Taps with Andy Richter

Conan O'Brien needs a fan want to talk to Conan visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan okay let's get started hey Kenji welcome to Conan needs a fan with special guest Andy Richter hi oh my gosh how's it going everybody good how are you Kenji good to see you uh good to see y'all this is real surreal right now I'm trying to start trying to get myself kind of on track here okay well listen we're here to bring you back to reality Kenji all I know about you is that you are it says here at the top of the page you are a Las Vegas tap dancer I am indeed okay now let's discuss this uh you get paid for this you don't just run around town tap dancing and then you work at a sandwich shop you are a professional dancer yes you were born and raised in Los Angeles and you are now tap dancing for a living in Vegas is that right I actually bothered people enough that they're actually paying for it now so I went all over LA just kind of loved my board everywhere and just sort of uh appeared at different weddings and events and someone was like you know what he can stay yeah yeah right now I'm in Las Vegas and uh it's been actually cooler lately so I'm able to take my dog outside past 5 a.m for once that's nice now uh I also have heard that you're a former river dance dancer is that correct I am I'm one of the uh I'm a former lead American tap dancer that battles the Irish uh halfway through the show yeah and uh sort of gets to sort of you know take the piss out of him for a little bit yeah the Irish get him trust me you know wait you know what no one roots against the Irish more than I do he's not kidding more they need more against them you know I mean I feel like yeah yeah we've had more we've had it way too easy historically um we've had a lot of um well uh so uh so there's so much to talk about here first of all that river dance show I I did a segment years ago I think I was in Chicago and I needed to learn some sort of Irish step dancing and um that's that Irish step dancing is lethal that's a hard that's hard stuff to do to get those leg extensions and get your foot way out there and I think I uh it's well known among my fans that I kicked a young girl ahead of me in the head I did that too yeah yeah we're in similar company now this is great I also kicked a dancer on stage no no I mean I want to be clear here uh I often kick children when no one's around yeah yeah but I did it on camera on stage right um so uh and and tell me about being in a show like river dance that's got to be insanely demanding it's it's a bit of a grind especially if you're doing the U.S. tour which is six months on the road about I would say 40 states um eight shows a week double shows on Saturday and Sunday um and you know most of the time when you have a day off you're just uh in a bus heading to the next destination and so during that whole process during this whole production run you're just trying to find ways to stay in shape stay sane stay you know just moving forward with life since you're sort of removed from everything back home so you know just checking in with my sister checking with my family my girlfriend just uh uh a bit of its own separate sort of obligation that's not natural that you would have being home listen when I go on the road Kenji it's to get away from all that crap okay you know I don't know what you're doing but if I was in a touring company of river dance I would be hitting the booze pretty hard at night at the hotel and then just sort of half dancing a little bit on stage phoning it in you're my you guys must be audition yeah you must party pretty hard though if you're on the road like that uh yeah it can get a little fun you know especially if you're somewhere where there's nothing really to do other than the local pub but um you know in terms of professionals I've never seen such amazing play and then followed with such stern work so they get on stage you would never know there was a very very beautiful birthday party the night before because they're all they're just looking like princes and princesses yeah you have no idea that there's something going on I'm just curious uh being a tap dancer is Irish do you have like a leg up on and that's not meant to be a pun a leg up on on doing Irish dance on doing the step dancing because it is kind of like they're both percussive kind of dances very similar but you know what the style and vibe is different enough that even something so much like a shuffle which is like a brush back with your foot the way they approach it might be a little differently there might be more of a more involved with just more of their leg we're we're sort of going from the knee down a lot of our ankles are super loose with every step that we pretty much approach as tap dancers we're a lot lighter on our feet um because of our improvisational roots in that way so when we're learning um Irish steps in in your head you're like this makes total sense