Several years my co-worker sent a link to a prank call by a then relatively unknown radio personality named Roy Wood Jr. He had become one of the cult followers who listened to Woods calls from 95.7 Jamz FM via YouTube. For this particular call, Wood pretended to be calling from the corporate offices from a restaurant in response to a complaint that roaches were found in the food.
“I think you put those roaches in that chicken looking for a free meal,” Wood said, pretending to be a member of management named Johnny Houston. “Those roaches were brown. Our roaches are black.”
The woman being pranked hung up on him two or three times, but he was unrelenting.
“Hello. I think there was a bad connection. But like I was saying, you put those roaches in that food, because our roaches don’t even like the chicken,” Wood said. “They only eat the shrimp.”
I laughed so hard, I broke down in tears – and became an instant fan.
“I wish I could still do a couple of prank calls here and there,” Wood said. “We’re in a different time, so it’s a lot harder to pull them off now.”
We’re in a different time, and he’s in a different place. The fact that his voice is heard by millions as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” may also hinder the logistics, but thankfully it gave him the exposure he deserves after two decades in comedy.
“Comedy is a release for me,” Wood said. “It’s my goal for to give people the same thing. Wood said. “We are dealing with a lot of craziness in this country right now and if there’s ever an opportunity to make sense of it with jokes, now is the time.”
Wood will be in St. Louis playing the Funny Bone this weekend.
He developed a solid reputation amongst comedy disciples through his prank calls, but fans have high school sports to thank for him finding his passion for telling jokes.
While riding the bench on the baseball team, Wood took it upon himself to heckle the other team. He enjoyed it so much that he began writing them down and practicing ahead of time.
“I enjoyed making people laugh with them,” Wood said. “This was a different time as far as political correctness. I probably would have been suspended if I said some of that stuff in school today.”
He found his funny on the field – well, the bench – and discovered it was something he might be able to do professionally in another unlikely setting. While a student at Florida A&M University, Wood worked at a Golden Corral Buffet restaurant and worked the room with his material as he waited the tables.
“I would crack a joke at one table, but I could use that same joke at another table later on in the shift,” Wood said. “They wouldn’t know I cracked the joke at lunch during dinner.”
He tried to make sure he had at least three to four per shift.
“I was like, ‘I basically have a whole comedy act that I’m bringing to the tables’,” Wood said. “That’s when I took my butt on over to the open mics.”
He was relentless. He worked so hard on his comedy grind that he failed to secure an internship – which is essentially a prerequisite for broadcast journalism grads to gain employment upon graduation.
“I went straight into comedy out of necessity,” Wood said. “Here we are twenty years later and I’m doing comedy and journalism. I literally have the best possible training for what the Daily Show requires of its contributors.”
Wood said that his job on the show is to educate and entertain – and in that order.
“My intention is to make sure people know the facts and then make them laugh a little as they learn them,” Wood said.
He actually makes people laugh a lot – whether on television or traveling to comedy clubs across the country.
“When I think about what I find funny, it usually starts with what either makes me angry or annoyed,” Wood said. “You’d be surprised how much everybody has in common when it comes to annoyances- it cuts across race, gender, socioeconomic status…all of that. So for me it’s like, ‘What can we all dislike together?’ My mission is to find out what that thing is and talk about it.”
Roy Wood Jr. will be playing the St. Louis Funny Bone in Westport Plaza August 25 (7 p.m. and 10 p.m.) and August 26 (7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.) 614 Westport Plaza Dr., Maryland Heights, MO, 63146
For more information, visit www. http://stlouisfunnybone.com or call (314)469-6692.
