Roy Wood Jr.

You mean talking over car keys, like 300 car keys? Jesus. You can't talk. It's worse than a boo. Welcome back to where everybody knows your name. I've been excited all day to welcome Roy Wood Jr. You know him from his many projects, from his stand-up specials to The Daily Show, for which he was a correspondent from 2015 to 2023. Right now, he's hosting the weekly news and entertainment panel show, Have I Got News for You, on CNN. He's also written a memoir called The Man of Many Fathers, which is out now. So here's my conversation with Roy Wood Jr. Hey, we're talking about kids and being a father. Can we jump into your book? I know there's so much else to talk about, but A Man of Many Fathers. Yes. Just, I think I was raised by someone who loved me, adored me, both parents, but my father I'm talking about, but was never emotionally there. I knew he was proud of me and I knew he loved me, but there was never that arm around my shoulder going, oh, we are men. I never got that. So I was always really unsure until we had a conversation in my 40s. You know, I wouldn't even really look at myself in the mirror without kind of being furtive. It was so strange. Even with everything that you had done by your 40s. Yeah, yeah. My silhouette today is not that much different than my silhouette back then. but I had to fake being who I was is how I felt. Nice. So I would always be, I could stand talking to you for a while, then I'd have to pretend to go to the bathroom or I'd say I'm going to go out and have a cigarette or something. It was very hard for me to sit still until later. So anyway, I'm always fascinated about, because I think I was trying to in my life figure out how to be a man, what that meant to me, you know. So that's different than what you're talking about. But I love the idea of a man of many fathers. Well, but I mean, my father, for what you delayed until your 40s, I never got because my dad passed when I was 16. So you have to start piecing things together. I think the thing that sucks is that when you lose a parent early is that you don't get a full picture of them because they were never their whole self to you as a teenager. There's still pieces of themselves and emotions that they're going to hide. And then you're trying to put it together through other people who also only saw a particular prism of him as well. You know, I had a gang of half siblings. I had a gang of journalists that worked with my dad or worked under him or he mentored them or whatever. So they all give me a little piece. But ultimately, all of that stuff tells me more about who he is and less about who I am. And once I had a child, you kind of become, or at least I became a little more obsessive with deciphering who he was, for better or for worse, so that I could find those parts within myself and make sure I'm not passing on the wrong things. Right. You know, behaviorally speaking. Right. Without subconsciously, you know, being aware of it. Without being consciously aware of it. Yeah. Because not a lot of people do that. And we do pass on our incompletes. Yeah, I think there's like this triage that happens on yourself when you have a child and you go, all right, well, I'm going to do all of these things with them. Okay, well, who taught me those things? Oh, damn, it wasn't my pops. Well, if it wasn't him, who taught? Yeah. And then you start thinking, and it's just a collage of motherfuckers who just all, some for a day, some for a lifetime, just all dropped into your life in particular time. periods. And I was like, I was really blown away and humbled by how lucky I've been to have a village of men that really poured in. And it's not a shade, you know, I start the book about my mom. It's not a shade on women in my life, but I had my mom. So I didn't inherently seek out women or like, but not having a dad, you're always looking for a dude or a, and you know, like with stand-up comedy, you know, I started in 98 and I started at a time in the South, you know, in Alabama and Florida, where as a new comic, I'm 19. I'm opening for 40-year-old, 50-year-old men. I'm babysitting the headline. I was 19 when I started. And you're opening for, it's a you don't know every week it's somebody different I've watched headliners children backstage hey man I got custody this week I don't have a baby I brought my daughter with me on the road just when you get off stage stay in the green room with my daughter make sure she doesn't have and it's me at 19 watching a 5 year old so you through those men subconsciously you seek guidance you seek advice and some of them see potential in you and they throw you a bone of a decent idea or a decent way to go about living. But I think the cool thing about standup was that you sometimes meet people. I met people on the road who are some, a lot of them were on the backside of their career and seeing how people process failure in that regard. And I'm trying to be kind, but your career is not what you would have hoped for it to be. You're touring. You're making money. Yeah, that's great. It's not a lot of guys. It's less than a thousand people that do this every weekend. So you're blessed, I guess. But you could see the frustration in their faces, and it showed up backstage. So do you think anger, too? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I saw alcoholism and every drug, you know, like within the first three years of stand-up, I saw every drug. You know, addiction, women, like every vice you can name. I've seen someone grappling with that, food, whatever. So when I started getting some degree of success, then I became a lot more conscious of that. I really think that city comedians get sharper faster because they have more reps. I've read you said that. Why? Because they get more repetitions in a single night. Oh, oh, oh. So they are sharper, faster on the craft of comedy. Because there are more clubs. They can go from here to there to there in the city. Me Down South, Open Mic is once a month per city. At that time, there was no comedy scene the way it is in Nashville now or even Atlanta now. 25 years ago, there was two clubs. So the idea of you don't get on stage as often in the South, but you see every possible way this shit could end for you, from good to bad. I've had a front row seat to every possible conclusion to this job, stand-up comedy. So by the time I get some degree of success or some degree of acclaim, I know where the potholes are. And I know how to avoid them. Or I'm more keen on avoiding them than I would say a comic who has only cut their teeth in a single market and doesn't go