The Daily Show's Roy Wood Jr. is pessimistic about the future of political comedy — and here's why
The American comedian is headlining the Just for Laughs Comedy Tour, with shows from St. John’s to Victoria
Roy Wood Jr. was a journalist and comedian in tandem. At 19, while completing a broadcast degree at Florida A&M University, he started to dabble in stand-up comedy.
"It was always a duality, it was never one then the other," Wood tells Q's Tom Power. "I started stand-up when I was 19…. I was still working on my degree, I got an internship at a local radio station in Tallahassee, and I did morning news for that station."
Due to his young age at the time, Wood says audiences wouldn't take him seriously if he talked about the world in his routine. "You just assume I haven't seen anything, so I just had to present my world funny. I did jokes about student loans and book buyback."
From these humble beginnings, Wood's career skyrocketed. In 2015, he took on a correspondent's role on The Daily Show, and in 2023 he hosted the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner.
Now, he's headlining the Just for Laughs Comedy Tour, with shows from coast to coast across Canada.
"When I got The Daily Show, I definitely felt prepared," says Wood. "The first 15 years of my stand-up gave me a solid understanding of just the middle of the [United States]. If we're talking voting and drama where a lot of the B.S. goes down, it's in that area."
Understanding America
As an up-and-coming stand-up comic in university, Wood got to traverse the American South and gain a better understanding of the region.
"If we're talking south of Nashville, [Atlanta and Tampa Bay, Fla.] were the only two cities that had a weekly open mic," Wood recalls. "What happened with that, and I guess it's kind of a blessing down the road, is that you learn [about] every single demographic and every single type of person that lives in America….
"What you start realizing is that all these people that we stereotype and that we hate, a lot of them are just single issue voters — they're not all stark raving racists."
While there's a diversity of viewpoints in different regions of America, Wood points out that he's faced some danger as a Black comedian in certain areas of the country.
"It's dangerous out there, and the comedian Doug Stanhope said this, and it's always stuck with me, 'As a comedian, you're only as famous as you are in physical relation to the club that night,'" says Wood.
WATCH | Roy Wood Jr.'s interview with Tom Power:
Can late-night TV survive?
Wood's approach to political comedy is informed by his belief that jokes need to have a baseline of facts from which all audiences agree. Then, he can use his lighthearted approach to find an alternative perspective on highly divisive topics.
He crafted his approach by watching previous hosts of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah.
"Jon Stewart comes in with a sledgehammer and knocks the issue in the mouth that goes, 'This is the problem. Shame on you for not fixing it. You better fix it,' and there's punchlines in between all of that," says Wood. "Trevor's approach was there could be an A and B side to the issue, but let's look at it from over here and let me give you a different perspective to help better educate both sides."
Wood left The Daily Show earlier this year after struggling to balance being both a guest host and a correspondent. Despite learning to take a balanced approach to comedy after eight years on air, he says late-night shows face an existential challenge.
"If we're going to be real about the numbers — and let's be real about cumulative numbers across the board, all networks, I'm not just dumping on The Daily Show — you have to figure out other ways to engage," Wood tells Power. "I think that the way late-night survives is that late-night has to become multi-quadrant, so you cannot just be linear."
He added that it's getting harder as a result of new platforms and technologies, especially as ratings dip for televised talk shows.
"Our idea is to parody the news, [but] does everybody agree on the premise? If we're talking media trust, and if we're talking about the idea of those facts being the facts from which we will then glean punchlines, yeah, some people don't even believe in those particular facts."
The full interview with Roy Wood Jr. is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Roy Wood Jr. produced by Ben Edwards.
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