and then you get up and do it and you look like a fool and that's been a much of my experience with the Irish company how did you get into tap dancing and I have a personal interest in this because I've been doing tap dancing for a long time and I had this idea when I was a kid and I was really interested in show business and had no idea what I was talking about and my only exposure to to a lot of pop culture was watching um old movies on you know channel 38 and channel 56 in Boston and they would mostly play like Yankee Doodle Dandy and Fred Astaire films on the road yeah you know that's what I knew that's what I saw and I'm looking at the stage and I'm like oh my god I'm going to do this I'm going to do this stuff in the 70s I'm this you know weird kid with an orange bowl haircut and I thought well if I want to be in show business I need to learn how to tap dance and I went to my parents at night in our living room and I said I need to tap dance so I'm gonna make it in this business and they're like what business what are you talking about and put out that cigar but god bless my parents they're like well and they got me this uh very serious uh terrible uh teacher and I would go down and I was the only I was the only white kid I would go I would climb like seven you know flights of stairs it was over near the Berklee School of Music and this uh beautiful gentleman Stanley Brown uh who had been a protege of Bill Bojangles Robinson would teach this goofy kid dance steps while all these incredibly beautiful women uh black women were standing around you know doing their jazz steps and stuff like that and I'd be like out of the way ladies triple threat coming through triple threat yeah so orange haircut yeah yeah watch this I try to model the hair after Conan's I don't know if you can tell right now oh no you're killing it you're killing it much better uh so what brought you into what brought you into tap dancing because something some people can dismiss tap dancing as kind of a novelty goofy kind of dancing and I think well I don't know Gregory Hines the Nicholas Brothers like some of the greatest dancers in the world were just amazing tap dancers yes they were um I it's an interesting thing with me my dad was um a stand-up comic and a song and dance man and so um back in the 70s and 80s that particular fraternity was small being a black artist in Hollywood so he knew Gregory Hines pretty well oh wow so then that love sort of started there because they would often hang out and um I don't know if it's because of the fact that I'm a black artist but I'm a black artist I don't remember this but I think that's where the interest began my mom quickly surmised right away that I was a kid that should be kept busy at all times so uh yeah yeah we just she just threw stuff at the wall to see what's stuck you know I mean it's like all right basketball track swimming I don't know painting we'll start oh tap dancing all right yeah and uh so then when we stuck my butt in the tap glass I had this this lady named Linfield who was the last um from what I can tell the last original remaining um Mouseketeer from the original Mickey Mouse Club oh wow and she ran this little academy called this little studio called the tap academy in Santa Monica and she was just the nicest lady I was a very shy kid so getting me to come out of my show was difficult and she was beautiful and um she was like 80 years old from the top right into her legs started and then it was like 20 and even as a six-year-old kid you know uh but you're doing what she says but you're still just like trying to figure that out and and that's just where it began and Gregory Hines was just sort of my Superman sure sort of always aspired to be like just I thought he was so cool he was so um he wasn't always happy when he danced which I thought was really important because for me it's such a meditation that when when I'm putting on my shoes I'm not always in a good mood and it puts me in a better mood but it's something that allows me to really get deep and expressive and and introspective and a lot of people don't really think about that when they think it's happening well I think there was a there used to be a school of thought that you just have to be grinning like a madman the whole time you're dancing and you know you can see in some of those like old Lawrence Welk shows where you know performers are doing a routine and they just all look like they've been hypnotized to be uh it's like Stepford Wives to be insanely happy while they dance in a way that doesn't feel human yeah so yeah it's off-putting and a lot of this and a lot of times with Dancing with the Stars did you guys was there ever a tap component not not to no yeah no because that's not ballroom and they're i see ballroom you know they're very strict about you know like the many you know the like minutiae of the rules and stuff and i mean stuff that you know i'm doing their podcast now and stuff that i'm