out nearly as often as I do. They're funnier faster than me, but I'm more mature. Does that make sense? I just think road comics, you know, you have guns pulled on you. You're paid in drugs. People walk out. You're called the N-word on stage. Just every weird hurdle you could name. Who did you? I mean, sorry. I just marvel at stand-up because my background was basketball, and I got team spirit and ensemble right there in high school. So when I went and got Cheers or any of those kind of shows that are ensemble shows, that's my home. That's where I'm comfortable. You are a gunslinger on stage all by yourself. First off, how do you get the courage to do that? Where did that come from? But who had your back when you had people slinging all sorts of crap your way early on? it's you and the other comedians if you're lucky. Like, you and the other comedians, you're kind of, it's a weird fraternity that on this day and this night, we are in this together. We must both leave this venue safely. Or we must both make sure that we get paid. You know, and the more senior comic stands up for the younger guys to make sure that they get their bread. And, you know, if you're working with a female opener, You're trying to make sure that some weirdo in the room isn't following her back to the car. Like, just whatever. Like, I don't know. You just look at it as just, this is just, this is a day of the job. Tomorrow will be different. You sure get a big chunk of life. You're not leading a sheltered life at that moment. You get to see humanity and all its flaws. I started, when I first started, bro, I was on the Greyhound. I used to ride the Greyhound to get to gigs. I didn't have a car yet. I remember being on, I call it the dog, but I remember being on the dog and customs would come on the bus and start checking IDs. Like, just look at, or they would, the drug dog would come do a lap through the bus and then somebody would be politely asked off the bus, cuffed up, and then you continue on to your next destination. Where was this? That's it. That's it. This is Jacksonville, Florida. Yeah. I mean, I remember... I remember Parris Island, South Carolina, East Coast Marine Corps training boot camp or whatever it's called. the bus would stop sometimes at Parris Island and pick up Marines that quit or got injured. Whatever it is, you went into that building trying to be Marine, you are no longer a Marine. And you're just sitting there and you're just watching these young kids, man, 18, 19, same age as me, just getting on the bus and just, you know, some crying, some elated because they feel like they escaped something. But just, I don't know, the bus and public transit, it's a very fascinating way to see the human condition playing out in real time and so many people having so many different experiences concurrently together. The airport's another place like that too. I don't know if you've ever, I feel like two of the most distinct flights in this country, in terms of the uniqueness of the passengers, is flights to Vegas and flights to Orlando. Which in a way are kind of the same side of a coin in terms of the type of place they are. But also two of the most unique flights are flights from Vegas and from Orlando. And the energy and the, like, just the energy suck and the frustration or the sadness or the anger. Like, it's two totally different flights from the same, two and from the same cities, but with the same degree of exasperation and exhaustion. I've seen couples that I know for sure weren't going to make it on some of those flights. God, I had such an innocent, if that's the right word, growing up. I grew up in Arizona. My father was an archaeologist and head of a museum and a research center. And all the people working there were either Hopi or Navajo. So I got this early kind of, there are many things, cultures, many ways to go through life and have spirituality in many different ways. and then my kind of violence and bigotry came from the Hopi and the Navajo really didn't care for each other that much but I'd be in my friend's car who were Hopi and we'd pull up next they would pull up next to a car full of Navajos and they'd roll down the window and say hey want to fight room the car full of Navajos went uh hold on yeah and then they'd drive someplace and they'd tell me to wait in the car. And then they go wail on each other, just fists and wrestling. No weapons. And then they get back in the car and it's going to see you later. And they never made you choose a set? No. They wanted me to stay in the car. Oh, that's wild. But that was my upbringing. You know, as far as the real world. And I, it was so kind of innocent. I will, I missed a lot of things, real world stuff that would have been nice to have known early on. But I did get that. You're not alone. You're not the deal here. There are many people on this earth and they're all different and they're all the same. And so, you know. I probably saw too much growing up, but I don't know what my parents were supposed to do otherwise. I mean, my parents were together. They were married, but they weren't together, if that makes sense. so, you know, I had two younger half-siblings, so my pops would spend more time at their house. You know, he split the week over there with, you know, with that family, you know, so on the days where my mom had grad school or law school, I was latchkey, bro, so I'm out in the neighborhood. I'm doing it. I'm doing any and everything. This is third grade, fourth grade. I'm out the door in Birmingham. This is in Birmingham at this point. I was Lashkey in Memphis, but it was a lot less mischief because we were in an enclosed apartment complex. And so when you're in an apartment complex, you kind of know everybody. But when you're in just an open neighborhood on the west side of Birmingham and you can go anywhere you want, well, then anything can happen. You know, it was gang territory and, you know, the gangs were pretty rough. They, for the most part, didn't bother me and my buddies because we were kind of young. One of the, I'd say one of the most important purchases my mother ever made was a basketball goal for our yard. Because there was a public park around the corner, but sometimes there'd be a shooting or a straight bullet. And so people got shot sometimes. And so, you know, I don't want you over there because basketball breeds argument. It breeds guns. And so just don't go over there. If you're going to hoop, hoop here at the house. We had a two car garage. And if you played off the driveway into the dirt, it was basically half court. We had tall super tall