Rich Hall

This article is about the person. For Rich Hall at Boston University, see Rich Hall (Boston University)

Richard Hall
Born	June 10 1954 (1954--) (age 53) Waxhaw, North Carolina, U.S.
Occupation	Stand-up comedian

Rich Hall (born 10 June 1954 in Alexandria, Virginia)^[1] is an American comedian and writer. He was a writer and performer on the sketch comedy TV series Fridays, Not Necessarily the News, and Saturday Night Live. He has appeared several times on the Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

In 1986, he had his own Showtime channel special, Vanishing America, which was turned into a book with the same title.

He hosted a talk show during The Comedy Channel's 1990-1991 season, entitled Rich Hall's Onion World.

Rich Hall invented the term "sniglet" (if not the concept) and collected and published several volumes of them:

• Sniglets (Snig'Lit : Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should) (1984)
• More Sniglets: Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should (1985)
• Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe (1986)
• Angry Young Sniglets (1987)
• When Sniglets Ruled the Earth (1989)

He is widely considered to be the inspiration for Moe Szyslak from The Simpsons. Matt Groening has stated as much in interviews.^[2]

United Kingdom

Hall has also achieved popularity in the UK, where he once lived. However, he has since relocated to Montana, United States. In 2000, he won the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe, in the guise of his own grizzled uncle, Otis Lee Crenshaw, the much-convicted country music singer. He has released several albums and a concert movie as this character. In 2004, he published a book of the man's memoirs, entitled Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society, and has recently finished a screenplay for a film based on the book, written for the director Mel Smith.^[3]

In 2004 he appeared as part of Jack Dee's Jack Dee Live at the Apollo series to perform a stand-up routine. The appearance achieved some cult status due to his line of jokes about Tom Cruise, and the perceivable similarities between many of his roles.

In 2006 Rich wrote and acted in a play called Levelland at the Edinburgh Festival.

He has had three BBC TV series of his own; Rich Hall's Badly Funded Think Tank, Rich Hall's Fishing Show in 2003, and Rich Hall's Cattle Drive in 2006, as well as a one off programme about the 2004 American Presidential Elections, Rich Hall's Election Special.

He regularly appears as a guest on comedy panel game programmes, such as Have I Got News for You, QI^[4], 8 out of 10 Cats and Never Mind the Buzzcocks^[5][6] to major critical acclaim. He also appeared on the BBC Two programme Top Gear, where he successfully managed to make a song about a Rover 25 car, much to the enjoyment of the audience and the host, Jeremy Clarkson. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Hall was entrusted with the task of responding to the tragedy on the first subsequent edition of Have I Got News for You.

Appearances

He also made an Irish TV appearance as a guest on the fifth series of RTÉ's topical news comedy program, Don't Feed The Gondolas, and appears at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs comedy festival every year.

He has also achieved some popularity in Australia, regularly appearing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and also on Australian comedy panel shows, like The Glass House and Spicks and Specks.

Rich appeared, albeit briefly, in the 2006 Cheap Seats (ESPNCL) episode titled "Steve Garvey Celebrity Skiing". He was also at the Garvey 1989 Celebrity Ski Classic event that took place in 1989.

Hall had a cameo appearance in the Skins season 1 finale as one of the two men at the urinals at the beginning of the "Wild World" performance.

Richard has also secured a recurring role on QI. BBC2 Friday 10pm

Celebrities impersonated on SNL

• Doug Henning
• Vince McMahon
• Doug Flutie
• Bernhard Goetz
• Caspar Weinberger
• Paul Harvey
• David Byrne

Discography

1. 2001 London Not Tennessee, with the Black Liars
2. 2003 How Do We Do It? Volume 1

Books

1. 1984 Sniglets (Snig'Lit: Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should), ISBN 0-02-012530-5
2. 1985 More Sniglets: Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should
3. 1986 Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe
4. 1986 Rich Hall's Vanishing America, ISBN 0-02-547480-4
5. 1987 Angry Young Sniglets (1987)
6. 1989 When Sniglets Ruled the Earth (1989)
7. 1994 Self Help for the Bleak: Attaboy Therapy, ISBN 0-8431-3669-3
8. 2002 Things Snowball, ISBN 0-349-11576-1
9. 2004 Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society, ISBN 0-349-11818-3

References

External links

• Rich Hall at the Internet Movie Database

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