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The Incredibly Inaccurate Biography of Andy Richter
Andy Richter: TV icon and comedy legend, probably was born somewhere, grew up someplace, and maybe even did a bunch of stuff. All that boring garbage could be jammed into a classic celebrity biography, but to write that would take work and effort. Two things this Audible Original wasn’t about to stoop to.
Jam-packed with misinformation, outright lies, and probable slander, The Incredibly Inaccurate Biography of Andy Richter is totally - and tonally - wrong. A “lie-ography,” if you will, manufactured by some of America’s funniest and most ignorant writers, each working independently of the others, all following one guiding principle: a mutual disregard for the truth. And a mutual disdain for Andy.
Performed by Nick Offerman and disputed throughout by the actual Andy Richter, TIIBOAR traces the arc of Andy’s life, career, and even his ultimate passing (we just checked, and it turns out, he is unfortunately still alive). What’s more, it even covers his afterlife. How many biographies do that? (We did no research, but assume it is very few.)
Contributing writers include Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings, comedy legend Andy Daly, New York Times best-selling author Samantha Irby, and writers from The Simpsons, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, Conan, and many more.
©2021 Joel Cohen and Andrew Richter (P)2021 Audible Originals
Jam-packed with misinformation, outright lies, and probable slander, The Incredibly Inaccurate Biography of Andy Richter is totally - and tonally - wrong. A “lie-ography,” if you will, manufactured by some of America’s funniest and most ignorant writers, each working independently of the others, all following one guiding principle: a mutual disregard for the truth. And a mutual disdain for Andy.
Performed by Nick Offerman and disputed throughout by the actual Andy Richter, TIIBOAR traces the arc of Andy’s life, career, and even his ultimate passing (we just checked, and it turns out, he is unfortunately still alive). What’s more, it even covers his afterlife. How many biographies do that? (We did no research, but assume it is very few.)
Contributing writers include Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings, comedy legend Andy Daly, New York Times best-selling author Samantha Irby, and writers from The Simpsons, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, Conan, and many more.
©2021 Joel Cohen and Andrew Richter (P)2021 Audible Originals
Audiobook
Published July 8, 2021
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43 people want to read
About the author
Joel Cohen
4 books12 followersAuthor also writes under Joel H. Cohen
Joel Cohen is a writer and producer for The Simpsons. He’s also written for Suddenly Susan. He is the winner of two Emmy Awards and three Writers Guild Awards. He also proudly (and barely) completed the 2013 New York City Marathon.
Joel Cohen is a writer and producer for The Simpsons. He’s also written for Suddenly Susan. He is the winner of two Emmy Awards and three Writers Guild Awards. He also proudly (and barely) completed the 2013 New York City Marathon.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 9, 2021
Bravo! You can't see, but I'm kissing my fingers in appreciation. Hilarious, unusual, upsetting, and hilarious again.
February 19, 2022
Great for a work day listen. Offerman was a great narrator and the scenarios were hilarious.
September 21, 2025
I rarely review books I don’t finish on the theory that saying nothing is condemnation enough. But this one is so egregiously bad that, as a consumer report, I feel the need to get it off my chest.
To start, I really thought it might turn out to be an interesting addition to the comedy biographies I’ve read. I’m intrigued by what makes different people funny in different ways, and I’ve wondered about Richter for a long time.
I’ve never quite been a fan, but I have always almost appreciated the way he pioneered an aspect of comedy we don’t see all that often: a kind of comic victim (maybe a goyische schlemiel) who worked to retain a shred of dignity in a world constantly denying it to him.
I hated the idea of a “sidekick” when he and Conan debuted. In fact, I was very slow to appreciate Conan and am still not sure I love all that he was doing. But Richter’s commitment to the Ed McMahon parody was all the more compelling the longer he kept it up. There’s be a glimpse of intelligence that flashed out one moment or a next, and then he’d sublimate it again. It was a sustained critique of the banality of television, and I thought – yes, I really thought – that a biography might explore those tensions.
To be clear, I wasn’t looking for an academic treatise. I wanted funny. But I wanted funny rooted in what was, apparently, a thoughtful stance toward the nature of what it means to be funny in the way Richter performed.
But this. Ugh.