like three four story tall these big acorn oak trees or whatever And it created shade over the court So we essentially had a half shaded basketball court in the thick of summer with a breakaway rim and a plexiglass backboard. Oh, so that was the real deal. So it's the best hoop on the west side. So Gangster Disciples, which was the gang that was prevalent in our neighborhood, they were cool with a lot of the people that came over to Hoop. And so over the course of a summer, I essentially met every potentially terrible person in the neighborhood. And you see me, you correlate me to the basketball goal. And so now it kind of gave me a bit of a carte blanche in the hood where I know I'm not going to get my sneakers stolen. I'm not going to get my hat and my jacket stolen. You're not going to bully me for my candy money. You're not going to take my Laffy Taffies when I come out the corner store. I can cut through the projects to get to computer class because there was a public library on the other side of the projects. And the only way, it's either cut through the projects or take a 30-minute detour in a 95-degree heat index. So which one do you want to risk? So that basketball goal, you know, that changed everything. I live two doors down from an active, you know, what do you call it when it's a crack house? Because technically they're selling drugs, but nobody's doing the drugs there. Because there's like, you got like a drug house where people go to smoke. And then you have a crack house where we just do distribution, don't do it, and take out only. I don't know the drug words. but on the other side of our house, there was a house that got raided every two months by SWAT. That was the neighborhood. And I knew- And yet you had kind of a- That community. Yeah. That community. We lived on a dead end street. I could walk comfortably around the neighborhood with my little school fundraiser, sign up sheet, and hey, Ms. Turner, we selling candy logs. Would you like to order a pecan log to support Ramsey football? Like, whatever. You name it. Like, so when you get on a bus at 19 and you see a police dog come sniffing down the aisle, oh, okay. Yeah. That's what we're doing here. Okay. Whatever. I mean, I remember middle school, you know, there were gangs that would come to fight the gang at our school. And it's kind of like you with the Navajo. I'm not in the gang so I'm just gonna stay over here oh yeah what's happening out there the Bloods came to fight the gang's disciples today oh okay yeah first period's gonna be extended about 20 minutes while they figure out who was doing what they don't want classes changing while they're fighting geography's 20 minutes longer that was that was life, man. You know, I used to talk about how it was a joke I could never get to work because there was too much empathy after Columbine. But the idea of... Wait, wait, wait. Start this again. No, I gotta get this. I gotta get this. I know that came out the wrong way. No, no. So you're already understanding why this joke never worked. No, no, I want to get it, though, please. There was Columbine, as I feel like we recognize it as our society, is one of the first mass shootings, especially school shootings, that sent our country into a different type of conversation and dialogue about mass shootings and gun control. So the joke was always not about the tragedy of Columbine, But the question of, I came up in a school system where a kid got shot at school every other week. Right. And if you tally them all up, probably more than Columbine. And if you tally up this school system or this school system, these all predate Columbine. And so the joke was a larger conversation about how America only cares about groups of people. White people being shot. Well, I didn't even say white. I just said groups. Because this was also at the same time. What was the show where the white boy would show up and fix your house and give you a house nice? There was one of those home makeover shows. This was the Ty Pennington. And this was the beginning of the Ty Pennington come fix your house. And we put a porch and we blindfold you. Right, right, right. Oh, right. I'm sorry. And they would always do it for like septuplet fit. Like, oh, you had eight babies at once. All right, you get a house. But you with three kids one by one, who cares? And so the idea of there being these tragedies, right? I say that to make the point that where I grew up, there would be a shooting. There would be a dead classmate sometimes. There was no counselor. There was no candlelight vigil. There was no discussion about it. You would just come in the classroom and their desk would just be empty. And then eventually the teacher would just move that, like would re-Tetris the classroom so the desk didn't look like some sort of living memorial. And you proceed with your day. And I think that normalcy is more of a telltale on how the system failed. failed a lot of black kids, you know, but the idea of so much rough stuff being the norm, it just was, you went to church, you went to the boys club, you had enough positivity in your life, you saw good role models. So, you know, I'm, I'm very fortunate, man. I'm very fortunate because I didn't grow up in full despair. I grew up in a rough neighborhood, but I had a great, you know, for whatever my parents were to one another, they were never that to me. So I felt loved and appreciated. And so you look at how, you know, as we mature as a society and you start seeing how we now handle these traumas and we try to be a little bit more careful now. But you know, everything I was trying to equate at that time. And these are, and these were early jokes and, and it was nothing like those types of jokes were jokes. I was never going to be able to pull off at the time because I was 20. I looked 14. you're not buying anger and indignation against America from a kid that young because you should still have hope and optimism. Why are you on stage griping? Because you didn't get a grief counselor after your shoot. That's a dark kind of joke anyway. And nobody, like, once Americans started getting empathy, it became harder to make those types of jokes. You can pull it off, But you have to be a comic that really dives into the darkness. I loved your joke at the correspondence dinner where you said something about a school shooting and the room went, oh, you know, like, oh, and you, oh, well, then pass legislation. Yeah. I butchered it. but trans people are not trying to convert your children if they did that there wouldn't be any children left to shoot something like that and