Roy Wood Jr. tells how one good deed helped him later in life.
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00:00Welcome back, Roy Wood Jr.
00:03Yeah!
00:04If the punchline had a retractable root, I would ask them to open it for tonight's show.
00:11Right, yeah.
00:12We were talking about this, and you said categorically, like, the oppressive heat don't like, and
00:20that you will never do yard work in your life, ever.
00:23Ever.
00:23And it's not an entitlement thing, it's just, it's, I grew up in Alabama, that's what everyone
00:29needs to understand.
00:29You paid your dues.
00:30Alabama heat.
00:31Yeah.
00:31Only child.
00:33Oh.
00:33So who you think did all the yard work?
00:35Oh, no.
00:35Who you think did all the yard work?
00:37Yeah, yeah.
00:37Who you think raked the leaves, painted.
00:39I painted the house at 11.
00:42That's not right.
00:43That's not right.
00:44So I just, I don't do, I'm sorry, I'm not.
00:47If it's outdoors, whatever I have to pay to get someone else, I've been that kid dragging
00:53the lawnmower down the sidewalk, going from door to door, $10 front yard, $15 front and
00:59back, and just heat stroke, heat exhaustion, I just, I won't do it.
01:04I think I was mostly familiar with you because of your contributions on The Daily Show, which
01:07are great, but I've really grown to like you a lot with your comedic chops, and specifically
01:13the show This Is Not Happening on Comedy Central.
01:14Oh, that's a different beast, man.
01:16Yeah.
01:16It's really well done, and it exposes so many comedians to new audiences, and the way that
01:22you guys vibe with one another, it seems cool.
01:24Are they fun to shoot?
01:25Yeah, it's a blast for the people who haven't seen it.
01:28It's, and this is true, of anything you can watch on television or streaming, it is the
01:35only storytelling style comedy show where you have comedians telling true stories from
01:40their lives.
01:41So these are eight, nine minute runs.
01:43This isn't the three, four minutes that you do on Jimmy Fallon.
01:46This is like real deep, deep stuff.
01:50And weird.
01:52Yeah.
01:53Thought provoking.
01:54Horrifying.
01:55Not always hilarious, by the way.
01:56No, no, no, no, no.
01:58Some of them are.
01:58I told a story, I told a story most recently this season about the time that someone offered
02:04to pay me in cocaine.
02:05Right.
02:06After a comedy show.
02:08We had, we had a woman come on and tell a story about the time she didn't meth, and then
02:12found out that there's still meth in your urine that doesn't metabolize the first time you
02:17do the meth, so she would drink her urine to get a second high.
02:21Great story.
02:22That's a great story.
02:23But because of the context of the show and the way I think people think, and it's a brilliant
02:30concept because if I'm going to be on it, this is my chance to just say this and get
02:34it out there.
02:35And a lot of times it's a part of their acts to begin with, but a lot of times you feel
02:39like, hey, I'm going to go for it.
02:40I'm going to tell the story in public.
02:41Yeah.
02:41And I think that's the beautiful thing about that show.
02:45You know, I told a long, drawn-out story about how when I used to work at Golden Corral, there
02:50was a guy that I was, it was a customer I was really nice to who ultimately never spoke
02:54to me, never tipped me, nothing.
02:56I just always gave him good service.
02:58It's just one of those silent moments.
03:00Fast forward two years later, I get arrested.
03:03I'm in jail.
03:04And the night I'm in jail, a guy tries to beat my ass.
03:07And the same guy from Golden Corral is in the jail and goes, nah, he's cool.
03:11Really?
03:12Yeah.
03:13I was reading an interview with you, New York Times.
03:15This is when you, you, you, you, you, you're working in a post office.
03:18Yeah.
03:18So I'm, I was a mail sorter in the campus post office.
03:21And no one believes me when I say this.
03:23And please vouch for me on this.
03:24Yeah.
03:24No, I read that.
03:25In 1997, when you got a credit card mailed to you, it was already activated in the envelope.
03:34No one believes me when I say that.
03:36I'm like, all this sticker on the front and call and put in your last four of your, no.
03:41And you could always tell it was a credit card.
03:44Yes.
03:44You could always tell.
03:45If it was Wilmington, Delaware or Charlotte, North Carolina, baby, I'm taking that thing.
03:51And so, yeah.
03:52And so I got, we got, I got arrested.
03:54That actually was what got me into standup is because I got depressed and thought I was
03:57going to prison, ended up getting probation, been doing comedy ever since.
03:59I was 19.
04:00And I heard that in the article, not to go on a bit of a tangent, but I thought it was fascinating.
04:04So you're going to do these comedy shows and you're thinking, I'm going to, I'm going
04:07to jail.
04:08I'm going to go to, I'm going to, they're going to put me away.
