Andy Richter, one of TV’s most familiar faces, has taken his act online — hosting the “Anidom Beyond Show,” which dives deeply into Fox’s Sunday-night animation lineup. The hourlong series, a co-production between Fox and online platform Caffeine, borrows part of its title from Fox’s “Animation Domination” lineup — “The Simpsons,” “Family Guy,” “Bob’s Burgers,” …
Andy Richter, one of TV’s most familiar faces, has taken his act online — hosting the “Anidom Beyond Show,” which dives deeply into Fox’s Sunday-night animation lineup.
The hourlong series, a co-production between Fox and online platform Caffeine, borrows part of its title from Fox’s “Animation Domination” lineup — “The Simpsons,” “Family Guy,” “Bob’s Burgers,” “Duncanville” and “Bless the Harts” — and features episode recaps and interviews with creators, producers, writers and cast members from those shows. As an interactive component, fans can both comment and send in questions for Richter and his guests.
“Anidom Beyond” premiered Sunday at 10 p.m. (caf.tv/animationonfox) with Richter interviewing Mike Scully and his wife, Julie Thacker Scully, who co-created “Duncanville” with Amy Poehler.
“I’ve worked in animation and have been doing cartoon voices for a number of years now,” Richter, 53, tells The Post, alluding to some of his past voiceover work on series including “American Dad” and “The Penguins of Madagascar.” “A lot of my friends are writers on [animated] programs and are people who’ve created these shows … I like to look at the whole thing as a holistic picture of how this industry works and how the products are made — they’re magical, but they’re products and it’s interesting to know what goes into it.”
Richter says he’s seen all the Sunday-night Fox sitcoms and has a working knowledge of their characters and story arcs. “I certainly have watched all of them in an ongoing way,” he says. “I don’t tune in every Sunday night but I’m definitely familiar with all the shows. ‘Duncanville’ is a new series and I had to acquaint myself with that, so I watched a few episodes, and because it’s a recap show, I did watch the episodes we’re recapping.
“I feel like they’re paying me for this hour [so] I can watch 80 minutes of cartoons for them in preparation.”
“Anidom Beyond” originates from Richter’s living room, where he welcomes his guests via Zoom.
“The first part of the show is a recap [of a show’s episode], which we do like it’s the news,” he says. “The whole reason for the Caffeine format is that we’re able to take questions from the audience. Since I’m doing this from home, I have two end tables stacked on top of each other so my computer is high enough, and I have to be in range of my router so I can plug the Ethernet cable in because the Wi-Fi is too slow. I use an external mike, which sounds better, and I hung a couple of lights they sent me.”
Richter uses his computer for the Zoom component; his script is on an adjacent iPad. “I’m my own technical director,” he says. “I even found some of my daughter’s powder in the bathroom — I was like, ‘Oh, my nose is a little shiny’ — and luckily she left some makeup here.”
The series is scheduled to run while Fox’s “Animation Domination” shows are still in originals (through May) and Richter has more time, for now, since he’s not currently working opposite Conan O’Brien on his nightly TBS talk show, “Conan.”
But, he says, there’s a chance that “Anidom Beyond” could continue beyond its original run.
“If this goes further and we go outside of the social distancing rules, we’ll be doing this in a studio and our guests will be in-studio,” he says. “It’s not meant to be done by Zoom, but most of TV now is by Zoom. The idea would be to do it in a studio on the Fox lot.”