then if you convert all these kids kids left to murder come on don't we like school shootings we're not doing nothing about it so let's start cheering for him. Let's celebrate. Oh, you're offended? Well, then pass legislation. The correspondence dinner was interesting because I didn't feel like I had the equity to do a lot of those jokes because nobody knew who I was. You know the Daily Show, but you may not watch it enough to know me. And I think part of what a comedian is and isn't able to get away with is based on... If you took any of Ricky Gervais' as a Golden Globe sets and gave it to a comic of lesser status, there's more outrage. Yeah. Because we don't know the messenger. Yeah. Kimmel got away with a lot of shit at the Oscars in his monologue that maybe only John Mulaney. Right. Mulaney can get away with a lot because charm face. Yeah. I couldn't possibly be offending you. Correct. It's the Colin Joe's thing. Don't you like me? Like, it's that. Now, correspondence, that was a good time, but that was chaos. It's not something I would ever do twice. Did you think twice about saying yes when you were asked? No, absolutely not. You're offered, you have to do it. Like, it's like almost a calling. Like, there's no, I don't want to say there's no greater gig in comedy. I don't want to make it sound like you're serving your country and getting deployed. That's a very ballsy gig to take. I'd put it right up there with the Apollo Theater. I think performing at the Apollo Theater is definitely a real-time reaction. I read you said that. It's sink or swim, right? It's like they either love you or they are going to take you down. Yeah, I would argue the Apollo is still a tougher audience than the Correspondents' Dinner because at least at the Correspondents' Dinner, half the room, just off the political alignment, half the room is going to laugh at the joke because it's anti-them. And as I oscillate between sides, you're never going to have all the room. You're only going to have, at best, half the room. Apollo is you don't have any of the room. But if you do it right, you can get all the room. Now, do they know that? Do they know the power they have at the Apollo? Fuck yeah! They come in ready to boot. They're like, you better bring it, baby. Because they know they've been emboldened. Yes, we want you to come on. Tell them they suck so they can go get better. The correspondence dinner, though, I think I got the call in January for an April dinner that year. We had just, yeah, the Warriors visited the White House. Who asked you? Can I ask? I mean, how's it come? It came down from one of the heads of the White House Press Association. One of the members of that group goes, they have their meeting. Who do we like? Who should we get? Let's ask Roy. And they reached out. And you can't say no. Because they knew The Daily Show. So they knew it from that. And we believe you will do the things in a way that will honor the press and the media. And I have a degree in broadcast. My dad, my two older brothers. So I come from journalism enough to where you know I'm not going to shit on your job. So that was part of it. But they asked, and it was probably two days of thinking it over. and then I reached out to everybody I knew who had already done it, who I had access to. So it's Trevor Noah, Wanda Sykes, Seth the Entertainer. I sent a message to Colbert. Colbert and I, we're not tight like that, but on the daily show fraternity-ness of it, I can send an email and I will get a reply. So made my outreach. And I was like, all right, let's do it. Did you put together a room? I don't know how that gig works. You did. You put together a room of writers. Yeah, because you can't watch all of the news. And you don't have every possible take on the news. And then also the news is changing every week. To me, what makes The Correspondents' Dinner so unique is that it is on that day, in that moment, comedy that perfectly encompasses where the country is right now. Half these jokes you can't do tomorrow. Half the jokes didn't exist yesterday. And you have to figure this out right now. So yeah, like over the course of the next couple of months, I got my head writer Christiana Mbacoy Medina who worked over with me at The Daily Show and she was a writer, you know, for Trevor for years. and it's like, I know how you think. She thinks bigger argument. She's not going to have all of the punchlines, but she knows this and this is the stress point. Because the joke is right there in the middle where those two issues intersect, collide. And then you pepper the room with people that are joke machines and contrarians and stuff like that. And like that, that's how it went. And it was a really good time. It was a wild ride. I would never do it again. And finish that by saying because? If Trump was there, I'd do it. Yeah. If Trump was there, I'd do it. Well, you kind of do every night nowadays with, have you heard the news? Yeah, yeah. I mean, but have I got news for you? CNN is different, though, because that's a Saturday night, Ted. Like, that's just joke time. And our show is like a remake of a 30-year British legacy. It's their daily show, essentially. So it's working and it does well over here. But we try to be, we try to both side it as best we can with the guests to start. And if you have guests that don't always think like you, then you're naturally going to get jokes and perspectives that have a little bit of pushback. And to me, that tension, that's good for entertainment. But no, I don't think we're, I think Correspondents Dinner, as we know it, I think Colin Jost had the last one. We're a comedian host? I don't know. Especially when you look at the way that the administration is manipulating the media now. They almost don't have a choice but to not have a comedian. Or not have the dinner at all. Yeah, or face the wrath of the president because he's going to fire everybody that's in there. Anybody that's at that dinner where jokes are being made about him, you're not going to get access to the press corps anymore. So now your job's in question. I'm horrible at names or remembering things, but who was it that was the comedian at the Correspondents' Dinner when Trump and you saw him? Seth Meyers. Seth Meyers. Seth Meyers. And you saw a joke at his experience. No, no, no. It was Obama made a joke. And I can't remember. I heard who wrote the joke. And it was basically, so you actually set this whole thing in motion. Because you saw Trump's face go. Oh, yeah. Yeah, oh, yeah. You saw that. I'll show you. You got to give Trump this, man. That boy don't let go of