Daily Show O.G., Lewis Black

Published Sep 5, 2023, 7:01 AM

Lewis Black, the Daily Show’s longest serving contributor, joins host Roy Wood Jr. to talk rage, comedy and how the show, and satire in general, have evolved over his 25 year tenure.

 

Original air date: November 9, 2021

 

Check out some Back in Black segments: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDailyShow/search?query=back%20in%20black

Welcome. This is where we go beyond the scenes. The Daily Show was like the regular situle you ever seen, like a shark, right, and then it be that little fish attached to the shark. That's where we are. We're the little podcast that swims along with the Great White Daily Show mother ship, and we just give you extra little nibbles on existing projects that we've done, past projects that we've done. This week, we're talking to someone that I consider comedy comedy holy grail, respectfully, because I know he's about to make a noise when I say that before I introduce his as But see, shut up, Lewis, I'm trying to introduce you. When a story falls through the cracks, this man is there hiding in the curb like a little evil. Remember that what was that clown Pennywise? Yeah, he's like the it clown monster to gobble up those stories that fall through the cracks that we don't have time to get to in the regular parts of the show. I want to know if he's always sick of picking up these types of stories we're talking about, Lewis Black.

Back in Black, when I was a kid, there were certain things you learned in school. One plus one equals two and you get to watch TV the rest of the day if the president gets shot. But most importantly, facts were facts.

That's why we called them facts. But these days, from Facebook to the White House, reality is optional. And here's the ultimate proof.

We're also learning more about a bizarre conference in Denver. There are ads taking over the airwaves and billboards going off along the highways. The event is for people who don't believe the Earth is round. It turns out Colorado has a high concentration of the so called flat earthers.

Oh what a surprise, Colorado, where there's not enough oxygen and tongues of weed.

Of course they think the Earth is flat.

I'm surprised. I don't think the Earth is a julupa inside a snow glow.

We're gonna get to the bottom of this man, what makes him click, why these stories are important to him. We're going to go beyond back in Black. It is my pleasure to welcome the host of the longest running segment on the Daily Show, Lewis Black. Welcome to beyond the Scenes.

I've been waiting so long for us to do a podcast. I thought, really, what was left? What Frontier should we cross.

Yeah, I can imagine you just like you. You're interesting in that you get to avoid a lot of the day to day rigamarou of the Daily Show, Like you don't have to figure out zoom mics and cameras and what link is for what live feed thing that we're doing, et cetera, et cetera. Like in that regard, you're kind of free lucky.

I'd even say, yeah, no, I've always been kind of a I was kind of independent of it for a long time. For quite a long time, I didn't I don't have an you know. But there's sacrifices I make roy you know, no office, you know, I don't have to be there. I show up the day of it. They send me my thing, I look at it. We exchanged stuff back and forth, and so for that it's been good, you know. But there's a flight you know, over the past, you know, over during the pandemic. I've had to deal with this zoomorama nonsense.

And now you're the longest running contributor in the history of the Daily Show. You go back to the OG nineteen ninety six inaugural season.

Before there was an audience.

Wait, the Daily Show didn't well Damn, we didn't come full circle.

Now, Yeah, there was no.

Well, I guess that makes sense because the old school local like, there's no the Daily Show was created to parody the local news, like I don't even think it was really parody and cable news yet until the War on terror started kicking up after nine to eleven. Like that makes sense because the local news station definitely does not have an audience, though that would be absolutely odd if they did.

But it was kind of a larger It was more than just the local news. It was kind of a in a way, it was and in a way it was kind of the national news of the local news. It was the national news segment of the local news. So we would they would cover, they would go out and cover these stories. But I literally there was no What we did at Channel thirteen as the studio we used, it was small, and I would sit at that this desk and I had I didn't write it out, I would do it. I improv it. Then then they'd come up Liz and Hank, Liz Winstead, Hank out Well, and they go keep that drop that, do this, that'll be a nice touch. Oh here's something you could add, let's do it again. Then I do it again. Great, let's do this and this and this, and then I think we got it. Usually three or four takes, we'd have it. It's crazy. It was really fun.

