Jeff Richards (comedian)
Encyclopedia
Jeffrey Hanson "Jeff" Richards (born October 21, 1974) is an American actor, stand-up comedian and impressionist. Richards was the first actor to have been a cast member on both Saturday Night Live
(SNL) and MADtv
. He is perhaps best known for his frequent SNL character "Drunk Girl".
, California
and attended Las Lomas High School
. At age 17 he created a public-access television
cable TV sketch comedy show called Hanson Live. He later worked for KVHS
, a student-run radio station which broadcasts from Clayton Valley High School
. He then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(UNC) and in his senior year at he joined the improvisational comedy team CHiPs
. Fellow CHiPs member Zach Ward brought Richards to the comedy club Charlie Goodnights in Raleigh, North Carolina
, where he performed at an open mic show; Richards would eventually go on to host at the club.
After graduating from UNC, Richards moved to the Los Angeles to further develop his entertainment career.
and eventually started to perform stand-up.
In 2000, Richards became a featured player in the cast of MADtv, appearing in 3 episodes of the show's 6th season. The following year Richards joined the cast of Saturday Night Live during its 27th season
, giving him the distinction of being the first person to be a cast-member of both sketch comedy
shows (Taran Killam
would later become the only other performer to do so). Richards was promoted to repertory status for SNLs 29th season
although he left the show after the 10th episode, which aired on January 17, 2004. In interviews, Richards has stated that he left the show on his own terms.
Perhaps Richards' most popular character on SNL was "Drunk Girl", who appeared on the Weekend Update
segment nine times. He based the character on an audience member he encountered while performing stand-up at The Comedy Store
in La Jolla, California
.
In 2004 Richards appeared in the Comedy Central
year-end retrospective special Last Laugh '04 as Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly
. In 2006 he again portrayed O'Reilly in episode of Mind of Mencia
titled "Carlos Smoov".
In 2007 he appeared on episode 22 of Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen along with comics Jeff Jena, Natasha Leggero
, and Mike Epps
.
Richards has also done voice work which includes characters in the 2004 video game EverQuest II
, a character in the 2006 MTV
animated series Where My Dogs At?
and in 2010 he played the voice of Brad Pitt
in an episode titled ""The Wedding" of the FOX
sitcom 'Til Death
.
Richards produced a comedic album titled A$$WAX which was released on iTunes on March 3, 2009; a portion of the proceeds from the album's sales was used to fight world hunger. Richard also performed in a series of comedy benefit shows called "Asswax 4 Hunger" in 2009; the shows were hosted by friend Kato Kaelin
. Richards and Kaelin also hosted a podcast called In Pod We Trust in 2011.
In 2009 Richards played the character of Jerome Murphy in episode 3 of the ABC
science fiction
series FlashForward
. That same year Richards appeared in the pilot episode of a sitcom created by comedian Bill Burr
called The Burr Effect which appeared on Comedy Central
; the series did not get picked up by the network.
Over his career Jeff has also appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien
, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
.
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
(SNL) and MADtv
MADtv
MADtv is an American sketch comedy television series. It licensed the name and logo of Mad, but otherwise had no connection with the humor magazine outside the animated Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin cartoon shorts and images of Alfred E. Neuman that the show featured during the late 1990s. Its first...
. He is perhaps best known for his frequent SNL character "Drunk Girl".
Early years
Richards was born in Walnut CreekWalnut Creek, California
Walnut Creek is an incorporated city located east of the city of Oakland. It lies in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. While not as large as neighboring Concord, Walnut Creek serves as the business and entertainment hub for the neighboring cities within central Contra Costa...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and attended Las Lomas High School
Las Lomas High School
Las Lomas High School was founded in 1951 by Acalanes Union High School District, and the new school opened its doors in the fall of 1952 to its first graduating class. Las Lomas was the second of five schools built within the Acalanes Union High School District...
. At age 17 he created a public-access television
Public-access television
Public-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...
cable TV sketch comedy show called Hanson Live. He later worked for KVHS
KVHS
KVHS is a non-profit high school radio station playing mostly hard rock, heavy metal and some other varying KVHS is a [[non-profit]] [[high school radio]] station playing mostly hard rock, heavy metal and some other varying KVHS is a [[non-profit]] [[high school radio]] station playing mostly...
, a student-run radio station which broadcasts from Clayton Valley High School
Clayton Valley High School
Clayton Valley High School is a secondary school located in Concord, California. and just under two miles from Clayton. It is part of the Mount Diablo Unified School District. Most of the students live in Clayton and the nearby Concord neighborhoods with some coming from Pittsburg...
. He then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
(UNC) and in his senior year at he joined the improvisational comedy team CHiPs
CHiPs Improv
"The Chapel Hill Players" is the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's premiere improv and sketch comedy team. The group is unique among college improv teams for its employment of a training program...
. Fellow CHiPs member Zach Ward brought Richards to the comedy club Charlie Goodnights in Raleigh, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, where he performed at an open mic show; Richards would eventually go on to host at the club.
After graduating from UNC, Richards moved to the Los Angeles to further develop his entertainment career.
Career
After moving to LA Richards worked the door at the The Comedy StoreThe Comedy Store
The Comedy Store is a comedy club located in West Hollywood, California, at 8433 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip. It has a sister comedy club in La Jolla, San Diego, California.-History:...
and eventually started to perform stand-up.
