What is stand up comedy? For Roy Wood Jr., it is a balancing act between what everyone is talking about and what they need to know.
So, when the host of CNN’s new comedy show “Have I Got News For You” and former Daily Show correspondent came to American University’s Bender Arena on Sept. 28 in an event organized by the Kennedy Political Union and other University organizations, a variety of topics were on the table — the University, fast food and the election.
“If I can oscillate material between those two buckets, then I’m doing good,” Wood Jr. said in an interview with The Eagle. “That’s the sweet spot. It doesn’t always happen like that, but that’s the goal.”
It was also the University’s Family Weekend — bringing together an audience of a spectrum of ages and backgrounds. Amidst the rush for seats in the bleachers, The Eagle sat down with the comedian in the room below the stands before the big show.
So what would the comedian do for Family Weekend? Simple — find material that he can “relate from the students all the way up to the grandparents.”
“As much as we like to think that we're different, there's a lot of quadrants in which we are the same — relationships, entertainment, food, a little bit of politics to that degree,” Wood Jr. said. “In terms of we all have an opinion on [them].”
The audience’s reaction to this philosophy seemed to be positive. Following an introduction by KPU Director Aidan Skidds, a junior in the School of Public Affairs, Wood Jr. launched into a set that drew a steady stream of loud laughter from the audience, with the first half hour hitting on everything from overpriced textbooks and fast food to being pulled over by the police. This was all part of the plan.
“If you find the things that connect people and start with those topics, then I can, you know, halfway through my set, switch up into whatever it is I actually want to talk about,” Wood Jr. said.
Eventually, Wood Jr.'s set turned to the 2024 election — President Joe Biden’s recent departure, Vice President Kamala Harris, undecided voters, political pandering and more. But the set didn’t end on an imploration to vote for a certain candidate, or an importation to vote at all — rather, it finished with relationship advice. After eight years working at The Daily Show, Wood Jr.'s set bore little resemblance to the average script of an episode.
“What makes The Daily Show so legendary, but also can be burdensome creatively, is that you have to try to look at the solution to the problem, or the causation of the problem, so that you can put a real call to action to the issue,” Wood Jr. said. “But when it comes to ‘Have I Got News For You,’ we get to live in the joke first and the solution second.”
CNN’s American version of the popular British comedy panel show, “Have I Got News For You,” premiered on CNN in September. Wood Jr. left The Daily Show in 2023 after eight years as a correspondent.
“Everybody interprets and digests information and trauma differently, so I think we have an opportunity with [‘Have I Got News For You’] to introduce a new prism through which to process everything terrible that's going on in the world,” Wood Jr. said.
“Have I Got News For You” is premiering during a tense election season, which is reflected in the show’s content.
“You know, one week Donald Trump is talking about people eating dogs and cats, and the next week, the mayor of New York City gets indicted,” Wood Jr. said. “Every week has been an amazing bingo card of chaos.”
With constant news each week, Wood Jr. sees “Have I Got News For You” as a space where people can still laugh at the headlines, as opposed to being “solely enraptured” in anger. He said the fact that a new show is on the air is a big deal, given recent developments in late night comedy — citing Late Night with Seth Meyers having its band cut, Friday nights being removed from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’s lineup.
“There are so many shows that were around attempting to offer their own angles on this stuff, so the fact that a new show even dared to enter the market space in the last four years is huge,” Wood Jr. said.
Before he was set to take the stage in Bender Arena, the comedian had a few words for the University, saying he was thankful that American University is “still creating a place for comedians to perform and exist.”
“I mean when you think about how charged a lot of people are about comedy and whether or not comedy is offensive, or, whether or not comedy crosses a line?” Wood Jr. said. “For the school to still allow the students the opportunity to decide for themselves what is and isn't good comedy puts the school ahead of the curve.”
This article was edited by Payton Anderson, Tyler Davis and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Ella Rousseau and Sabine Kanter-Huchting.
