Roy Wood Jr., without 'The Daily Show,' finds solace in stand-up
Published in Entertainment News
Roy Wood Jr., a long-time correspondent on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” has not stepped on the New York set in more than four months since the writers went on strike.
Fortunately, like stranded TV show hosts such as Seth Meyers and John Oliver, he has been able to book plenty of stand-up dates to fill the time and earn some income. He's embarked on a 50-city tour through February.
“You would hope there would be a better reason to go on the road, but it’s ultimately a good thing,” said the 44-year-old Birmingham, Alabama, native in an interview with The Atlanta Journal Constitution. (Even when “The Daily Show” does come back, the show provides flexibility for its correspondents to tour and do other work.)
At the same time, Wood is very much behind the Writers Guild of America and their demands.
“I hope it gets resolved,” he said. “I don’t know the ins and outs of what’s happening inside the war rooms but the writers are prepared for however long it takes. You’re not going to threaten people who are broke all the time. They have this idea they can starve them into submission. Writers are the red blood cells of entertainment. Nothing happens before writers put pen to paper. The script has to be done.”
“The Daily Show” writers have it especially hard given that they create entire jokes and bits that often get thrown out when news breaks at 3 p.m. “There is always some form of chaos,” he said.
His stand-up is a mix of observations about societal behavior and the news of the world as well as jokes created specifically for whatever city he’s in. “I do homework for a particular place a week out,” he said. “In Atlanta, we’ll get into Fani Willis, of course, and the Trump indictment. There’s a county commissioner on trial for sexual harassment. Where there’s scandal, there’s comedy.”
Topics he plans to bring up include how Americans have become lonelier and more isolated and how terrible customer service is at some stores.
“I’m following my own curiosity like complaining about the fact Walgreens employees seem to lock up the most random things from store to store. I saw them lock up socks in one place, cough medicine somewhere else, then razor blades in another. I couldn’t get a comb one time.”
He also thinks baseball “played during the day in the summer should be banned. Any sport played outdoors in the summer is weird to me. Everything should be domed!”
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