But did you know what this was going to be when you started doing it? Dog Like when you when they first came to you, and Liz Windsday comes to you, one of the co creators of the Daily Show, The Great Lisz Windesday. She goes, Lewis, I love what you'd do? We want you to do it over here? Was it just fuck it? This is just another thing to do? Because also this is the early days of Comedy Central as well, Like Comedy Central as a network had only been on air. I think maybe four years.

Maybe give a take. Yeah, it was I didn't know. I knew a it was. It was an income, so I was here. I didn't have anything consistent. I'd only done a few stand up shows where you know, you come on and you do your six minutes, like stand Up Spotlight or whatever they you know, whatever they were, you know Caroline's. I'd done a couple of those, so I wasn't sure, but I thought that the idea was right because it's an idea that I'd pitched a hundred times and everybody always said, well, you know, and this was always the answer. You know, politics aren't funny. That was always the thing, and I was always like, crazy, isn't that unbelievable? That was what that was what I would hear, And I mean I didn't you know. I pitched it to three or four networks and it was like, you know, but let's do a show and we can you know, it started with that was the week that was, you know, which is more of just kind of like a review sketch thing. You know this and the Smothers brothers had their kind of thing and but this, but I always thought, well you could really do kind of a let's do a parody, and Liz got it on here.

I feel like we Update was the only thing that was even remotely close to something that parodied the news. But even that with SNL, they weren't political, right, they would dabble if if it was in a zeitgeist, but that wasn't there like North Star.

Right, And so it was really Liz really amazingly got it up and on the air, and I got the gig because I was working clubs and had and Liz and Hank knew me and I couldn't get an agent. I couldn't get people would ably cooked. You should really have an age, you know, how come you don't have an agent? And I go, I don't know. You tell me what you know? I don't know. I don't know how you do this? I mean, and so they would, uh, but they knew that I had material that nobody heard. I had a pounds and pounds of material that nobody had ever heard. And they needed stuff.

So, speaking of stuff that nobody's ever heard, we have a clip right now that I want to play.

Uh.

This is from your first ever appearance on the Day Daily Show. This is from season one, episode six, no of The Daily Show. Let's roll it.

You know, I've been laying around this past week or so watching the Olympics, and.

I gotta tell you something.

You know, how stupid are we as a culture to sit there, lie down for like eight to nine hours on a Saturday, a Sunday and watch perfect specimens of humanity do things that are absolutely astounding while I lay there, you know, just like eating, they eating, the just eating. You know what happens after about two hours of that, I just feel like a big fat pig. I am tired of it. I'm tired of the Olympics.

I'm tired of the interviews.

There's no reason on earth for what are they asking these people. The swimmers, they're in the they've been in the pool eight twelve hours a day since they were four years old. Their brains are chapped, and while we're on the subventues gymnasts, they're braincasing. They've got the braincasing of a Doberman for crying out loud. And and they don't men strike the women don't men straight Right, Okay, now I got to say that. At least now I understand how they get these kids to do it. Because if I was five years old and they told me, well, you're gonna be bleeding every month, and then they said, but there's an option, I'd be doing backflips for the rest of my.

Life's what's so beautiful about that? For the people listening who can't see that yet, it's really sixty minute Andy Rooney in the setup in a way where you've got the little the half eaten sandwich on the desk, you've got your laptop open, and you're just curtankerous and just why.

Andy Rooney on Acid?

Do you have a favorite ramp that you've done? Because the thing that I love about you and you were one of the people that I study when I so when I got hired at the Daily Show, I put every pass correspondent under a microscope, every correspondent that had pretty much ever set foot, even the ones that were only on for a season, like I didn't know, here's some Daily Show trivia. David Tail was a short lived contributor to the Daily Show. But what I noticed about you is that you were one of the correspondents that, in my opinion, you're that in real life, like there was no there didn't seem to be a heightening of who you are, like like the average correspondent plays an extreme version of it. Like Stephen Colbert on The Daily Show, he was not the hints the fact that he can go and do the Late Show to Stephen Colbert and not be you know, that original Stephen Colbert that we knew from the Daily Show. He toned it down a little bit. But you you seem to be the same on and off camera. Do you have a favorite rant that you've done?

Well? I mean I did, There were a number of them that I really was were attached to. I mean, you know, it's I did so many. But the one that I thought that where I went and it was not, I didn't have much to contribute to it. It was somebody wrote the one about Texas.