an enemy. If he don't like your ass, it's to the grave. He is going to come for you. You're indicting James Comey. You know you ain't got nothing on the man. Like, that type of shit is, it's unheard of. It really is unheard of. This entire last 12 years of political discourse, it just been revenge for a Barack Obama joke I can remember who Jokes have power Yeah they do I remember just finishing up on that one thing I was doing a lot of campaigning, Mary and I, for Hillary. And somebody knew Trump's sister. And the word from Trump's sister was Donald never loses. woof yeah woof yeah I've even had to drop the old well karma karma karma no karma karma's for people who want to get better karma karma's this little road sign hey you're a little off track here you know yeah no no yeah we're in a different time now I just I don't think the correspondence dinner in its existing form I don't think it'll return to that under this particular administration. I don't know how, I mean, humor is, they're stress testing how much they can reshape the idea of humor as a whole and using corporate and fiscal influences to kind of manipulate what forms jokes can be told in. So, you know. Were you a little encouraged by the end of the week that Jimmy was back and those two other whatever affiliates. Yeah. Put them back on or no? Temporary? It feels like the end of the first Star Wars. The first being episode four. That's how I count the Star Wars. I don't have time for this one through nine nonsense and Rogue One and all of that shit. The first one where it's like, oh yeah, we got a lick. We blew up the Death Star. Yeah, but they're coming back. And so I sit back to see how the empire will strike back on this. So yeah, it's a victory. Administration, corporate leaning, company with political leanings, leans on the joke man so they can do something that fiscally benefits. Oh wait, we can't do that? Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry. Sooner or later, they're going to come back to something else. You've written this book. The man of many fathers. So obviously aimed also at your son Henry in a way, right? Hoping that this is something that, not aimed at, but something that he can read. You nailed it. Yeah. So the book is for him. It's not really for y'all, but you want to read it. But I do get to read it. Give me some money. I'm thinking of giving Henry money. Yeah. Screw you. But you can't turn to Henry. You're not turning to Henry and saying, okay, this is hopeless or, wow, I'm discouraged about this world. And yet you are a realist more than, way more than because of everything you've seen in your life. How do you do the hope part? How do you do for your offspring? How do you do it for yourself? How do you keep that part of your heart nurtured? you show your child that they are the hope. It's not about waiting for it to come to you. It's about being that thing. So you try to talk to them about benevolence and volunteering and being kind and doing for others. You know, help me fold these clothes. I'm going to go donate. These are your clothes. So I'm going to go to somebody else. much similar to my own upbringing to a degree. I'm raising a city kid. I'm raising a New York City native. That's what he is. And you're going to see stuff in that city. You're walking down the street, you're going to see stuff that I can't just explain away. Oh, no, son. Come on, let's keep walking. No. Let's talk about it. Why was that man on the train behaving that way? And that becomes a real conversation about homelessness, or it becomes a conversation about mental health and why people aren't necessarily being taken care of. We were in a store one day, and a guy got tackled by security in front of us, and a guy got tackled by security in front of us and took out in cuffs. And then you see the cops, like, shake the bag open or whatever, and it's just all stolen. and he's in there just stealing. Well, then that becomes a conversation about consequences for your actions. And I don't know, man. I'm torn between how long do you shield your child from the world before you have crippled them? And then what's too soon to let them know about the world and then you run the risk of scarring them. You know, you don't know when your kids are ready to see or hear about certain things. So you just have to have those conversations. I just trust it as the universe presenting that conversation. You know, this is the time to have it. There's a lady with no shirt on on this bus talking crazy. So first, let's go through the safety protocols or how you keep distance, how you keep space. protocols on eye contact with folks. Like, just... Do that. Do that, the eye contact for me right now. What do you mean? No, just the idea of your eyes talk before your mouth does. And if I stare at you long enough, it's going to shift your emotion. Right. And I don't know how that's going to shift a stranger's emotion. Because some people go, what are you looking at? Right. And other people go, oh, well, hello, how can I help you? It invites a conversation. And so you have to be very careful about staring. You look and then look away, but just staring at somebody and then locking eyes with them, you now have their undivided attention. You are literally plugged into their soul. And do you want the topless person talking crazy to come over and talk? Okay, well, then you probably shouldn't look at them. Yeah. You know, and mind you, I'm not a city kid. I wasn't raised in New York, so I can only teach him so much. I can only give him so much of what I know when it comes to how to move in this world. What's the relationship supposed to be with police? What's the relationship supposed to be with teachers and people of authority? We were taught, at least I was taught blind authority, blind compliance to all authority figures with no questioning. No, I don't agree with that. I came up in a house where I was allowed to present my side of an argument. There's a respectful way to do it. But if you feel that, and I feel like any authority figure should be willing to listen to that and consider that. So if you feel like you have a case, state your case. But I don't know if I can tell them that for sure with the police. he's at that age, man. He's at the age now where you don't know how they're gonna see you. You're nine, you're knocking on 10. A lot of them, they cuff up. Take them down to the grown-up jail. And some, they let go and they let them go in the bodega and call their parents and then they can come get them and it's fine. So there has to be protocols in place. But it's hard to instill protocol without putting in fear. And I think that's the thing that's always difficult. That started with dogs. I generally don't trust dogs. I don't hate dogs. But I don't trust them. I'm watching you. To prove that you're not going to bite me. