United States in 1986. Hall's first professional work was as a writer and performer on the original daytime
David Letterman Show, for which he won the 1981
Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement - Writing, and the
sketch comedy TV series
Fridays, becoming a cast member on that show during its third and final season. After the end of
Fridays, Hall co-wrote and starred in the satirical comedy series
Not Necessarily the News from 1983 until 1990 where he coined the term "
sniglet" to describe newly created words and collected and published several volumes of books of them. He was also a regular on
Saturday Night Live for the show's tenth season (1984–1985), becoming the only
Fridays cast member to be an
SNL cast member. In 1986, Hall 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 1990–91 season, titled ''Rich Hall's Onion World''. In the United States, he has appeared several times on American talk shows such as
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,
Late Show with David Letterman, and ''
Late Night with Conan O'Brien''. Hall made a special guest appearance as himself in the
Cartoon Network talk show
Space Ghost Coast to Coast. In 2011, Hall voiced an
Idaho man in
Sony Pictures Animation's
Arthur Christmas.
United Kingdom Outside the US, Hall has also achieved popularity in the United Kingdom. He spends part of his time writing plays in the United States, where he has a small ranch just outside
Livingston, Montana. The rest of the time is spent in
London, where he owns a flat. Hall is a guest on popular
BBC panel quiz shows, most notably as a regular guest on
QI, and also with appearances in
8 Out of 10 Cats,
Have I Got News for You and
Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He has also appeared on the British stand-up comedy series
Jack Dee's
Live at the Apollo. In 2006, Hall also wrote and acted in the play
Levelland at the
Edinburgh Festival. Hall has had four BBC TV series of his own: ''Rich Hall's Badly Funded Think Tank
, Rich Hall's Fishing Show in 2003, 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 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 host Jeremy Clarkson and the audience. After the September 11 attacks, Hall was entrusted with the task of responding to the tragedy on the first subsequent edition of Have I Got News for You''. Hall has written and presented 90-minute documentaries about American
film genres, culture and history, broadcast on
BBC Four. Initially these documentaries focused on film genres: ''Rich Hall's How the West Was Lost
(first broadcast June 2008) discusses Westerns, Rich Hall's The Dirty South
(October 2010) challenges stereotypical Hollywood presentations of the Southern United States, Rich Hall's Continental Drifters
(November 2011) examines the American road movie, Rich Hall's
Inventing the Indian (October 2012) discusses portrayals of Native Americans. His subsequent documentaries cover broader aspects of American culture and politics: Rich Hall's You Can Go to Hell, I'm Going to Texas
(June 2013) and Rich Hall's California Stars
(July 2014) focus on Texas and California respectively, Rich Hall's Presidential Grudge Match
(broadcast 7 November 2016, the day before the 2016 United States presidential election) is a history of US Presidents and their election campaigns, Rich Hall's Countrier Than You
(March 2017) discusses country music, Rich Hall's Working for the American Dream
(July 2018) questions the attainability of the American Dream, and Rich Hall's Red Menace'' (November 2019) is about the
Cold War. In 2007, he returned to the Fringe with his second play,
Best Western, which he wrote and directed. His autumn 2009 tour included a performance at London's
Hammersmith Apollo, which was recorded and released in November 2009 as a live DVD. In 2009, he performed at the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe in two shows, his solo stand up and also with longtime collaborator Mike Wilmot and
Montana-based actor Tim Williams in a new play entitled
Campfire Stories. On April 5, 2010, Hall appeared as one of the stand-up acts on ''
Channel 4's Comedy Gala'', a benefit show organized by
Channel 4 to raise money for
Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. Hall was a regular performer on Channel 4's
Stand Up for the Week, which began in June 2010. In January 2015, Hall started a comedy tour of the UK called
3:10 to Humour. Hall also frequently appears in episodes of
Very British Problems.
Other appearances Hall made an Irish TV appearance as a guest on the fifth series of
RTÉ's topical news comedy programme, ''
Don't Feed the Gondolas'', and has appeared at the
Kilkenny Cat Laughs comedy festival on 15 occasions. 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 where he received widespread critical acclaim. He appeared in several
Pizza Hut commercials in the 1980s, mainly promoting Pizza Hut's guarantee of serving each customer within five minutes. Hall has achieved some popularity in Australia, regularly appearing at the
Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the
Adelaide Fringe, and on Australian comedy panel shows such as
The Glass House and
Spicks and Specks. Hall appeared at the Garvey 1989 Celebrity Ski Classic and at the Altitude Comedy Festival 2008 in the ski resort of
Meribel in France. He also appeared – albeit briefly – in the 2006
Cheap Seats episode titled "
Steve Garvey Celebrity Skiing". From 2015 onwards, Hall has lent his voice as Captain Taylor in the ITV series
Thunderbirds Are Go, with the character first appearing in the episode "Relic". The character made further appearances in show's second and third season. Hall is a frequent guest panelist on the British panel show
QI, having appeared 25 times on the show. He has also won more episodes (10) than any other guest panelist. ==Otis Lee Crenshaw==