For one, Richter doesn’t really even write it. The authors are a series of producers and writers (or old improv friends) who are trying to be funny in the way they set out to roast their old friend.
I’m no fan of roasts, but this doesn’t even try. When Jeff Ross or one of his ilk busts on a celebrity, they do so from a shred of real life, amplifying some aspect into a dagger thrust or roundhouse blow.
I don’t enjoy the meanness at the heart of roasts even, on the rare occasions, when it’s actually funny. This is mean-spirited, though, with an utter absence of real humor and without any connection to the real Richter.
In frat-boy style, one after the other of the chapter writers invents a mean-spirited narrative around the young Andy, the Andy of high school, the Andy of his early career, and, presumably since I didn’t read it, the later career Andy.
Is it funny that Andy supposedly had no friends in high school except the gender-fluid high mascot perpetually dressed as a salmon and never saying a word? Is it then still funny when “Sam” turns out to be harboring homicidal thoughts toward Andy even as they supposedly date?
Maybe it is in somebody’s world, but certainly not mine.
And I’m not picking on that chapter. They are all equally bad, and it feels as if they were written over a pot-saturated boys’ weekend with each daring the next into jokes that fall flat in the same way.
In reality, as I understand it, Richter was a well-liked high schooler. (Wikipedia says he was the prom king.) I’d love to hear him reflect on what made him create a character so very different from that.
Or, consider that he quit the first iteration of Conan at the peak of his celebrity. What was he thinking? A move like that implies some fascinating thoughts on the nature of popular culture – which Richter mocked every time he sat on that couch and guffawed, or when he got off a surprise zinger that flashed his otherwise buried comic chops.
His supposed friends here don’t seem to see any of that. They mock him in the way he asks to be mocked…which shows precisely that they miss the central joke of Richter’s career.
In other words, his comedy rests on inviting this sort of abuse. But the punch line of his act has always been the realization that we are all missing something in the way we move from one vapid guest to another. It feels like there should be something real underneath the conversations on the couch, and it feels like Richter is (was) better situated to explore that than anyone else.
Instead, he subordinates himself to others here – again – and the result is neither funny nor interesting, one of the worst books I have (almost) read in a long time.
To start, I really thought it might turn out to be an interesting addition to the comedy biographies I’ve read. I’m intrigued by what makes different people funny in different ways, and I’ve wondered about Richter for a long time.
I’ve never quite been a fan, but I have always almost appreciated the way he pioneered an aspect of comedy we don’t see all that often: a kind of comic victim (maybe a goyische schlemiel) who worked to retain a shred of dignity in a world constantly denying it to him.
I hated the idea of a “sidekick” when he and Conan debuted. In fact, I was very slow to appreciate Conan and am still not sure I love all that he was doing. But Richter’s commitment to the Ed McMahon parody was all the more compelling the longer he kept it up. There’s be a glimpse of intelligence that flashed out one moment or a next, and then he’d sublimate it again. It was a sustained critique of the banality of television, and I thought – yes, I really thought – that a biography might explore those tensions.
To be clear, I wasn’t looking for an academic treatise. I wanted funny. But I wanted funny rooted in what was, apparently, a thoughtful stance toward the nature of what it means to be funny in the way Richter performed.
But this. Ugh.
For one, Richter doesn’t really even write it. The authors are a series of producers and writers (or old improv friends) who are trying to be funny in the way they set out to roast their old friend.
I’m no fan of roasts, but this doesn’t even try. When Jeff Ross or one of his ilk busts on a celebrity, they do so from a shred of real life, amplifying some aspect into a dagger thrust or roundhouse blow.
I don’t enjoy the meanness at the heart of roasts even, on the rare occasions, when it’s actually funny. This is mean-spirited, though, with an utter absence of real humor and without any connection to the real Richter.
In frat-boy style, one after the other of the chapter writers invents a mean-spirited narrative around the young Andy, the Andy of high school, the Andy of his early career, and, presumably since I didn’t read it, the later career Andy.
Is it funny that Andy supposedly had no friends in high school except the gender-fluid high mascot perpetually dressed as a salmon and never saying a word? Is it then still funny when “Sam” turns out to be harboring homicidal thoughts toward Andy even as they supposedly date?
Maybe it is in somebody’s world, but certainly not mine.