like to be like i saw a heel lead and i'm still like i don't i know you're leading with your heel but i don't really know what that means or why that is right right there's they're very specific about the technicalities and people love to learn about the technicalities too yeah i didn't i didn't realize there was that much to it i mean whenever whenever you start to develop an interest in anything you find out that it's vastly complicated well not everything like doing a hula hoop or whatever bowling no but but no i understand what you're saying there's some mad bowlers out there right now yeah you think bowling's easy yeah watch this hey that was easy um kenji you're tall how tall are you six four okay i'm five with the hair okay yeah me too i'm six four and if i get enough gel in there i'm six five um it kind of you can really mesmerize people if you're tall and you have some moves uh you got that tommy tune thing going right where you can flail your well this is my technique i just flail my limbs and i look like i'm trying to put out a fire but for you do you find that it helps to be tall flailing the limbs is kind of where it starts and then you just kind of hope you're in time and then eventually they'll sort of kind of congregate but uh usually the flailing limbs is kind of what gets me in the room yep but also puts me in the back of the room yes because i'm you know hitting people so they have people in front of me dancers are usually a lot smaller than me i think it's smaller my my attitude is it's their job to get out of the way it's not your job to not hit them it's their job not to be hit that poor girl was literally she was just sitting behind you we uh someone says they know her recently oh okay what's left of her um yeah she doesn't get out much she's got a big dent in her head apologies to sorry you now dance in a show called the party at super frico at the cosmopolitan which makes me mad because you stole my title um what is the party at super frico at the cosmopolitan what kind of show is that it's sort of like a really eccentric supper club that's um you're you're imagine like you're walking into this this crazy almost raunchy circusy supper club that's uh run by this eccentric host and throughout the night while you're you're being served these really funky italian dishes uh you have the uh these really interesting acts coming out we have like a guy who creates these amazing bubble formations we have a contortionist there's me tap dancing there's um a a a drag queen cow that comes on stage and actually does squirt people with her udders there is yeah now is that someone in a is that someone in a costume or is it an actual you asked me what i did before i got into tap dancing which you know it's a sony costume and and they're and the udders fire milk into the crowd yes i'm assuming it's water but you know what i love i love that they beforehand they say there will be a flash photography yes um and also if you're uh so if you have any kind of issue with strobe lights uh also if you're lactose intolerant keep your mouth shut yeah you will be doused with milk from udders yeah we tried soy didn't really work and you know it was a whole process um i'm curious what's life in vegas like when you're a performer i mean that's got to be kind of that's my question always like what is that like to live in vegas i never thought uh in a million years i'd end up here um how long that's what someone in prison says it's it's it's like i'm kind of flabbergasted by just my trajectory of life and i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm and i always assumed i'd either be in la or new york um this this job ended up coming out of nowhere from the cosmopolitan six years ago that brought me out here and i just fell in love with the city the it's it's the kind of showbiz i grew up hearing about that i always wanted to be part of where it's like you could just be on a board at a random nightclub dancing with the live band that's there lo and behold ringo star is sitting there in the audience and he's opening a new show at this particular casino so he like he loves you and now here you are working at this particular casino that's a real story from um a friend of mine that just booked a job uh at the caesars so that's happened to me that's it's a it's a very it's a very supportive artistic community it's also really small so if a reputation gets out it's pretty bad it travels fast if a reputation gets out that you're great it travels fast and i've not had to really worry about a place to be seen on stage or a place to perform or a place to even just stretch my legs um since i've been out here and it's it's it's a lot more connected artistically than i've even felt in los angeles which is where i was born and raised when i was a kid there was a show starring robert uric called vegas and robert uric played a private detective who lived in vegas and all the shots were of this really handsome robert uric