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's strictly like just walking down the street. Not if I'm at your house and your dog comes up. I will pet your dog. But just walking down the street with some dog walker coming by with the dogs. Don't pet that dog. You don't know that dog. We're on the elevator. Don't look at the dog. Interesting thing is that that eye protocol, it's even crazier with wild animals. I was thinking it's just appropriate to tell you about my dog. where I, we, he was three when we, uh, he was a bred dog who then started being given away cause he was too big and, and then people died. And it is, so in essence was a rescue, but this is a beautiful, amazing Australian shepherd. But I made the, I love to fuck with dogs and play with them and wrestle and all that stuff. And the first kind of week we had him and, I started to do the rough hops. He locked eyes with me and literally, I know for a fact, he said, you don't want to go there. It was so fucking clear that I backed away and started stroking her. I'm so sorry. I won't do that again. Yeah. It's trying to figure that out. I'm not... I don't know. I wonder if it's some sort of detachment from love and closeness or some type of shit, but I've never been a pet person. I had two guinea pigs growing up. That was cool. If I ever had a house with some space and a yard, I'd probably do that again. I'd probably get some guinea pigs. I think New York City would be a hard place for dogs. Yeah, you can do a dog, but like rodents, I don't think it's smart because these apartments are small, and if you ain't changing that cage every other day, that shit gets to stinking. And the kid that wants them doesn't always be changing it. It falls on you. Yeah, you got to put my son, I have to prove to me, but a fish for like three years. Yeah. Like show me you can clean a tank or whatever. But I just feel like you're trying to predict what world your kids will be stepping into. And so you're trying to get ahead of it by preparing them. But I think you can't prepare them for particular things. you can prepare them for emotional management. Panic will be there regardless of what the threat or what the issue is. Nervousness will be there. Excitement, anger. So it just all becomes mood management. And I think that's kind of where I try to zero in on. But that's why it was important with the book to like, oh, well, where did I learn that? Or where did I learn that? Or why am I like this? and it was a really, really fun journey to put together, like it really was. When I talk to stand-up people who I just admire, because as I said, I like surrounding myself with ensemble. I usually ask, where did you get the courage? Where did you become courageous enough to stand up on a stage and suffer the slings and arrows? But after talking to you, was it scary for you? Or was this another part of, you know, after your childhood, it was like, no, this will be all right. This will be easy. I enjoy this. Well, that didn't go well. It's baseball. I struck out. Okay, well, I'm going to go back up to bat tomorrow. and try again. I'm going to watch the set. I'm going to analyze what jokes didn't do well, figure out where I can tweak them, and then I'm going to try again. Now, where I changed is I did most of my open mics early on, either outside of Tallahassee or I did them at Florida State. I went to Florida A&M across town, but I didn't know anybody at Florida State. So if I bomb on the student comedy night or whatever, who cares? It's fine. I just tiptoe back to campus and no one knows that I just ate shit five blocks away. How'd it go? Great. Yeah. Perfect. That was the early beginnings. The idea that I don't know these people and I'm not going to see them again. And I think once I understood, and I really learned this lesson at Uptown Comedy Corner in Atlanta, where Uptown was an urban room and it was Sunday nights where you got to bring it. And some nights I did not bring it. You get booed and that's okay. Or they jiggle car keys to let you know it's time to ride out. You ain't talking over car keys, like 300 car keys? Jesus you can't it's worse than a boo because a boo you can go shut up you ain't shit look at your shirt when it's this no one hears you but you can come back to that same club seven days later and make two tweaks to a joke gets a laugh and the audience even though they're essentially a different group of people from last week the audience they don't care that they haven't heard of you or don't know who you are. You're judged solely on tonight. And I think it's that way for comics the entirety of their career, which is why I think we have that degree of paranoia of perfection and got to work on the joke and got to polish it. This hour special's got to be as good as the one before it. Okay. Okay, all right, we got to figure it out. Like that nervousness just never left. But the idea to do it and like really try, you know, for me, I didn't feel like I was losing anything. I thought, man, I got arrested for stealing credit cards when I was 19. So I'm like, I'm going to jail. I'm going to send me to prison. Let me try this comedy. And then I get probation. I'm like, oh, word? Okay. Well, I guess we're just going to keep doing comedy. At 19. That was 98. Yeah. And it was that simple. and who was your first oh that guy's funny I like him I want to be like him did you have somebody before you started that you looked up to and went I want to be like that Sinbad and Rondell Sheridan I don't know Rondell Rondell Sheridan he was he was the dad on That's So Raven for a while but he was a stand up in the 80s 90s and just clean cut fast paced up-tempo. Very similar. Sinbad was a stage stalker, a little more than Rondell, but those two, because it was like, oh, wow. Then, we got Cable, and you get the HBO free preview weekend. There used to be this thing, I've tried to explain this to young people, there used to be this thing where once a year, everyone in America had HBO for three days. and it was the free preview weekend and that's when HBO would put their best foot forward to try and entice you to subscribe to HBO. And so it would always be the same. HBO free preview weekend would always be the same weekend as some comedian's new special that was coming out. So every year you could see Sinbad. I saw comics relief, Whoopi and Leary and Robin