In 2000, Richards became a featured player in the cast of MADtv, appearing in 3 episodes of the show's 6th season. The following year Richards joined the cast of Saturday Night Live during its 27th season
Saturday Night Live (Season 27)
Saturday Night Live aired its twenty-seventh season during the 2001-2002 television season on NBC. The season started on September 29, 2001 and ended on May 18, 2002, 20 episodes were produced....
, giving him the distinction of being the first person to be a cast-member of both sketch comedy
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
shows (Taran Killam
Taran Killam
Taran Hourie Killam is an American actor and comedian best known for his television work on shows such as The Amanda Show, Scrubs, Wild 'N Out, MADtv and currently on Saturday Night Live.-Early life:...
would later become the only other performer to do so). Richards was promoted to repertory status for SNLs 29th season
Saturday Night Live (Season 29)
Saturday Night Live aired its twenty-ninth season during the 2003–04 television season on NBC. The twenty-ninth season began on October 4, 2003 and ended on May 15, 2004 with 20 episodes in all....
although he left the show after the 10th episode, which aired on January 17, 2004. In interviews, Richards has stated that he left the show on his own terms.
Perhaps Richards' most popular character on SNL was "Drunk Girl", who appeared on the Weekend Update
Weekend Update
Weekend Update is a Saturday Night Live sketch that comments on and parodies current events. It is the show's longest running recurring sketch, having been on since the show's first broadcast, and is typically presented in the middle of the show immediately after the first musical performance...
segment nine times. He based the character on an audience member he encountered while performing stand-up at The Comedy Store
The Comedy Store
The Comedy Store is a comedy club located in West Hollywood, California, at 8433 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip. It has a sister comedy club in La Jolla, San Diego, California.-History:...
in La Jolla, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
In 2004 Richards appeared in the Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
year-end retrospective special Last Laugh '04 as Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...
. In 2006 he again portrayed O'Reilly in episode of Mind of Mencia
Mind of Mencia
Mind of Mencia is an American television comedy series on the cable channel Comedy Central. Hosted by Carlos Mencia, it aired from 2005 to 2008.- History :...
titled "Carlos Smoov".
In 2007 he appeared on episode 22 of Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen along with comics Jeff Jena, Natasha Leggero
Natasha Leggero
Natasha Leggero is an American actress and stand-up comic from Rockford, Illinois.-Biography:Leggero began performing at age 10, in several Chicago plays. After graduating from high school, she moved to New York City to study at the Stella Adler Conservatory. While there, she also attended Hunter...
, and Mike Epps
Mike Epps
Michael Elliot "Mike" Epps is an American stand-up comedian, actor, film producer, writer, singer, and rapper. He is best known for playing Day-Day Jones in Next Friday and the sequel-to-the-sequel, Friday After Next, and also starring alongside Ice Cube in All About the Benjamins...
.
Richards has also done voice work which includes characters in the 2004 video game EverQuest II
EverQuest II
EverQuest II is a 3D fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Sony Online Entertainment , based on EverQuest, and shipped on 8 November 2004...
, a character in the 2006 MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
animated series Where My Dogs At?
Where My Dogs At?
Where My Dogs At? was an animated program created by Aaron Matthew Lee and Jeffrey Ross that aired on MTV2 as part of its Sic'emation lineup.-Plot:...
and in 2010 he played the voice of Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
in an episode titled ""The Wedding" of the FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
sitcom 'Til Death
'Til Death
’Til Death is an American sitcom which aired on the Fox network from September 7, 2006, to June 20, 2010. The series was created by husband-and-wife team Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa, who were also the writers and executive-producers...
.
Richards produced a comedic album titled A$$WAX which was released on iTunes on March 3, 2009; a portion of the proceeds from the album's sales was used to fight world hunger. Richard also performed in a series of comedy benefit shows called "Asswax 4 Hunger" in 2009; the shows were hosted by friend Kato Kaelin
Kato Kaelin
Brian Jerard "Kato" Kaelin is an American radio and television personality who gained fame as a witness during the 1994–95 murder trial of O. J. Simpson.-Personal life:...
. Richards and Kaelin also hosted a podcast called In Pod We Trust in 2011.
In 2009 Richards played the character of Jerome Murphy in episode 3 of the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
series FlashForward
Flashforward
A flashforward is an interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media. Flashforwards are often used to represent events expected, projected, or imagined to occur in the future...
. That same year Richards appeared in the pilot episode of a sitcom created by comedian Bill Burr
Bill Burr
William "Bill" Burr is an American stand-up comedian, radio host and actor.-Life and career:Burr was born in Canton, Massachusetts. His father was a dentist, and Bill worked as a hygienist for a short time. He began stand-up at age 23 after attending Emerson College. In 1995, he moved to New...
called The Burr Effect which appeared on Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
; the series did not get picked up by the network.
Over his career Jeff has also appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson is a Peabody Award-winning American late-night talk show hosted by Scottish American comedian Craig Ferguson. Ferguson, the third regular host of the Late Late Show franchise, follows Late Show with David Letterman in the CBS late-night lineup...
.
Celebrity impersonations featured on Saturday Night Live
Filmography
- The Hand Job (2005)
- Projectorhead (short film) (2006)
- Sheep Man (short film) (2006)
External links
- tastyjeff.com Jeff Richard's official website
- Jeff Richards at MySpaceMySpaceMyspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
- In Pod We Trust A podcast hosted by Jeff Richards and Kato Kaelin