White House Correspondents’ Dinner: Roy Wood Jr. to talk about what worked, what was left out and whether he would do the performance again

By the time he took the podium at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last weekend, Roy Wood Jr. sent its writers to make changes.

From his set: a joke about Rupert Murdoch. Too close to a joke that was well received by President Joe Biden.

Added: A line about Anthony Fauci was added after Wood was informed that the doctor was present in the Washington Hilton ballroom.

On Monday, Wood spoke meeting about how he delivered one of the toughest shows in comedy: in front of the 2,600 journalists, politicians and CEOs crammed into the cavernous space. The reviews have been very positive, which is no easy feat as the influential public is ready to criticize and judge. It wasn’t always immediately clear whether many in the audience found a joke funny: With C-SPAN cameras trained on the audience’s reaction, some reporters took extra care not to too much for a particular line. do not laugh, otherwise they would be caught violating public norms. Objectivity.

“It was an ongoing process of just putting things together,” Wood said of his performance.

Best known as a correspondent for The daily showWood described a weeks-long process of refining the material, 90% of which was mostly tried out at Comedy Cellar in New York and then on a Friday night at DC Improv.

Some materials were so specific to the occasion that he had to trust them to work. Here was his first line addressed to Biden: Very quickly, Mr. President. I think you left some of your classified documents herewhen he started handing POTUS a piece of paper.

Wood was not briefed on the president’s remarks in advance, as is tradition at the event, he said.

During dinner, Biden joked about the Murdoch, How can I hate a man who makes me look like Harry Styles? Upon hearing this, Wood decided to make his own age-related joke about Murdoch related to the size of the $787.5 million Fox Dominion settlement. “The best joke wins,” Wood said. “A joke about old age will always be funnier from an old man, not a 44-year-old.”

Also important was the structure of Wood’s set, carefully crafted to match his own style and that of the audience. Biden’s comments forced Wood to confuse some of the structures of his material.

“I’m also a proponent of proximity to jokes,” Wood said. “He had a little bit of Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon, and he did that closer to the end of his set. … So when I got on stage, I got the feeling that everyone was still thinking and laughing at their jokes about Tucker or Don. So I moved the George Santos joke forward to create more separation between all my stuff. So we can’t have Tucker and Don make jokes because it’s only in the audience’s mind. My joke will not be laughed at so much, I think, until you stop to think about the subject.

In his set, Wood joked: To the Tucker staff, I want you to know that I know how you feel. I work at The Daily Show, so I was also surprised by the sudden departure of a fake news show host.

The joke about Lemon was just as sharp. Speaking of assholes, Don Lemon is unemployedsays Wood, adding: Don Citroën. My dog, Don Lemon. Don Lemon issued a statement saying he was fired from CNN, after which CNN issued a statement saying they offered Don a meeting. They had to break up because Don Lemon can’t even accurately tell a story about Don Lemon.

The dinner took place six days after Lemon’s firing from CNN, so the challenge was to find jokes that weren’t worn out. Jokes about Lemon being “past his prime” were taboo. “We tried to make sure we weren’t addressing something that someone else had already said on the Internet,” Wood said. “Social media has really made comedy writing a heavy burden.”

He also said he avoids spending too much time with a character who has been a stand-up favorite for years, Donald Trump.

“I didn’t want to dwell on it too long, but I wanted to talk about how the media went back and forth, how these document scandals were handled,” Wood said. “It wasn’t necessarily a resolution, but let’s just admit that it happened.”

Wood also said he wasn’t sure how his material on Vice President Kamala Harris would be received, and joked about the double standard toward her compared to former Bureau employees like Mike Pence. Wood joked at dinner I think the most insulting scandal to fall at the feet of the Biden administration was laid at the feet of our Madam Vice President, the “What is Kamala doing?” scandal.

