Roy Wood Jr. hosts the White House Correspondents’ Dinner tonight

🎙️ Listen to this episode:

▶ Spreaker  | 
🍎 Apple Podcasts  | 
🎵 Spotify


Full Transcript

The Shark Deck, Johnny Man with your Daily Comedy News to nice is the White House Correspondence Dinner your host? Roy Wood Junior. Roywood Junior told The Birmingham Times the Correspondence Dinner is different from hosting the Daily Show because ain’t nothing could prepare you for it. Previous host of the Dinner and Seth Meyers, Cecily Strong, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O’Brian, Ray Romano, Paula Poundstone would say, as I take it as an honor to basically be a voice for the voters, you have to come in and swing the big stick. The difference between the Correspondents Dinner and the Daily Show is the studio audience is not interested in laughing.

In DC, I can’t toss it to a break. If a joke bombs, I have to live with it now. Earlier in the week, Sucker Carlson got fired and Hasan Minhaj tweeted, pretty sure Roywood Junior is updating his remark slash roast for the White House Correspondents Dinner now, would reply and wrote, updating, Man, I gotta throw out the whole damn script. Roy was also on Sam Sanders podcast, as recapped here by Vulture, Roy said, people are like, well, what are you gonna say who you’re gonna go after? And I’m like, go after them?

And then what are they going to resign the next day? You’ve got a bunch of Clarence Thomas jokes, but I don’t imagine I have one that’ll make them resign. I could joke about Clarence Thomas getting flown around the country like an Instagram model. The whole thing could be Clarence Thomas jokes. But there’s a little bit of c ort we need to get into.

There’s some Desanta’s versus Trump we need to get into. There’s some Democrats filipbustering the Republicans police reform bill. We need to get into that. That’s the thing. There’s questions to explore.

But then you have to wonder, Okay, am I here to make a point or am I here to be funny? I’m here to be funny. Nobody in the room is my ally. I’m for the people. Comedians are for the people.

Make no bones about it. I’m a black American raising the American South, and there’s certain truths about that experience that we need to change, and I’m not here to camouflage that. I wasn’t hired to give a speech, but I was hired to give a little bit of truth. I’m not to Gregory. I don’t have the ability to oscillate between humor and anger, effortlessly and indignation.

I don’t think I possessed that. But I think there’s a way to talk about the black experience. I do know we’ll have a conversation about reparations somewhere up in there. You think I’m going to be, as a Black American on the biggest stage in front of the most powerful people and not tell I’m to consider reparations. Who else will have the opportunity to have the undivided attention of lawmakers?

Is he nervous? And he said, yeah, it’s a challenge. I remember earlier in my career walking through Time Square profusely sweating because I had to go on David Letterman. I could do that with my eyes closed now, but this yeah, I’ll be walking through the National Mall sweating. Salon talked to Jay Farrow and he said, you gotta put the work in.

You have to have a team. You can’t do without a team. Everybody is a team. Even people you think, like Michael Jackson had a team. Prince, Well, Prince is the only one who could do by himself.

Okay, he’s the only one. Everybody else they need a team. Prince was just like, I don’t care. I play every instrument. I don’t need anybody.

And he didn’t. He played twenty two instruments. Jay said, can we talk about the time I was on Family Feud and they were asking the biggest pop stars of all time? And I said Prince and it wasn’t even on the board. Even Steve Harvey said that don’t make no sense.

Everybody leave, Everybody leave, We’re walking out of here. Everybody just got up and walked out. Yahoo asked, Hurry Kanaboloo, Hey, Harry Kannabulu. Do you have a pre show routine? Harry said, yes.

I paced a lot. I talked to myself, especially if it’s the first show of a run, like if I’m doing a bunch of shows, the first couple of were I’m the first nervous. I’m always pacing. I’m always thinking about getting the joke order right. Remember the new jokes I added to an old joke.

I don’t like it when other people in the room talking about when I’m pacing, I want it to be quiet. I just want it to be in my head. I hate when the bathroom isn’t in the green rooms. If I have to pee, have to be with the general public. It ruins the illusion because all of a sudden, it’s like, ah, yeah, that guy I just saw pee, he’s on stage.

Parade asked Ray Romano, Hey, Ray, do you think everybody loves Raymond has received the respect it deserves? And Ray said, well, Raymond’s not hipster and young and sexy. It’s not friends or Seinfeld. It’s a little more of a family values thing. But actually think people appreciate it now in a way they didn’t even five years ago.

And I’m a glass half empty guy always finds the negative, but it holds up. Parade followed up and said, well, how can he tell IFU said, come holds up? And Ray said, look at the Honeymooners. That holds up. And it’s just two couples.

