That's A Good Bit!
On today's "That's A Good Bit!" The first comic I'm going with is a man i've ran into on the road a lot of times over my years in stand up. Roy Wood Jr.
One of the mot amazing nights I've ever witnessed someone turn a room upside down was at the Cleveland Improv, In like 2006 or 7. At the time I had this cool ass production job working for a guy named Joe Lewis out of Manhattan Beach, CA. I lived in Hermosa Beach at the time and my roommate, Long time Hermosa beach resident who knew everyone, got me the gig. (Thanks Ken!)
I was hurting for a job and he got me hooked up with Joe Lewis. Joe was the guy who was the boss over production gigs like the red carpet for the MTV Movie Awards, The Nickelodeon Kids Choice awards, The Daytime Emmy’s. He ran the red carpet for the Pam Anderson Comedy Central Roast and I got the gig as one of his main grip dudes. Basically do anything that needed to be done for whatever event we were working on.
I worked for Joe for a couple years and one of my last gigs was working for American Idol. This was when it was just huge cattle call auditions. My partner and I would head to the stadium where the auditions were held, set up all the fan fair stuff, the karaoke stage, the shirt booth, a digital camera music video booth, and some other shit. Then after the first day of auditions ended, we would pack it up and hit another city.
When we got to Cleveland on a week break I called up the Improv and asked to talk to the booker, ( Which never works.) And this nice ass guy (Thanks Lee!) actually took my call. I asked to do a guest set and he asked me why I should get one. I couldn’t believe it. I was in the zone on the call and he said “I like you kid,” and gave me a set that night on both shows. Roy Wood Jr. was headlining. Local dude was hosting and some L.A comic I had never seen before was featuring. First show I did 7 mins. and had a wonderful set in front of a sold out room of mostly black audience members.
What people don’t understand about white/brown/black crowds is brown and black crowds feel they are buying a product. So when a comic isn’t funny Black or brown crowds have no sympathy. I always feel better killing a black/brown room cause it’s more earned. A white crowd will laugh cause they don’t want a comic to feel bad. LOL. You don’t get that luxury in a sold out black room in Cleveland on a Friday night, my man. You either kill or get killed. The feature that weekend found this out the hard way.
This dude went up and absolutely bombed. I mean people laughing at him, not with him, booing him, telling him to get off stage ans shit. The hecklers in the crowd were getting the biggest laughs in the room. Which is never a good thing. Roy went up after this dude bomb and killed a room harder than I had ever witnessed. I mean people were almost throwing chairs cause they couldn’t take it. He came in talking about the room booing that boy before him. Then he went into his set and that room was so electric it was surreal. The manager asked me to come back the next night. It was such an amazing, out of nowhere weekend that I remember like it was yesterday. I went on to run into Roy all the time over the following years.
We all know him as the hilarious Daily Show Correspondent now, but here is one of my favorite Roy Wood Jr. Bits. From 2007.
Damn, Roy is so funny.
The second comic in today's blog in Jay Larson. I'm not personally friends with Jay Larson, I just admire when a bit goes viral. I know this clip has 10 million views but I feel a lot of people havn't seen it. This joke is so damn good. It really happened and it's just fucking good.
Strap in.