04:10Dude, I got arrested in November.
04:11My sentencing was in June.
04:13My own lawyer said, and I quote, tie up any loose affairs that you have.
04:18Oh, man.
04:20He's court appointed.
04:21Because any real lawyer is like, we're going to fight this.
04:27You've got a chance.
04:29God is my witness, Roy.
04:30I'm not going to let them railroad you.
04:33Tie up any loose ends.
04:35Court appointed was like, hey, man, look, just, you know, do what you need to do.
04:39Get rid of your clothes.
04:40So when you hear he's, you're not, you're not going to go to jail and they're going
04:45to, they're going to let you off, you know, uh, on, on the charges.
04:48Um, it must've been, that's like winning the lottery, right?
04:51A hundred percent.
04:52And it just turned it around.
04:54And it's weird how life works out because for those six months leading up to sentencing,
04:57I was also suspended from school.
04:59So all I had was time on my hand to go do comedy.
05:03So essentially the worst moment in my life became a one-year internship for standup comedy.
05:08It's a big, it's a good lesson.
05:09And by the time I got back in school, I already had the infrastructure set up to make money
05:13on the road on the weekends.
05:15Yeah.
05:15So I was in college and doing road comedy at the same time up until graduation.
05:20That's wild.
05:20It's just weird how things line up.
05:22That, but also it's, it's like something people, sometimes people ask us and you have
05:26a long career in radio as well.
05:29And you know that every day you have to be up and it's, it's your, it's your agreement
05:35with the audience.
05:35It's not, you don't show up and you don't, you're not.
05:38It's a relationship.
05:38It's a relationship and, and, and you're being counted on to be up and, and regardless
05:44what's happening in your own life.
05:46Yeah.
05:46Regardless of what's going on.
05:48That's the thing that I love about standup is that you have an opportunity to deliver
05:52other people from whatever they're going through.
05:55If only for, you know, the hour that I'm on stage or whatever.
05:58And I think that's, what's always been so healing about comedies that now it's an
06:02opportunity for me to give to other people who might've been going through whatever their
06:06get your affairs in order.
06:08Yeah, right, right.
06:09And there's some, some wild stories, comedy legend and lore that the CNN did a, a series
06:16of, on, on comedy.
06:18It was actually really good in the comedy legends.
06:19And it was a, there was a whole bunch of moments where you knew these comedians who were going
06:24through some heavy crap, but it's sometimes it coincided with some of their greatest creative
06:29moments.
06:30And I think that's what makes it, this is not happening so different from any of the
06:34standup shows that it's probably one of the few standup shows that's out that lets people
06:39know that they're not alone in this world and the mistakes they've made, because it's
06:43a show that glorifies the lowest of lows, worst mistakes you've ever made and makes them
06:48funny.
06:49I have to give, and I have to tip the hat to my man, Ari Shafir, who's the original
06:53show.
06:54And that's what Ari curated in Los Angeles.
06:57Before this was ever on television, Ari curated a place where, where comedians could tell
07:03longer stories and do things that were outside of the box.
07:06It looks like it's a bar.
07:07It looks like it's a strip club.
07:09It's a strip club.
07:09Yeah.
07:09Because there's a center stage.
07:11Yeah.
07:11There's a center strip club in Los Angeles.
07:13That's a real functioning strip club.
07:15And if I'm not mistaken, don't quote me on this.
07:18If I'm not mistaken, the strippers are paid for not being able to perform.
07:21Who cleans off the pole?
07:23I don't know.
07:25Howie Mandel wouldn't touch it.
07:26Watch his episode.
07:28No one told him it was a strip club.
07:31Oh my God.
07:33Because they knew he wouldn't have come and done the show.
07:36Howie Mandel shows up and like, basically like the mic, the hand to hand mic transfer.
07:41I'm like, all right, I will put the mic in the stand.
07:42I will stand over here while you get the microphone.
07:44Okay.
07:45I will step around you without rushing into you.
07:47And he was, his first five minutes on stage is about the fingerprints on the stripper post.
07:51Obviously Philadelphia has so much going on and there have been some shakeups with the coaching, but otherwise it's...
07:59I like when Philadelphia has hope.
08:02Yeah.
08:03Me?
08:03It's a better comedy show.
08:06Yeah.
08:06Yeah.
08:07Yeah.
08:07Yeah.
08:07I mean, you got the trophy.
08:09Sidebar, unrelated.
08:11Is the Eagles fan who ate the horse turd, is he still alive?
08:16Still alive.
08:16How is he doing?
08:17Have we checked on this, Jim?
08:19He's the mayor of the city now, I think.
08:21I'm fairly certain we elected him mayor.
08:23Yeah.
08:24He works the door at punchline.
08:26You know, though, that...
