Rich Hall (born 10 June 1954 in Alexandria, Virginia) 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 American talk shows Late Show with David Letterman, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien and on the British comedy panel show QI.
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.
(Photo of Rich Hall is from May 3rd, 1986 - 94 WYSP-FM Philadelphia, PA - All Day Live Radio Broadcast promoting the then upcoming "Hands Across America" Event on May 26th, 1986 - Photo By Sam Cali)
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.
He lives in London, England with his wife Karen, and daughter Dixie Rae.
Outside of his homeland, Hall has also achieved popularity in the United Kingdom, where he lived for several years. Despite relocating there on filming purposes, he has since relocated to Montana, United States. Hall is a regular guest on popular BBC panel quiz shows. 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.
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, 8 out of 10 Cats and Never Mind the Buzzcocks 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.
In 2007, he returned to the Fringe with his second play, Best Western, which he wrote and directed.
In 2008 he returned to television with a 90-minute documentary about Westerns, Rich Hall's How the West Was Lost, broadcast on BBC Four.
He 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 as well as the Galway comedy festival the last number of years. He has also performed at the West Belfast Festival / Feile an Phobail, one of the largest community festivals in Ireland, to a sell-out audience were he received widespread critical acclaim.
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.
