Andy Richter brings family ghosts, Chicago comedy roots, and just enough spooky timing to the Woo Woo couch.
This new episode of Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch embraces guest Andy Richter for a deliciously spooky chit chat about the haunted house his great-grandfather built — a place where Andy says he experienced several spine-chilling, unexplainable encounters firsthand.
And honestly? That is exactly the kind of old-family-house lore that belongs in the Woo Woo universe. An ancestral build. Generational energy. Rooms that remember too much. The kind of place where every creak feels like it has a backstory and every hallway might be holding a little extra company.
Andy Richter joins Rachel Dratch for ghost stories, horror talk, and the kind of family-house weirdness that refuses to stay in the walls.
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The episode, titled “Andy Richter: The Little Ghost Who Wanted To Play,” lets Richter step into the show’s sweet spot: personal paranormal stories told with just enough skepticism, comedy timing, and genuine “wait, what was that?” energy.
There is also a sweet comedy-history layer here. Rachel Dratch and Andy Richter go way back to the Chicago comedy scene, when improv shows, late nights, bits, friendships, and creative chaos were all rolled into one big formative blur. They talk about iO, The Annoyance Theatre, The Real Live Brady Bunch, and that rare feeling of finally finding people who speak your same strange comedy language.
Richter also looks back on how the Conan O’Brien sidekick chapter began, from meeting Robert Smigel and submitting for the show to realizing that his rapport with Conan was becoming part of the actual on-camera chemistry. Comedy fate, but make it late night.
Then the real woo woo begins.
Andy shares the story of being a kid in his grandmother’s house shortly after his grandfather died. While watching TV alone, he says he heard his grandfather’s voice call out “Mommy” — the name his grandfather used for his grandmother. Without thinking, Andy answered that she was at the store, only to immediately remember that his grandfather was gone. Naturally, tiny Andy got out of that house and waited at the neighbors’ until Grandma returned.
Was it grief, memory, the television, a little kid’s imagination, or an actual voice from the other side? That is the Woo Woo zone, darling. The show does not flatten the mystery. It lets the story sit there and tingle.
But the family house had more layers. The home had been built by Richter’s great-grandfather and later sold outside the family. Years later, a new owner reportedly told Richter’s brother that the house had a friendly little-girl presence — a playful spirit who had been seen more than once. Andy and his brother eventually connected the story to a young relative from an earlier generation named Nancy, which gives the whole thing a sad, strange, multi-generational ache underneath the ghost-story sparkle.
Because old family houses are different. They are not just buildings. They are memory containers. They hold arguments, holidays, childhood footsteps, half-told stories, wallpaper choices that should have been stopped earlier, and sometimes — allegedly — a little spirit activity that refuses to move out.
Richter also gets into his new horror movie Obsession, written and directed by Curry Barker, who first caught attention with the YouTube horror project Milk & Serial. Andy says he plays the owner of a music store, while the movie’s larger story follows a young man whose wish for love turns into something much darker, messier, and more dangerous than intended.
Rachel clocks the vibe perfectly: part Fatal Attraction, part Evil Dead, part wish-gone-wrong nightmare. Andy’s take is basically: yes, absolutely, and the script was bananas enough that he wanted in.
There is even a little extra Richter life-update energy in the episode: his Three Questions with Andy Richter podcast, his live Andy Richter Call-In Show on SiriusXM’s Conan channel, his Dancing with the Stars tour experience, and an upcoming book he co-wrote about the making of Elf. Spooky stories, comedy history, and holiday-cinema scholarship? We love a stacked itinerary.
The fun here is that Rachel Dratch knows exactly how to hold this kind of conversation. She lets the weirdness breathe without flattening it, keeps the tone playful, and makes room for the kind of stories people usually tell at night when someone says, “Okay, but has anything ever happened in that house?”
Multi-generational hauntings, behind-the-scenes horror-movie secrets, old comedy-scene memories, and the eternal question of why old family houses always seem to hold onto spirits? Yes, we are listening.
Andy Richter brings haunted-house memories and horror-movie talk to Woo Woo.
Press play on this tantalizing Woo Woo discussion and dig it all out below.
Watch Andy Richter on Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch.
The episode features Andy Richter talking with Rachel Dratch about the haunted house his great-grandfather built, his own ghostly experiences, Chicago comedy history, and his horror movie Obsession.
Sources: Episode details via Apple Podcasts and iHeart; video via Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch / YouTube.