“I wasn’t sure about this material because I know some people have strong opinions about the vice president, but it looks like it came out.” [OK]. I think it was in The Shade Room, which is a big deal, especially in the black community. The team characterized Wood as a defense attorney for Harris, and he agreed. “To some extent it was … When she did things and no one admits it, they just say what is what,” he said.

“I’m not going to say, ‘I’m going to save Kamala from the people,’ but I like to joke from a dangerous place and then try to come back,” he added.

Wood said Harris told him afterward, “It was really funny. I’m sure your mother is proud. His mother, Joyce Dugan Wood, met her backstage.

Wood said he was also pleased with how a joke about Clarence Thomas went. We can all see Clarence Thomas… but he is owned by billionaire Harlan Crow – and that’s what an NFT is, Wood said over dinner, referring to reports of Crow’s lavish travel and gifts to the Supreme Court justice.

But a joke about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and how “great leaders in this room” know “how things can’t happen” didn’t go over well, Wood noted. “It didn’t do anything,” he said.

“Someone told me: ‘Don’t think about anyone who doesn’t smile. It’s just a big room. It’s a difficult space,” he said.

Wood also wanted to comment on the presence of GOP figures like Kellyanne Conway and Mike Pompeo, a sign that Republicans are returning to the dining room after avoiding it during the Trump years.

“We just couldn’t achieve everything,” he said.

Wood said he approached his set differently than previous hosts like Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers because they were better known than he was. This required him to fill the first part of his 25-minute set with a barrage of material, with some lengthy satirical remarks in the second half.

“People are very quick to say, ‘Oh, but you’re busy The daily show‘ said Wood. “But The Daily Show is not my stand-up comedy. So you don’t know me as an artist. you don’t know my heart You don’t know where I come from. So I had to be really careful with anything serious – I say early because I’m just killing my own introductory moment. So I have to be funny, funny, funny.”

He also said that he couldn’t get the “nuance of the Don Lemon thing” because of the timing of his material.

“Everyone laughs [when] I said, “Don Lemon is an ass.” OK. But Don Lemon also did very good journalism,” he said. “Regardless of the behavior on and off the air that pissed off a lot of people, there are a lot of moments on air where Don Lemon disapproved of people talking really crazy about marginalized communities and issues that affect millions of people. American. And so the question becomes, “Who’s going to take that spot at CNN?” Who will replace Don Lemon’s tenacity?’ But I don’t know how to say it in a funny and short but sincere way, at the top of the set. It comes at the expense of the next five minutes of jokes.”

What really stood out among comedians of the past was his finisher when he talked about his mother, Joyce Dugan Wood, and his late father, Roy Wood Sr., a pioneering journalist and entrepreneur. Wood said he had not originally planned to do so, but that changed when he learned that one of the evening’s topics would be the concern of journalists currently in custody.

“For all international war reporting [Wood Sr.] Before he got involved in the civil rights movement, he never talked to me about it,” Wood said. “Almost 400 journalists are currently in prison around the world. My father could have been one of them. And he never talked about it. It was one of the few things we never talked about.”

Wood’s writing team included Christiana Mbakwe-Medina, Ameberia Allen, Felonious Munk, Matt Negrin, David Angelo and Lily Blumkin and writing assistant Kalia Tison.

Wood said he modeled his performance most closely on that of Cedric the Entertainer, who appeared in 2005, while taking advice from figures such as Hasan Minaj, who performed in 2017. Wood said he forgot an important tip Minhaj gave him: Drink plenty of water beforehand. “My mouth was so dry, that’s why I spoke so slowly,” he said. Wood also has advice for others doing the gig: “Never say no to a gala at a round table,” he said, noting that he recently held a charity event with similar attitudes.

“It was definitely a room that had very large checkbooks in it,” he said. “And so that type of person is probably closer to the type of person that would have been at the correspondent’s dinner,” he said, noting that “half the room isn’t even looking at you.” You probably don’t even feel like watching.”

Despite the Chamber’s extensive preparations and challenges, Wood said he is ready to do it again. “Yes, I think so,” he said.