But I said, in Texas, trying to steal jobs from Illinois and California are one thing. But you're going to try to trash talk about New York.

Not on my watch.

It's time to fight fire with fire.

This is New York, the city that never sleeps.

People come here from all over the world for the freedom to live as they choose, for the variety of cultures, but most of all, for the fact that it's not Texas.

You say, everything is bigger in Texas.

We have a three hundred foot green beacon of liberty and you have a whatever the this thing is.

It was blistering and I read it it is and I went, it was the first time I went ever said these words aloud, because you never can you never know. And I went, this is going to go viral, and it did. And I love the Nazi turetts with would watch his name, that schmuck Glenn Beck Yes, in his the Nazi turetch thing. Arizona. Sure is putting the a Z in Nazi, aren't they?

Oh didn't think it was gonna be him.

Did you?

Glenn Beck is offended. Glenn Beck thinks playing the Nazi card is.

Going too far.

Glenn Beck, this is a guy who uses more swastika props and video of the Nuremberg rallies than the History Channel. For God's sake, he compared global warming to Nazi Germany. That was Hitler's plan, his enemy, the Jew, al Gore's enemy, the UN's enemy.

Global Warming.

I'm not accusing al Gore being a Nazi or anything like that. Yes you are, you get it?

Are you met it?

Like?

How do you get this critankerous and that riled up about? Sometimes it's stuff that makes sense and stuff it's sometimes it's like, wow, that dude is really upset about the Olympics. I thought the Olympics was supposed to just make us happy, Like do you stub your toe? And then that's when you start writing, like what's your inspiration? How do you get in your zone to be annoyed and go middle finger to America?

Well, because it was all the big discovery is you know as a comedian, I think is is that finding that moment where you go, oh, that's why, that's where I'm funny, that's my that's I'm funny when I'm angry. That was it. It took a long time to find it, and you're always kind of backing off it. You kind of go, well, you know, I can't really be angry. And it was finding that that kind of that separation. If you're really angry, well then you're you know, Kevin McCarthy or any number of politicians. But as a comic, you've got to have be able to take that so that they know you're playing. You can cross the line, but you can't be out over that line. For a long time.

After the break, I want to talk to you a little bit more about that, about what it means to be angry, because I do think that there's a lot of the idea of what comedy is now is to just be angry with the absence of a punchline. And that's something I feel like we've talked about this before in the makeup chair from time to time, you know, in the before times when we could be in a close quartered makeup room. I just hold that thought, because I have a question about that, and I want to ask you about your fans. I got questions about the type of fans you have. This is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back now. Let's talk more about these times.

Now.

How have you changed? How was the character changed? Because I believe from nineteen ninety six to now, politics in the state of this country has only become more and more outrageous. You said to the Washington Post, and I'm going to read because I don't want to get this quote. Quote I am a happy person, but an angry citizen. To get angry at the world around us is the most sane reaction you can have. End quote. When did you start becoming more angry at the world, Because it's one thing to be mad about the Olympics in ninety six and talk about a gymnast who won goal and congratulator, and then another thing to go through the war in Iraq and then the twenty years in Afghanistan. How has the character evolved? Like how were you able to still find funny amidst real rage on things that people really should be upset about.

Part of it was is that my act, one thing, my act always began and even like that the show even has you know, I'll do something like that Olympics thing, and there's other stuff that I've done that's kind of like, well, I'll I'll be screaming about the weather for five minutes, which is like complete I will scream about I equate partly, I equate everything is a reason to be enraged. You know, it's you know, Bucketfitch, You've got a weather man out there. You know, Al Roker is standing in the midst of a storm, you know, really and telling people not to go out, but he's standing in the what are you kidding me? So? And it's not that you know, and there's no reason for the rage to be the equivalent of my rage over over Dick Cheney, but somehow being able to but it kind of all bled in for me, It all kind of moved through it. It allowed folks to know that it's the same anger.

When you look at the way we are now as a society, though, like why do you think America really is as angry as they are about things? Or is it just this counterculture reaction? Like when you look at let's just take right now, masks in schools or that boom addatory vaccinations. Let's just start there are people really that upset or is it just no I want to be argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. Do you think the rage that we have as a country is real or it's manufacture for the sake of argument.

