Birmingham’s Roy Wood Jr. trying to live up to ‘Daily Show’ legacy

Roy Wood Jr. graduated from Ramsay High School in Birmingham and Florida A&M University. (Photo: Comedy Central)
Above: Roy Wood Jr. graduated from Ramsay High School in Birmingham and Florida A&M University. (contributed/Comedy Central)
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Plans change. Just ask Birmingham comedian Roy Wood Jr.
“Two months ago, I was in the process of trying to pitch a couple of sports-style shows to various networks,” he says. “I planned to be on cable this summer talking about sports, along with touring the country as a comedian. But things happen.”
In this case, “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” happened. And becoming a correspondent on the new Comedy Central show – the successor to the Jon Stewart-hosted “Daily Show” – was not on Wood’s mind.
“It was totally unexpected,” he says of being hired for the show. “’The Daily Show’ wasn’t in my crosshairs two months ago.
Yet there he was when the show premiered at the end of September, earning rave reviews for a bit he and Noah did about the possibility of going to Mars.
“So far, so good,” Wood says of his “Daily Show” trek. “I’m having fun.”
It has been a whirlwind month or so for the 36-year-old Wood, who graduated from Ramsay High School and Florida A&M University before pursuing a standup comedy career. That career, spent mostly in Los Angeles, included appearances on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “Last Comic Standing” and the TBS sitcom “Sullivan and Son.”
But earlier this year, he heard the new “Daily Show” was looking for correspondents, auditioned twice for the show’s producers, booked the gig, and, nine days later, was living on New York’s Upper West Side.
“New York has more sounds than any other city,” Wood says. “There are horns, sirens, construction, helicopters. Someone is yelling outside your window – you don’t know if it’s a murder or just someone on the phone. … But I’m enjoying New York for now, until the damn snow starts falling.”
Wood, in typical fashion, is joking.
“I would hope to be here for some years, because ‘The Daily Show’ is right up my alley of what I do in terms of having wacky opinions on the world around me,” he says. “It’s the perfect outlet for me.” So far, Wood has discussed traveling to Mars and actually traveled to do stories on Washington D.C.’s Million-Man March and the police in Madison, Wisconsin.

Early on, Roy Wood Jr. established himself as Mars correspondent for “The Daily Show.” (Photo: Comedy Central)
“The Daily Show” has a daily morning meeting, tapes at 6 p.m. in New York and airs weeknights at 10 p.m. CST.
“It’s great to get in there and to have an idea you put together at 9 in the morning and by 6 p.m. it’s on television,” Wood says. “This is way faster than any of the Internet-type stuff I’ve done. The only thing that would come close would be when I used to do ‘Chelsea Lately’ — You’d get the topic at noon and tape at 3 – but those weren’t fully formed bits.”
And then there’s the history that the groundbreaking “Daily Show” brings with it, not the least of which are some of the Emmy Award-winning writers Stewart left behind.
“To learn comedy writing and joke construction from these people has been very amazing,” Wood says. “More often than not at work, I’m quiet, just listening to these people.”
Wood says he’s intimidated for the first time in his career since year one, but rather than being nervous about delivering his punch lines, he’s worried about living up to the folks who preceded him.
“I’m literally in Samantha Bee and Jason Jones’ old office,” he says, referring to two of Stewart’s better-known correspondents. “So I’m not only walking in their footsteps, I’m in their same room. You want to make sure everything you do meets that gold standard.”
One thing Wood had to do when he landed the job on “The Daily Show” was cancel a number of standup dates, but he’s not stopping touring altogether. He’ll perform in the New York Comedy Festival’s “Comedy Central Live in Brooklyn” on Nov. 13, but only after he goes on the road to perform at his two alma maters – Florida A&M on Nov. 7 and Ramsay High School on Nov. 8.
The latter will raise money for the high school’s athletic department, the former high school athlete says.
“When I played baseball for Ramsay, I remember having to sell potato chips and stuff like that to raise money,” Wood says. “If you tore your jersey, it was torn for the season unless somebody’s mom stitched it up.”
Wood left Ramsay and earned a degree in broadcast television from Florida A&M.
“All I did in college was tell jokes while studying broadcasting in college,” he says. “’The Daily Show’ is the perfect result of that. I’m doing both of them again.”