driving around in a convertible and he was always trying to solve crimes that had happened in las vegas and at the time i remember thinking that's the life i want to be a private detective in las vegas and i want to drive around and be like robert uric so would you want to be a private detective with me in las vegas a million percent i just got back from the gym and elvis presley was working out next to me yeah do you have any idea but sorry but how many of these stories we could get into which elvis that's the important thing is it young elvis or is it 1976 elvis who's working out next to you and what's the bloat definitely 1976 elvis when we're supposed to feel very sad that's the well this we saw okay uh yeah i um enlightening yeah i uh i do think that's the life for me is to drive around and try it and not and start to solve crimes and then just not solve them but no convertible yeah oh i can't know you couldn't be i can't be in a convertible you know what i'll do i'll get a convertible but then i'll have a dermatologist build a section over my part of the car yeah it looks really ugly but it's you it's you spf 50 full uh yeah um you describe yourself as a huge nerd what makes you a huge nerd besides um i don't know tap dancing yeah what do you mean it's not 1926 i uh well i love comic books i love all things sci-fi you know star wars everything just um show us the ring show us the ring is that a green lantern nerd wait i'm sorry is that a real ring a real green lantern ring or is it i mean is it like plastic or is it a real uh fine piece of jewelry it's actual silver wow no he means can you plug it into a lantern and are you part of an interplanetary police force well yeah i thought that's what you when he said yeah i thought my question was pretty clear i don't fucking care that it's made of silver i didn't ask you for its elemental components andy understands what i'm getting at right can you materialize a giant kangaroo for us yeah it's always green let's let's do it after after the part okay okay i'll uh i'll show you guys some stuff all right all right so green lantern is your guy of all the comic book heroes i'm guessing you're a marvel person so uh or is he dc i don't even know oh don't get mad at me hey you know what you should do eduardo get mad at me if i get it right oh i can't believe the 90 year old out of touch weirdo misidentified fucking green lanterns well i want to know what was it about green lantern as opposed to the flash or superman or any of the others yeah i gotta be real you know i watched the cartoon it was the black one and i i just latched on to him that makes sense he was cool uh that's which cartoon are we talking about justice league yeah unlimited i see okay i just didn't know like when was that is that is that from the 90s the 2000s there are different green lanterns right you know it's but you're it's basically a police force yeah and and the original one was i forget his name it was hal jordan yeah yeah hal jordan he was a test pilot but then since they've had you know like there's red alien green lanterns but there's a black green lantern there is that's what the civil rights movement was really about yes yes i remember that was part of dr king's speech yeah that got he edited it out just before he got up there but he saw a day when there would be a black green lantern right yeah did you watch lanterns i'm sure you did yeah i'm sure it's really good are you living on the highway by any chance because i've never heard this on a on a guest zoom before but i think uh yeah someone keeps driving by Really revved up motorcycle. I'm on Vegas Boulevard right now, and F1 is building things not too far from me. So we're hearing a lot of stuff happen. Do you have F1 races go, like, by your house? It's not by my house, but it's about three, four blocks away. So we can still hear a knock when things happen. Hey, you should use your ring to build a shield. A soundproof shield. A green soundproof shield that protects you from the F1 racing by as you're doing Conan and Andy Zoom. I tried, but there's this whole thing with HOA with my apartment somehow. I don't know how that even works. That always foils the green lantern. Yes, you got something, Blay? I was just going to say, I think, Kenji, you might have a great question for you. Oh, you're trying to wrap this up? I do. I wasn't wrapping it up. What were you doing by saying he has a question for me? You were kind of trying to wrap it up. It's just a really great question. Oh, we're going to get to his question. I forgot. I thought. Green Lantern is DC. Everybody knows it's DC. Oh, snap. Did you know it was DC? It would have taken me a second to remember. Yeah, it just takes you a second. Yeah, yeah. But I would have remembered, like, oh, yeah, it's with Superman. Yeah. As opposed to Spider-Man. Yeah, it's like this pairs well with fish. Yes. Precisely. Precisely. Yeah, I see. Oh, it's a red. You should probably have the port. Yeah. I'm