I think it's what gets somebody's notice, so that they're that's to me where it comes from. And and and the former leader whose name I will not mention, kind of set the tone for that, and then people went, wow, that's right. I could really just say, you know, this thing, I could really kind of launch so that I think in part, you know, it's I mean, you know, you when you when you look at you know, what gets views is some psychotic you know, ranting on about nonsense and uh uh and and and so they get these views. They also they've not been in the public square for so long that they've forgotten how to act in the public square, so that they feel is if somehow, when you're on Twitter or Instagram or snapchat or who how or boo boo or fuck not, whatever your choices, that they're you know that that's the same thing, and it's not because you're not in an office with somebody that you've worked with for a year and a half who you completely disagreed with. But when it came down to YouTube figuring out how to get some a project done, you didn't worry about the you know, whether it was a you know, you didn't worry about any of the other stuff. You didn't worry about what the way they felt about the war in Iraq. All you cared about was getting the project done. We're not and all of that kind of working together has been kind of okay.

So then when you look at rage comedy, which I don't know if that's a real genre, but comedic ranting where there is a structure argument and you present facts and punchlines within what you're stitching together versus and I'm talking about political satire as a whole, not just The Daily Show, all of our other contemporary every other show that does something in that universe of what we do. There's an element of anger, but you're using comedy to to you know, to make it palatable for someone to actually ingest the information. Is there a difference between that and just actual straight up rage rage where people just get on stage or just get on TV and go That sounds there's sometimes there's this line blur between punditry and political satire that I think sometimes is a little it's a little gray, and I think, if I'm gonna be honest, I think it waters it down for a lot of comedians because people will call that comedy and it's not. It's just someone saying agreeable shit. It's someone yelling agreeable shit or counterculture shit without any clear structure to it.

Yeah. Now, I think that what the comedy allows, the difference between just rage enraged with the joke is the joke allows someone to then step back. It gives them a chance to breathe and go, oh yeah, okay, so that they don't get caught up. You know that they know that they'll be like, oh, step back for a second from it. One of the things that I stopped immediately trying to do that I said, I'm not doing this is I was not going to be on a show with pundits. Almost immediately when they would put me on a show and it would be like me and maybe you know somebody from.

Somebody or whoever, Yeah, some elected official, some talking head from the cable network.

Right, like two or three others, and I kind of I did it a couple of times, you know, where I kind of went, oh, I'll do this. I'm the you know, thinking they'll know I'm the funny one, because one would think they're smart, and they're not, because they've got points to score. And all I want is I thought I was there to and go and then let's move on, you know, I got to you know, I'm you know, I'm making a fart, no noise, and then we can go ahead. But they never did, and so I did it a few times and then I said, no, if you want me, I come on as a comic by myself, and I'm a comedian.

That's fair you talk to me as.

A comic, because I don't want to get caught up in that pundit role. I've been doing this fucking rant cast where I kind of sit at home and by myself, in what I call my my I consider it like being on a cable access show. What you're seeing right now, this is it And I've got this camera in this microphone and I go for thirty minutes and I've tried to write it and I don't. And I'll write sections of it, and I'll have some funny stuff in it, but without an audience, who are the guardrails to my ranting? I find myself in that weird position of saying things that I normally I'm yelling about stuff, and I don't have the jokes that I would have before because the audience isn't there to bounce off of, and that drives me nuts. But I do, in part feel like this is I'm gonna say something because I've been thinking about this, and I don't know how you feel from time to time about what's going on, but from time to time, I think, you know, these assholes who are doing what they're doing, they don't deserve to have what's coming out of their mouth, their actions, or anything else they don't deserve. They don't deserve a joke, you know it ignoble, that's ennobling. They don't deserve the stuff that they're doing. What they deserves a spanking.

These are adults one of because you only roast the ones you love, Jeff Rost.

Because it's one thing to yell about that group of morons that are in Congress, because people are always like, well, I got your political comic. Now what I yell about is what those fuckers do to the other people, and now the other people have been infected. So I've found it and it'll be interesting going back on the road, which I'm doing now to figure out. And you've done this, and I'd love to know what you've been thinking is how you deal with those that group now that are that these the folks whould come to see you or watching these folks that are infected.

