That’s Not Gouda

I was trolling through The Believer website and found an interesting Q&A with Andy Richter. Here are the highlights. Every time I read the third and final excerpt, I laugh and shake my head simultaneously.

AR: Yeah, just because one movie with a submarine works, it doesn't mean that people are crazy about submarines and that's all they ever wanted. Something that I always try to remain aware of is the fact that it's really, really hard to do good stuff, to do good work. And it has to be rare. And it does kind of kill me too when people—I would occasionally look at the Internet discussion group when I was on the Conan show, or doing my show—and there's this thing, "How come there's nothing good on television?" And the answer is, it's because you're on the planet Earth. And it's because history is linear. What do you mean, there's nothing good on television? It's always been that way, and it always will be that way. It's like, how come when I get on the bus and there's a hundred people, there's only two who I feel like talking to? Because. It's because goodness is rare. Have you ever been to Lincoln, Nebraska? You know, whatever you and your irrelevant little pimple of friends want is so pointless considering the huge beast which the tiny pimple is on.

[…]

AR: One thing that really does irritate me is that I've seen articles since the show was canceled that say, "It just didn't find an audience," which is just such a lot of bullshit. And I know that's the way this town, the fucking retarded morons in this town and the way that some kind of bullshit line becomes the status quo, and it just gets this sticky kind of momentum where it's just, "Well, it just couldn't find an audience," and that's bullshit. You know, if you hire someone to bake pies and you're going to sell those pies, don't go and put them in the middle of an auto-parts store and not tell anyone about it. There was no advertising for our show, and it's become, "Wow, I don't know why those pies aren't selling. I put them between the windshield-wiper fluid and the oil filters. There just didn't seem to really be a lot of pie business. Whoops, that's too bad. I guess the pies suck."

[…]

BLVR: There was that one executive who personally fired Norm MacDonald from "Weekend Update" because he didn't think he was funny.

AR: Oh yeah, that guy, Don Ohlmeyer, he was a big scotch-drinking carnivore. Conan went to dinner with him once, and they went to a Mexican restaurant, and he ordered a big drink and nachos, and he said, "I want extra cheese on it. Put a lot of cheese on those nachos." And Conan said that the waitperson started to leave, and [Ohlmeyer] grabbed the person's arm, and said, "I want you to know that you cannot put too much cheese on those nachos." You know, I bet you could put too much cheese... I bet that even for him, you could put too much cheese on those nachos.