Rich Hall

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Rich Hall (born 1954 in Waxhaw, North Carolina) 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.

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)

Hall has also achieved popularity in the UK, where he now lives. 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, and in 2004 published a book of the man's memoirs, entitled Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society. He has had two BBC TV series, Rich Hall's Fishing Show in 2003, and Rich Hall's Cattle Drive in 2006, as well as a one off programme about the 2005 American elections. and has regularly guested on Have I Got News for You and QI, both 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 Jeremy Clarkson. After the attacks of 9/11, Hall was entrusted with the task of responding to the tragedy on the first subsequent edition of Have I Got News for You.

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.

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.

He is widely considered to be the inspiration for Moe Syzlak from The Simpsons. Matt Groening has stated as much in interviews.

Discography

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

Books

1986 Rich Hall's Vanishing America ISBN 0025474804
1994 Self Help for the Bleak: Attaboy Therapy ISBN 0843136693
2002 Things Snowball ISBN 0349115761
2004 Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society ISBN 0349118183

External links

[TGS Profile]

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