There is definitely a different feel to a live show when I bring up certain topics that are already divisive in the world. But I'm at least given half a beat to see, let's see where he goes before I yell out something I was down in Texas. We can talk about it off air, because I don't because if I don't, if I don't explain the joke properly right now what you've said, Yeah, there, there's definitely a feel. So then to that point, if you're arguing all these points, why not just ran about squirrels on or stupid pet videos? Which would you rather do you do you like being in the shit like this and going off about a failed occupation of Afghanistan? Or would you rather talk about some stupid fight that happened at a McDonald's.

No, I'd rather talk about the fail. I'd rather talk about stuff that that kind of matters, and then and then sprinkle it in with that really you know, some good stuff, stuff that's goofy. I also like the really goofy stuff that I can get my hands on.

What are your feelings, this's the last question before the break for you, sir? How do you feel news satire has changed from nineteen ninety six till now? Like people always say they get their news from the de more people get the news from the Daily Show? Then do you feel that responsibility? Did you feel that shift in the show? Like, how do you think the genre? How do you think they think the show has changed? And you know, coming up on thirty years, well, twenty five year anniversary this year, how do you think the show has changed in twenty five years? And just political satire as a whole.

I think I think that the show has changed in the sense of what each host brought to it. I think that that's certainly part of it. That John brought his view and John John made it into a the show is And I basically realized that my I was kind of a free wheeler. Initially I could go okay, I'm going to do this, this, and this. John came in and it was going to be within then each show was going to be a show in and of itself, beginning, middle, in an end. So when I would come on, my stuff would be in concert with whatever he had put together. So if it was really sometimes it would be like whoo, and then I'd come on and go and sometimes it would be He'd go off in another and I commit with a crusher. So it was all it was all structured, and he was very hands on. And then you get to to Trevor, and I feel that he brought a worldview to the show that we didn't really have before. That we had in kind of just that sense that we have, you know, you and I and John we try to bring it to it, but you know, it's like there's only some where we can go. The Trevor really has, you know, a sense of because he watched it. He watches up from the outside.

I think the thing that's dope about Trevor is that he's able to capture the americanization of foreign cultures and how much more interconnected foreign foreign affairs are to our domestic affairs. After the break, I gotta give you some flowers after the break. But I also want to ask you about what you're feeling now, like to that whole point of what you're going on. You know what, damn it, we're gonna talk about the topics. We're gonna talk about what we're talking about on stage. Damn Okay, I'm not scared.

I think we can always cut it.

No, that's a coward move. Are you telling me you're a fucking coward?

No, I'm just throwing that out there so that the people who are watching will think, God, that's what they said. Imagine what they cut.

Beyond the scenes. We'll be right back beyond the scenes. We are back. I'm talking with Lewis Black, the owner proprietor, and are you the creator of the Back in Black segment? Are you the soul? Because you know it's weird in the building. Sometimes you can pitch something that's not your idea and kill it. And then sometimes like because you can either pitch the idea or sometimes the idea is pitched to you before. As long as it's a good idea, it's gonna get on. How did Back in Black even come to be? Or was it just Lewis yell? At camera for two minutes.

Go yeah. So I it was rolling along and then they were starting to give me some some stuff to I finally said, Okay, I'm going to go where's a Christmas party? I'm going to go network A word that I hate and something that I hate to do. I'd never done it to go schmooze. Yeah. I was going to try to talk to the folks about what I really was interested in doing. I can't remember if Liz was around. I cannot remember where we were in space and time at this point. But I went and talked to one of the guys and said, you know, what I'd really like to do is at the end of the week, what I want to do is like a five minute recap of the news of like everything that happened, so that on that Thursday or whatever, well I would do, it would be that would be back in black or whatever you wanted to call it. That I would then kind of go through news of the week. Because what I was noticing was at that point we were throwing away pounds of great jokes. I mean, they would take jokes out of some of the stuff that I was doing, even if it had nothing to do with politics or anything else. I'd go, wow, this where I watched the way they would edit stuff that was coming through the pike. I go, okay, so you didn't do that. You just drop three jokes that you can use again. These are the three jokes that I can deliver. And I thought that'd be great, and that's kind of what I wanted to do. It was kind of because I was getting I'd always felt I wanted to do Weekend Update and that never happened. So it was like that it seemed to be a good position. And then they came back with, well, what we're gonna do is back in Black. We're going to take all of these videos we got there, whacky and they're crazy. We're gonna dump them on you, and you'll work with some writers and we'll put together these back in Black segments. And I went, okay, well that isn't really what I wanted to do, but you.

