Just two days after Jim Gaffigan debuted as VP candidate Tim Walz on SNL, Jimmy Kimmel Live! has found its own comic to play the vice presidential hopeful: Andy Richter.
The late-night veteran appeared as Walz on Kimmel’s show Monday night. Kimmel staged a remote interview with Walz, who in true midwestern dad fashion was busy fixing his neighbor’s toilet. (The bit takes an unpredictable turn when MyPillow CEO and Trump crony Mike Lindell pops up from said toilet.)
Like Gaffigan, Richter’s name was frequently mentioned when social media began sounding off on who should play Walz on Saturday Night Live. In fact, one of those voices was former SNL writer Robert Smigel.
“I believe our pal @andyrichter would tear it up as Tim Walz on @nbcsnl,” Smigel wrote last month. (Smigel then went on to correctly predict Dana Carvey’s casting as Joe Biden.)
SNL’s Walz role wound up going to Gaffigan, who appeared in the cold open of Saturday’s Season 50 premiere episode.
Richter, of course, is no stranger to late night. He was Conan O’Brien’s sidekick on Late Night with Conan O’Brien from its 1993 launch through 2000. He re-teamed with O’Brien to become announcer of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien in 2009. The next year, he followed O’Brien to TBS, where he was the sidekick on Conan until it went off the air in 2021.
Like Walz, Richter has midwestern roots. Richter was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and raised in Yorkville, Illinois, while the Minnesota governor was born and raised in Nebraska. (They also share that background with Gaffigan, who was born in Illinois and raised in Indiana.)
If Richter and Gaffigan seem to be two of a kind, it may also be because the two played brothers on The Jim Gaffigan Show.
Richter has kept busy since leaving the daily grind of late night. He continues to host the Team Coco podcast The Three Questions, and recently launched a SiriusXM call-in show, The Andy Richter Call-In Show.