There’s something about the acting and the writing, and it holds up through time, and even as cultures change, the basic core the family stays the same. I’m not comparing our shot of the Honeymooners, but that’s basically what a show is about, and maybe that helped it stand the test of time. Will Ray do another sitcom? He said, I knew I didn’t want to do another traditional fourcamera sitcom. Raymond was my legacy in that genre.

I was drawn to something with a little more dramatic substance to it. Maybe not in tenth street drama, but I wanted to try and test myself but having someone cast me and that proved to be difficult because when you see somebody for nine years in a rold, it’s hard to see them in anything else. I ended up co creating men of a certain age. I’ll jump in. Ray was really good in that I’ve seen Ray and a few things that I’ve been like, Oh, I really like him in things.

Ray said. I was on parenthood for three years. People saw me again in a different role. The Sydney Comedy Festival continues on Sundays. Some of the names we might know Daniel kits In, we talked about him in Melbourne.

Ed Gamble is also playing Moses. Storm is there and a show called two Hearts New Zealand. We’re Pregnant and the Baby is Music reminds me of my daughter was telling me her boyfriend was like, ah, he made me watch some show. It was like twenty years old. It’s like two guys or like Australian or New Zealand or something, and they play music.

So I jump in, I go fly to the Concorde. She goes, yeah, I hated it. I’m watching it. I’m like, that’s a dad show. Dad probably likes that.

And I’m like I do. She’s like, yeah, I could stand out. I’m like, you don’t like the hip Hopopotamus. She had no idea what I was talking about. The pitch, KC got up with Brian Reagan.

Hey, Brian Reagan, do you feel like there are different types of audiences that you encounter when you’re performing. Brian said, well, what I think it’s interesting about an audience is that everybody thinks they’re reacting like from their own individual selves. What they don’t realize is they’re being influenced by everyone around them. From my perspective, I try to make the audience one thing, and then I try to get this one thing laughing. I’m not naive.

I know that it’s a bunch of individuals, but the individuals out there think I think this guy’s funny. They don’t realize that. It’s more like, we think this guy’s funny. Audiences are like those big giant flocks of birds with like a million birds, and they’re all moving around. Is one It’s bizarre to look at it and go, well, is that one thing?

Or are they all different? Angela Johnson Reius will debut her sixth comedy special, this one called Say I Want. It’ll be on YouTube May fourteenth. She produced the special herself and owns it fully, which shot at the Rheman in Nashville. Now what I like about this article from Pollstar is it gives us some hard numbers.

So in case you’re wondering how much dick comedians make, here’s some actual numbers. Paul Star reports the special performances that the Riemann sold thirty eight hundred tickets and grossed one hundred fifty six thousand, one hundred ninety four dollars according to Pollstar’s box Office. Other highlights from that shore the show in Charlotte two thousand, three hundred twenty four tickets for one hundred thirty four thousand, two hundred and ninety three dollars. The show in Atlanta twenty four fifty nine tickets, one hundred and twenty seven thousand, three forty six San Jose forty nine eighty tickets gross to two hundred and fifty one thousand dollars in change. Now that’s gross.

So who knows what happens after everybody takes their cut and expenses and accounting and I don’t know making you pay for the potato chips and the green room out and how it all works. But those are some numbers. Pretty interesting, right. Oh. As an aside, Happy ninetieth birthday to Willie Nilson.

Yeah, my mom loves Willie Nilson. Willie Neilson ninety years old. One way you could celebrate his birthday. Check out the podcast The Best Song Ever. This week it’s called the Best Song Ever This week, host Scott Frampton does a quick dive and a song and what makes it special?

And there are two Willie Nelson themed episodes you’ll find near the top of the fee. There’s one new episode, but the two below what are both about? Willie Nelson. Happy birthday, Willie. I’ve seen Willie live Foo three four times.

Fantastic. That’s your comedy news for today. Follow the show for free on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your shows, and I’ll see tomorrow. Who does like vacations? Do you need some inspiration for your next road trip?

Are you excited to get out there and explore the world again? Hi, I’m Johnny Mac. My podcast is called Travel Is Back. Travel is Back is travel for regular people. We hop in the car and with like coach views or miles, we eat at normal places, We stay at normal places.

So what I do is I hop in the car and I grab my quarterable recorder and I go somewhere. Season three kicks off on the road trip to Key West. You can check out the back catalog. There are popular episodes covered Chicago, Nashville, Vancouver, Seattle, a whole bunch more. Travel Is Back road trips for regular people.

Follow show on Apple podcast or wherever you get your shows. These are quick, these are casual, and it’s for regular people like you. Travel is Back