Know, look at you now twenty five years later. Yeah, that work fucking killing it. Yeah, they were right.

It wasn't like it worked intensely. It was like having I mean, the thing was it was like having a commercial being on that show for the especially the first couple of years.

Yeah, it's definitely a very creatively collaborative space. The Daily Show. I didn't like, I'll be honest, I didn't like the mustache idea for me doing CPE time At first. I like they were like, well, we want to do a segment where we talk about, you know, a little known black history, and it'll all live there so we don't have to because we were constantly pitching field pieces about what about this black thing you didn't know? What about this black perton. We're like, well, let's just put all of that in this one thing. And I was like cool. And then they went and mustache and I was like, what the fuck? Why do I have to have a mustache and tweet jacket and sweater and glasses. You will look old? These facts are only delivered by someone that is old. And I was like, oh, yeah, you're kind of right, all right, let's give it a shot. And it's like you said, it works out and that's why that's a team. So what are you getting worked up about these days?

Like?

What is Lewis black? What's in your cutting room floor that doesn't make it on the show? What are the things of late that you go, Oh, I really that but fucking there's not enough time.

Well, I mean it's been tough because I literally have not been on the road working. So I will go out. I've done one show roy.

One since March twenty twenty.

Yeah. One. I couldn't do it. I just didn't want. I didn't a I am. There was no way to do it because I have an underlying condition. So it was like until they came up with a vaccine. The idea of I mean, I could go to pods, but the idea of like, okay, you know, I was invited to work at Dave Chappelle's place, you know, and we have.

The Ohio Farm shows he was doing.

Yeah, But to me, here's my problem. I if I'm starting to work, I need to work. I need to know I'm going to work the next day and then the next day because if I start working, I need to start working on my next special. Because what happened was is I did my last special was the last show I did, So I need to start and it doesn't help me to do one show. So I did the one show to get started, and then I thought I'm going to start, and then I had some other things I was doing with the rancast and some other things. And then I thought, in September, I'm going to have I'm going to work clubs for a month. Right, Well, two of the clubs I ain't going to go work. One was Huntsville, Alabama. And it's uh and I'm not putting it's thirty two percent vaccination rate and they haven't vaccined. The staff's not vaccinated.

Well, it's thirty seven percent. My home state is up to thirty seven percent vaccination rate. I have you know, Oh that's thirty seven We're still last, but it's thirty seven percent, respectfully continued.

And then it was and then I was supposed to go to Omaha.

That's the same situation.

It's even worse because they came out with a map and these are all clubs I really wanted to play badly. I loved Hunsville. There was I'd actually done a kind of a short pilot that really got stopped because of the pandemic about I wanted to do a travel show of places that I thought were fascinating and the history was fascinating. And Huntsville's history is extraordinary.

It's the fastest growing city in the state of Alabama. It has the most jobs, it has the most growth. NASA Space Force did Huntsville a lot of favors.

Yeah, in the industry, and then also that the Nazis who they brought there kind of ended up forcing integration. It's a remarkable store. I mean, it's just so I kind of got fascinated with it and wanted to go back and enjoyed working there. And it's a really bright audience that went out the window. Omaha map of the United States come out. All of the places of there are hotspots all the states. What's going on? Oh mahable send information up said it's just white. Well that was done, and how good is that?

Not reporting? Yeah, so you're like a prize fighter. Once you start getting into fight shape, you cannot take time off and there has to be a constant regular sparring sessions from city to city to get you up that way.

Because what I'm going to start with, I know what I'm starting with. I'm starting with the way I dealt with the first the first year, what I did when I did my show, the first show I did, I went through the history of what happened when I walked into my apartment on March fifteenth and then you know and kind of like you know, with jokes and stuff. You know that I you know that sitting there raging at the fact that these people, what do you mean, how are these people experiencing a renaissance of the human spirit? That's bullshit? Are you kidding me?

