Rich Hall

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**Richard Hall**
Born:	May 10, 1954 (age 52) Waxhaw, North Carolina, USA
Occupation:	Stand-up comedy

Rich Hall (born 10 June 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.

He hosted a talk show during The Comedy Channel's 1990-1991 season, entitled Rich Hall's Onion World.

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.^{[citation needed]}

1 U.K.
2 Appearances
3 Discography
4 Books
5 External links

[edit] U.K.

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. 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 [1].

In 2006 Rich wrote an acted in a play called Levelland at the Edinburgh Festival. 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 2004 American Presidential Elections, Rich Hall's Election Special. He 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.

[edit] Appearances

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, and appears at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs comedy festival every year.

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.

In 2004 he appeared as part of Jack Dee's Live at the Apollo series to perform a stand-up routine. The appearence achieved some cult status due to his line of jokes about Tom Cruise, and the perceivable similarities between many of his roles.

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 event that took place in 1989.

He has also appeared on the UK Channel 4 TV show "8 Out of 10 Cats" in series 4.

[edit] Discography

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

[edit] Books

1984 Sniglets (Snig'Lit : Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should) ISBN 0-02-012530-5
1985 More Sniglets: Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should
1986 Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe
1986 Rich Hall's Vanishing America ISBN 0-02-547480-4
1987 Angry Young Sniglets (1987)
1989 When Sniglets Ruled the Earth (1989)
1994 Self Help for the Bleak: Attaboy Therapy ISBN 0-8431-3669-3
2002 Things Snowball ISBN 0-349-11576-1
2004 Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society ISBN 0-349-11818-3