08:28Roy, that's so indicative of what the way things...
08:31I mean, all that was going on and everybody that made national news, the dude eating the horse turd.
08:37And to the rest of the country, everybody in Philadelphia is a horse turd eating fan.
08:41Also in football, I'm a Dolphins fan, so I just haven't had hope.
08:44They don't even have a quarterback, man.
08:48They got rid of their starting quarterback is in Tennessee now.
08:51Yeah, and then we got Fitzpatrick from Tampa Bay.
08:54Because, you know, hey, you were good that one time a while back.
08:58You want some money?
09:00What do you think of this Robert Kraft thing with the, you know, here you got this guy...
09:03I want to see the tape!
09:04Don't you?
09:05Rub and tug.
09:06Give us the tape!
09:08Everybody else gets caught up in prostitution stains, and if you want to go find that tape,
09:13you can find that tape, and it's on cops, I want it.
09:17Put it out.
09:18I want Gayle King to do that tape.
09:22To R. Kelly, his ass?
09:24Because everybody's like, oh, well, you know, technically, if you post that, it's porn.
09:27No, it's not.
09:28It's a man laying on the table, and there's a towel over him, and the towel's just going up and down.
09:32Yeah, that's true.
09:33That's true.
09:33Anything.
09:34It could be a fart.
09:34He's flapping.
09:36Just an old guy, a 77-year-old fart.
09:39Yeah, I do think that it's just, it's funny.
09:44He's not going to go to jail.
09:45Everybody's acting like he's the Patriots.
09:47They're going to go 4 and 12.
09:48Yeah.
09:49I want the security footage, though, of the parking lot when the Bentley pulls into the strip mall,
09:54where apparently this place is located.
09:56Yeah.
09:57Because that's right.
09:57He went there in a Bentley.
09:58Yeah, yeah.
09:59And don't people at a Robert Kraft level have people who are supposed to say,
10:03you stay here, we'll go get you somebody.
10:06Yeah.
10:06You can have everything delivered to your home right now.
10:12Literally.
10:12I can pull out this phone right now, and I can, to this radio station, I can have a quart of
10:17motor oil.
10:18And a car.
10:20And a big griddle.
10:20And a big griddle.
10:21And a mattress in a bag.
10:23Yeah.
10:24They will literally mail a mattress to your house.
10:27Yeah.
10:27In a bag that you open like a vacuum-sealed sausage.
10:32Right.
10:33Right.
10:34And you can get all that by lunch.
10:36Yeah.
10:36Yes.
10:36Yeah.
10:37So I would imagine that some towel jerking could probably get delivered.
10:45Yeah.
10:45Especially at that level.
10:47Don't you think, why don't, like, I feel like rich people have, like, all these secret doors
10:50and secret apps.
10:51Like, I'm not quite there yet.
10:53Yeah.
10:53When it comes to the super secret stuff.
10:55I got access to, like, some weird version of Facebook that's for people that are handling
11:01their brands.
11:02And we're going to give you, and it's super secret.
11:05You can't find it online.
11:06Really?
11:06They send you a link for it, and they go, you go to this link, and then this guy will
11:09send you the code.
11:10And with the code, then you can get the super, super Facebook.
11:15And so I have super, super, so I would imagine when you get to Robert Kraft money.
11:19I don't even have that.
11:20I have one bedroom in New York money with a woman and a three-year-old money.
11:25And all I get is, so you imagine if you were an owner with six Super Bowl rings, there's
11:30got to be an app that's just for Robert Kraft.
11:34Yeah.
11:35Yeah.
11:36Robert, welcome to the club.
11:39Lane's going to send you the link.
11:41Right, right, yeah.
11:42Here's the towel.
11:43Yeah.
11:43Yeah.
11:44And if that doesn't exist, I think I'm just giving your listeners their new goal.
11:48Right.
11:49You got the blue check next to your name on Twitter.
11:51Yeah.
11:52Okay, we're going to email the people at Twitter and see about the blue check.
11:57The blue check gets you nothing but a reply from businesses when you bitch about stuff.
12:02Oh, yeah.
12:02That's true.
12:03Just so you know, that's all the blue check is worth.
12:05Yep.
12:06I believe it.
12:07When I tweet an airline about, my middle seat doesn't work, I get miles.
12:13Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:13I get a reply.
12:15Roy Wood Jr., everybody.
12:16Thanks for that.
12:17Appreciate you being here.
12:18We'll take a break and be right back.
12:26We'll see you next time.
12:26We'll see you next time.
12:37Bye.
12:37Bye.
12:38Bye.
12:38Bye.
12:38Bye.
12:39Bye.
12:39Bye.
12:42Bye.
12:44Bye.
12:44Bye.
12:45Bye.
12:46Bye.
12:46Bye.