Williams and all of them. George Carlin was one of the ones one of those years And like that when I was like okay Yeah I saw George Wallace Comedy Central signs on in early 90s And they're showing a fuck ton of George Wallace. They're showing George Wallace and A.J. Jamal and Bobby Collins. Like just all these vets, bro. And I'm like, huh, that seems interesting. I think I could do that. It would be another seven, eight years before I had the courage to try. But I was locked in on stand-up from the time I saw Sinbad. You were studying to be a journalist at that point? Yeah. So, you know, I go to school for broadcast journalism, and I wanted to be Stuart Scott. You know, my father was more of a civil rights journalist. He covered conflict and issues affecting the Black community. It's very serious, very astute Cover real stuff And interview presidential nominees I just want to crack jokes while I watch sports highlights, man Kenny Mayne and Stuart Scott seem to have a ball So I'm going to do that And that's what I'll major in And, you know, I got to college And part of the curriculum in college is a There was a voice and diction class and then there was an impromptu speech class. And so we had a class where essentially they made you take it in journalism to teach you as a reporter how to continue a flow of thought even on something you don't know anything about. If you're doing a live report and you need to continually give information and talk about what you're seeing and it helps your improv muscle basically. So the teacher would give us a random subject every week to do a three-minute speech about, and you had two minutes to prepare. You go out in the hall and prepare. This is pre-internet, so there's no Googling on you. There's internet, but it's in the computer lab 20 minutes across campus. So you're just in the hall. You're going, all right, what am I going to say about the history of the toilet? Jesus. Okay, what do I do? And you get your bullet points together in your head, and then you go back in the class, and you present a three to four minute presentation on the toilet or the history of the sandwich. Just the most random shit that she knows you know nothing about. But let's see how convincing you can be like that. And when I would give those speeches, I always got a laugh. I wasn't trying. I always got a laugh. And that was like the first open mic. Like that was the first, oh, I like this feeling. Oh, if I make a face, that buys me 15 seconds. I don't have to say anything. I can just make a face and it gives me 15 less seconds of talking. If I make a noise. So you just start thinking about essentially, without knowing it at the time, you're just thinking about ways to enhance your words. It's joke enhancement. You can change the tempo at which you speak. You can change the volume at which you speak. You can change the pitch at which you speak. And by manipulating those three knobs at any time, I would get a laugh. And so that was it, man. Don't we usually laugh when we're surprised and delighted because we didn't see that coming? Yeah. And that's kind of what you're talking about. You can dial knobs at the seemingly inappropriate place. Correct. Yeah, the thing that's supposed to be sad, you say with a smile. You know, you play opposite emotions and stuff like that. Or outrage over a sauce that's not coming your way. Yeah, that used to be my core. So I did morning radio for 10 years, and we would have listeners call in about stuff that they were upset about and whatever, and people would be mad about the most random, like it had nothing to do with politics or gun control or women's rights. He said, man, why they keep charging for sauce? But the nuggets getting smaller. We had a guy call in once, and this is before we knew what shrinkflation was. But a guy called into the radio station one time and he was mad because the Girl Scout cookie box was getting shorter. And he couldn't prove it because every year he threw the boxes away. And then he, which then gets me, yeah man and it becomes a yes and game and I'm like what I don't appreciate about the Girl Scouts is that they charge us for the cookies and then have a picture of themselves on the box having a good time with your money don't do that I don't want to see you ziplining I don't zipline I don't get to have fun why y'all having fun I'm buying these cookies you raising a price should be a picture of you next to an oven just flipping That's what the Keeble Elves do. And so we go through a whole, like anytime you see the Keeble Elves, they in the tree, they're working, they run, you can see we're working hard. But if you tell that thought with a straight face, it becomes 10 times funnier. You had me going this morning. I was listening to the sauce one. And there was, you weren't over the top, But there was outrage. Oh, I really do. I really do hate that. I really do hate how much they police sauces at fast food spots. Like, it's such a stupid, petty thing to be all over about, man. But that's who we are, man. We're just a society of penny pitchers, man. What about you and acting? I know you're doing it. I don't mind it. That wasn't the response. Should I not say that? No. As I negotiate. a Fox sitcom. No, that's the requisite disrespect you need for the written word. I love that phrase. I love writing, bro. I've fallen in love with writing film and writing TV. Film especially. And I really think that there's a place for me. If I can, if things go right with CNN into next year, I'm hoping it affords me a little bit of a window of time to do writing and to do a little bit of focusing on the creative. I like acting. I enjoy the challenge of doing weird, different stuff, and I don't always get those opportunities. So that's the thing where it's like, oh, okay, that was fun, but it would be nice to do something different. And I've been given that enough in spots, but not with my own sitcom yet. And so for that, I'm thankful. Like, I got, I was too on the call sheet with Jon Hamm for the Fletch sequel they did. That's a blessing. Steve Carell gave me the blessing to be in a scene with him in Space Force. You do only murders with the two gods. Yeah. Like, that's dope. You're sitting next to Steve Martin and Martin Short in a green room and running lines. And each one of those roles distinctly different. I'm thankful when there's opportunities to do something different. There's a romantic comedy that's out now, Love Brooklyn, that I'm in with Andre Holland and Nicole Behari and The Wonder Wise. And to be funny and silly in a romantic comedy. I'm not a rom-com guy, but