in an asylum of my own making. Now, something tells me you have a question for me. It's a question that Blay has a dinner date he's trying to get to. Or just has to go to the bathroom. Yeah. No, you have a question for me. What's the question? Well, you told me you took tap dance before. Yeah. So I want to know what lingers. What do you remember? And should we do a tap class right now? I mean, Sona and Andy are here, too. Should we learn something? I mean, you guys are here. This is great. That would require us to stand up. And I just don't think that's happening. And it's a carpeted floor. It's a carpeted floor. Yeah, yeah. I'm wearing heels. I do want to see Kenji tap dance something. Yeah, Kenji, we want to see you move. But people pay me not to dance. I make a fortune every year not dancing. I don't remember a lot. I remember, I mean, I have certain steps that I remember that I break out every now and then. I just did this 30 Rock, the TV show, had a reunion. Tina Fey asked me to kick it off. And so I went to New York. What's that? I said humble brag. I can't tell you what happens in my life. And she asked me to go do this thing. And I'm backstage. And they had a lot of dance routines throughout the show, which were really amazing. And so I'm backstage with all the dancers. And I always do the same thing when I'm around dancers as I start breaking out whatever I have. And it's just meaningless, you know, buck and wing kind of stuff that I'm doing backstage. But it's how I relate to dancers. It's not pretty, but they all. They all laugh. They think it's kind of silly and funny. So that's what I was doing. But you could probably do some real moves for us. I can show you a buck and wing. Yeah. I want to see a bucket wing. It's buck and wing. Buck and wing. It's not bucket wing. Oh, look, he's got his board all set up. I thought it was bucket wing. That's for you. Oh, shit. Green shoes. He's got green shoes. Here we go. The whole life. But here, let me just touch a little bit so I don't have to crush so much here. Oh, yeah, you've got a. Great arms. All right. All right. You need to start dancing soon. I'm so sorry, Kenji. All right. Wow. Oh, that's cool. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I was picturing an elderly neighbor that keeps going, come in. Come in. I said it's not locked. Kenji, that was incredible. Really. Show us one more thing, and then we have to wrap it up, because Blake clearly has somewhere to go. Right. This is actually one of my signatures. I call them ankle breakers, because I'm able to sort of kind of suspend my ankles a little bit longer. Oh, my God. Oh, wow. Look at that. So you'll take a step, like something really easy, just like a dance. Take it until like this. But then you can pick the accent, and you can put it on your ankle, so you can kind of go back and forth and keep it there like this. Wow. Oh, my God. What? Ah. I can just keep it there. Oh, that's amazing. That was fantastic. Oh, my God. It looks great. That was painful. I know. And also, Kenji, if I did that move once, you'd hear a terrible snap, and then just gravy would come out of my skin at the ankle. Just a thick. That's what my doctor says is my future. A thick gravy would come out. Are other tap dancers, are they blown away by it? Like, are they like, oh, my God, what are you doing? It's not a unique step, but I've never seen it done like that. Yeah. Yeah. No, it starts to look like you're doing something horrible. Horribly wrong. Yeah, yeah. And then you realize, oh, you mean to do this, and it's amazing. But there's that moment where you think, what's happened to Kenji? We need to call 911. Which I did. They'll be there very soon. Well, actually, that was kind of the problem. I think something happened when I was a kid, and no one called 911. And so now I just be on that ankle. Hey, Kenji, this was really. You're clearly very talented. You've got so much charisma. I'm very impressed by you. It's so cool to get a chance to talk to you. And, man, you cheered us up with that dancing. It's absolutely fantastic. That's great. This was an honor to meet you guys. I'm a fan of every single person here. Oh, thank you. So thank you so much for having me. I'll look you up when I'm in Vegas, because I'd love to see you perform. Andy's going to. Please, please do. And I'll look you up when I start my detective agency. Got it. Yeah. Got it, got it, got it. All right, take care, Kenji. Bye-bye. Bye-bye, Kenji. You got this. Have a good one. Conan O'Brien needs a fan. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam Ovsessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Supervising producer, Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Associate producers, Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Get three free months of SiriusXM. When you sign up at SiriusXM.com slash Conan. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan wherever fine podcasts are down. SiriusXM.com