Conan O’Brien Rehires Poor, Failed Andy Richter

News comes today that when Conan O’Brien starts hosting the Tonight Show from LA in June, his old Late Night sidekick will once again be along for the ride. As, sigh, the show’s announcer.

Poor Mr. Richter left Late Night some ten years ago to pursue solo fame, but found very litte. His three short-lived TV series—Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Quintuplets, and Andy Barker, P.I.—were critical successes (well, OK, not Quintuplets), but the audiences never showed up. He also made a couple of sad appearances in movies, like playing the Ching-Chong-Chinese-accented Bernie Bang in the Olsen Twins’ wide release flop, New York Minute.

But don’t worry. He won’t just be yelling Conan’s name at the top of each evening. He’ll appear in skits, much like Joel Goddard did on Late Night we imagine. And, on the more optimistic side, maybe this was an idea all along, Conan just needed to move to LA! Richter said before he appeared on Late Night’s last broadcast on Friday:

The best thing about Conan taking over the ‘Tonight’ show is that he’s coming to Los Angeles, where I already live. So I’m getting my friends back.

So that’s nice, I guess. Maybe it’s not actually the saddest, “most reminiscent of that Simpsons episode where Homer quits the nuclear power plant to work at the bowling alley, but then has to go back when Marge gets pregnant and crawl through a little tunnel and get the plague plaque” bit of TV news in recent memory.

To give you a refresher, here are some old Richter clips. Oh, and, at press time, LaBamba is still sitting by the phone… waiting.