it was fun. That was fun because that's not the normal thing that I am offered. It's usually, hey, we want you to come be on this show and be funny journalist. I did that for eight years on Daily Show. I'd rather not do that. But then Jonah Hill calls you and goes, hey, would you like to do a scene with me and Keanu Reeves? You play a combination of Deion Sanders and Al Sharpton. I'm in. Yeah. I don't even know what that means. Yeah. But I'm in. Yeah. Like that. Did Seth direct this as well? Was he the director? Oh, no, no. You talking about for the Keanu, the Jonah Hill thing? No, Jonah. Jonah directed. Jonah starred and directed, which is... Yeah. Directing is a level of psychosis I don't ever want to be a part of. But... But writing you will. writing, I love it. I love it. And if I can act in things that I've written, that I think that's the most guaranteed way to get the most interesting pieces of myself on film. Yeah. It will work for you. I think people, stand-ups who know their voice, people who are funny that really truly know their voice, you can use that voice to write a sitcom. I'm an actor for hire. And whenever anyone says, let me write something for you, It's like, don't. Let me transform. I don't have that voice. I got to travel. I have a, I'll stop right there. I don't even want to say it all out. But I got, I got, I got some. Stuff. I know what I want to do. Right, right. And, you know, you, you just have to work and create the opportunities for yourself. Yeah. You know, I'm calculated enough to where I feel like these horses that I'm going to bet on would be pretty good horses to bet on. Any chance I could make money off of you and get in? Have I got news for you? It's so smart because you're talking about the real stuff that just happened that week. And you have video proof. This is not you picking on them, but you're picking on what they said, not your interpretation of what they said. And so you get the end. I had to stop watching for a while. I have to really moderate myself. Maybe I'll read about it instead of seeing it. Because I get depressed and angry and da-da-da-da. So you're offering people that same real news And you're going to give them a chuckle and a laugh But it doesn't undercut your chuckle and laugh Doesn't make it okay You give them relief About the horror of what they just saw Or the reality of what they just saw I just think it's kind of brilliant I try to tell people Our show is what your local news would be If your anchors had three drinks That's the show Yeah, it's what happened, but I'm going to say it with a little bit of a smirk. We're going to try and figure out a little bit of how we got to this place. And then more importantly, we try to have on a good balance of guests from both sides of political ideologies to kind of have a little bit of balance to the conversation as well. So in that regard, it is the most fun I've had on television. How much time does that take you? Is that your week? A couple days. You know, we have writers, and they're kind of monitoring, setting puzzle pieces in order. A bunch of, it's all Jell-O, and then Thursday, Friday, it turns into concrete. So somewhere around late Wednesday, Thursday, I kind of check in. We kind of start talking and figuring out stuff. What do you think? We should mention this. And it's less about what to talk about and more about how long to talk about it. We have an hour. So we can cover the entire week. So if you haven't watched any news the entire week, you will be as informed as you were if you read that Forbes article or Wall Street Journal or whatever else you read. You will know everything that happened. You will know the inside track on how the thing and the causation or whatever. And I'm here to give you just enough information about current events for you to pretend that other people know you know what you're talking about at a party. That's it. And it's fun. It's easy. I think the best times we have, myself, Amber Ruffin, and Michael Ian Black, who are our co-captains, is when we have sitting elected officials on the show. We've had Jasmine Crockett. We've had Tim Burchette. And trust me, it doesn't get any more polar opposites than those two. Black woman with bedazzled Nikes. And then just an old dude from Tennessee. Do they stick in their corner stubbornly or do they end up having, know that they can have fun too? They try to have a little fun. I think the audience still wants some degree of accountability. So, you know, it remains to be seen. Live audience? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. How many? Yeah, 150. That's fun. That's great. It's just the right amount. Like we're not going to go sitcom big with like 250, 300 or whatever. I think Oliver has the biggest audience. I think Oliver's around 200, give or take somewhere in there. But it's fun. It's nice. It's cozy. Yeah. And yeah, it's a good time, man. I'm very thankful that that opportunity came my way. Because when I left Daily Show, I didn't know what was next. I just knew that for whatever to be next, I need to make that step first. So that's what it was. I've so enjoyed talking to you. I'm thankful for the time. I was a little nervous going, oh, wow. Come on, man. He is so fucking smart. But I've stayed in my corner and I feel great. Usually I sell myself down the tubes. No, watch the show, man. I think you'll enjoy this season. Yes, no, I am. Are you talking about? Yeah, yeah, CNN, yeah, yeah. No, no. I binged three or four, so I'm catching up. Good man. Yeah. Yeah, we're on Max or whatever it's called now. Yeah. No, it's wonderful. And you know what? More importantly than everything is your book and your son, Henry, and what a good daddy you're trying to be. Trying to be. You know? Yes, sir. ladies and gentlemen Roy Wood Jr. you can watch his weekly show Have I Got News for You on CNN you can pick up his memoir and I'd encourage that The Man of Many Fathers at a bookstore near you that's it for this week special thanks as always to Team Coco if you've enjoyed this podcast send it to someone you love Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and maybe give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts if you're in the mood. If you like watching your podcasts, all our full-length episodes are on YouTube. Visit youtube.com slash teamcoco. See you next time where everybody knows your name. You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leow. Our executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Grahl. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Genn, Mary Steenburgen, and John Osborne.