990s, the Annoyance Theatre hit gold when producer Joey Soloway staged The Real Live Brady Bunch with live, word-for-word performances of the '70s sitcom.

The show was so popular that it attracted national attention and moved to New York City.

Richter was not an original member of the cast but the actor who played "Mike Brady" in the Chicago cast opted not to go to New York.

Richter asked Soloway if he could play "Mike" in New York and, since Soloway had not cast a replacement, he agreed.

At the same time The Real Live Brady Bunch was playing in New York, two fellow Annoyance members (Beth Cahill and Melanie Hutsell, who played Marcia and Jan Brady in the "Real Live Brady Bunch" stage show) were hired as cast members on Saturday Night Live.

With friends on SNL, Richter attended after-show parties, where he met SNL writer Robert Smigel.

Two years later, Smigel hired Richter as a writer for a new show he was producing, Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Smigel sent Richter to join Conan O'Brien on stage during a practice run-through when the production staff was testing lighting angles and sound, and noticed the two had a strong rapport.

He became O'Brien's sidekick just weeks before the show began airing in 1993.

Richter departed from Late Night after the show on May 26, 2000.

He later said of the decision, "After seven years of being on the show, I got itchy. I have a philosophy that if you enjoy good fortune, rather than sit there and say, "Oh, that's fine, this amount is good enough for me," you should try and push it. You should see how much you can stretch your good fortune. And I was curious."

Richter left his post at Late Night in 2000 to pursue a career acting in films and television.

His first major venture, Fox's Andy Richter Controls the Universe, was canceled after two mid-season runs.

His next Fox sitcom, Quintuplets, lasted one season.

His 2007 television series, Andy Barker P.I., was co-written and executive produced by Conan O'Brien.

In the series, Richter played an accountant who could not attract clients.

After a woman comes to his office thinking he is the former tenant, a private investigator, she asks him to find her husband, who she thinks faked his death.

Barker decides to pursue this job and becomes a private detective in earnest, and continues to do his accounting job, which seems to pick up as the series goes on.

The series aired on NBC, with all six episodes in the first season on NBC.com.

The series was canceled after very poor ratings, despite being named by Entertainment Weekly as one of the Top Ten Shows of 2007.

On February 24, 2009, it was announced that Richter would rejoin O'Brien as the announcer for The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien in Los Angeles.

Richter frequently appeared in comedy sketches on the show and often commented and interacted with Conan during the opening monologue; he was also part of the show's writing staff.

In mid-December 2009, Richter also began joining Conan on the couch during the celebrity interviews, much like he did in his former sidekick role on Late Night.

Richter said he enjoyed having a steady paycheck again and not having to deal with production companies while developing television shows.