And I’m not picking on that chapter. They are all equally bad, and it feels as if they were written over a pot-saturated boys’ weekend with each daring the next into jokes that fall flat in the same way.
In reality, as I understand it, Richter was a well-liked high schooler. (Wikipedia says he was the prom king.) I’d love to hear him reflect on what made him create a character so very different from that.
Or, consider that he quit the first iteration of Conan at the peak of his celebrity. What was he thinking? A move like that implies some fascinating thoughts on the nature of popular culture – which Richter mocked every time he sat on that couch and guffawed, or when he got off a surprise zinger that flashed his otherwise buried comic chops.
His supposed friends here don’t seem to see any of that. They mock him in the way he asks to be mocked…which shows precisely that they miss the central joke of Richter’s career.
In other words, his comedy rests on inviting this sort of abuse. But the punch line of his act has always been the realization that we are all missing something in the way we move from one vapid guest to another. It feels like there should be something real underneath the conversations on the couch, and it feels like Richter is (was) better situated to explore that than anyone else.
Instead, he subordinates himself to others here – again – and the result is neither funny nor interesting, one of the worst books I have (almost) read in a long time.
January 30, 2022
This was alright, I am glad I listened to it but it didn’t have me rolling on the floor like I had hoped. But maybe that is because a lot of different people wrote it that don’t usually write this crude or messed up of stuff. Don’t get me wrong I love vulgarity but it just didn’t seem natural the way it was laid out. Also strangely enough. The funniest chapter wasn’t written by a comedian but the Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings whose chapter made me laugh almost entirely straight through to the point I had to rewind some portions.
November 8, 2025
This is like an absurdist roast. Not every chapter is a winner, but the parts that were funny were laugh-out-loud funny. I think you need to have a specific type of humor to appreciate this, and lucky for me, I do. It’s full of bizarre throwaway lines, they change Andy’s middle name constantly, and everyone mentioned is a caricature of a person. Nick Offerman does a great job narrating, and Andy’s angry interludes shine a tiny light onto some actual facts about his life. This was fun.
May 26, 2023
With all the talent on the writing team for this book, it is obscenely juvenile, I would have enjoyed this much more if I was back in middle school. Not Nick Offerman’s best performance in reading a story I’ve listened too either. A few good quips throughout but nothing you won’t miss if you never heard it.
September 15, 2024
A very funny book! Nick Offerman read it, and Andy Richter interjects. Each chapter is written by a different comedy writer, and they are all very funny. Richter interjects as the lies and fantasy life others create for him get to be too much.
July 16, 2021
Not funny
August 1, 2021
I had to stop the book so many times because I was laughing to hard to hear the narration
September 5, 2021
Overall very funny, though the chapters varied a lot in quality (which makes sense since each had a different author).
October 17, 2021
20 minutes, zero laughs, DNF.
December 9, 2021
wonderfully fun and creative
December 20, 2021
Excellent production. Utterly enjoyable!
April 1, 2022
Really wanted this to be good. Each chapter written by a fantastic comedian/writer, read by NICK OFFERMAN... About Andy Richter. So much going for it. It just really ended up being a bit... Much.
January 5, 2023
Couldn’t finish it, but I would love this when I was 12 years old!
September 5, 2021
Got this on Audible after seeing Sam Irby was a contributor. I like humor like this and genuinely laughed out loud on numerous occasions. The drawback is that it felt too long. A good joke needs to know when to quit, ya know?
Edit: Rounding this review up to 4 stars. My husband, an actual Andy Richter and Conan fan, literally laughed out loud all the way through this book.
Edit: Rounding this review up to 4 stars. My husband, an actual Andy Richter and Conan fan, literally laughed out loud all the way through this book.
November 21, 2024
This is a very funny book. It's about what you would expect from a writers room coming together to make a long drawn out sketch over the course of a biography. DO NOT expect accuracy. This would have been an easy 5 star review if it had actually been more autobiographical. Biographers and future historians, I hope this review finds you because if you're expecting much fact from this book, you are sorely mistaken. But it's fun!
July 9, 2021
A completely unbiased review from someone who had nothing to do with the book - it's spectacular. The reason reading and listening were invented. If aliens attack and say we can only have one book on Earth, this is the one (although we should at least ask the aliens what's up with such a weird demand).
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews