 Andy Richter has been a fixture on American TV screens for more than three decades. With multiple stints as a late-night sidekick to Conan O’Brien, a game show host, a sitcom star, a podcast host — and, most recently, a fan-favorite Dancing with the Stars contestant and budding TikTok sensation — Richter has been one of Hollywood’s most consistent journeyman for decades. But as we continue to explore this drastically shifting media landscape on Mixed Signals, we wanted to find out if even an iconic jack of all trades feels the pressure and ask him what keeps him going. “It’s what I do. I am a tradesman, and this is my trade,” Richter told us on this week’s episode. “Quite frankly, the industry has been so weird and so sort of fractured that I am just trying to keep irons in fires and keep things going.” Asked whether he particularly feels the shift in a post-2020 Hollywood, he didn’t mince words: “F*ck yes.” “There were strikes, there’s the contraction of the economy in different ways, there’s the vertical integration that makes it so there’s only three outlets pumping out sh*t,” he added, noting that more and more actors have been reaching out to him to inquire about getting into podcasting. We also asked Andy about his memories of the industry at its peak, how TikTok differs from other mediums for comedy, the time he demolished CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Celebrity Jeopardy!, and much more. You can listen to Mixed Signals wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us on YouTube. You can’t text in your vote to see Ben Smith do the Viennese Waltz for Carrie Ann Inaba (yet), but subscribing and giving us five stars may get us a bit closer. — Max Tani | 