I feel like, in a way, like your rants, you're like a ghost with unfinished business on earth, and you've just got to keep just knocking down fucking shit. They're like, I got to take care of that. I gotta take care of that. That's like like if you ran out a ranch, you would just disappear, like you're just all right, my worry if you like the end of quantum Leap, where you've fixed every life, you get.

To go home. That I think will then take me as you well know, when you're working on something, that'll take me into my response to the way they're acting towards the vaccines. You know that. Then I'll find those jokes as I roll along, you know. Uh. And then I've already kind of worked on bits by bit because I don't I write on stage roy I'm psychotic.

See, I can't do that. I have to sit and like polish and figure out every little angle that I'm trying to Yeah, but that's great put together like no, because it makes you too neurotic. It makes you down to the punctuation when you're performing, and it makes me too performative, where you're more connected and in the moment. If I can nail the polish and perform it as if it just blurted out of my mouth, that's the perfect middle ground for me. But I'm on stage so busy. Oh no, I forgot to say that sentence before this sentence, So the next three sentences will not track logically, So I need to figure out a way to backtrack to the all while words are actively coming out of my mouth. That's what's happening in my head, where it seems like you are just going and another thing motherfucker's.

Yeah, well that's kind of it. And then both I have the thoughts, I think about the thoughts, this is what I'm gonna yell about, and then I start there. And I did start to write some stuff, you know, but it was all leading to stuff that it would be like I need the audience there to go. I go, dah da da da, what what do I say next? And then I can hear it when I have them there. One key that I don't know if this will help you, And we're all the young comics who are listening today, but I don't know if this will help. But one thing you got to realize they don't know. You're the only one knows, so screw it up. They don't know you screwed it up, So you can't You can't sit there and judge it. You know you can't be you know that's you directing yourself while you're up there.

When I found out you got cast in the Pixar movie Inside Out as Anger, I was like, oh, perfect, But then I also thought, well he could do a lot of voice work and a lot of animated work. Do you think your anger carries well over into the like do you want to do more animation? Are you a guy like in real life? You know, your demeanor just doesn't lend itself to just parents coming up to you and just going hey, I love you. I love the way you're cussed in that DreamWorks film.

No, I've done a bitch and I've been here's one for you. I've been Santa Claus the last four four times on SpongeBob, I was the voice of said SpongeBob.

I should have known you to have something to do with this, Sanny Claus.

Well, Tannah, you know the same where SpongeBob.

Goes, I know, trouble follows. I was gonna say laughter follows.

They just callula Sure you kidding. I'd like to do more because I like it and I really enjoy it. The and and Pixar was great. I mean, it's just a great you know, it's the world's greatest gig.

Well, I'm excited to see what you have planned for us when you get back out on the road. You've always been one of my favorites. You've always been one of the comedians that I've studied because I've I felt like I've always had some sort of weird and entertainment Weekly one time describe me as charismatic crankiness, and I think that that applies to you as well, sir. And when I tell you I love you, I mean it. Thank you so much for going beyond the scenes with me and giving us a window and your anger. I will leave you now to scribble down whatever it is you're pissed about right now on a napkin, so you can come do that at our studio.

Thanks Roy, It's I'm really please. We got time together and I look forward to the time when we can actually sit down, yes, and spend a little time together. And I've been watching you do your do you know you working a way And I do have to say this because the audience may not know this, but we are intertwined forever because of Finding Your Roots.

I get well to talk about that next time. Man, damn, we were in the same episode of Finding Your Roots and I discovered a lot. They edited one of the parts where I really cried that shit was heavy.

Yeah, no, it was really remarkable. We should actually do a segment on that because it was really for both of us. And then I went, I get Mark Maron as my secret person. You get John Lewis. What's wrong with that picture?

Well, Maren is also charismatically cranky.

I mean, I like Mark, but come on, thank you Lewis, Thank you Roy. Take care.

Are you enjoying yourself? Well, if you are, you can do podcast things like liking and subscribing and leaving nice notes where you say how comforting my voice is. Yes, comforting

Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show

Imagine The Daily Show, but deeper. Host Roy Wood Jr. dives further into segments and topics covered 
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