Comedy is journalism, says Roy Wood Jr., from 'The Daily Show' to CNN

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. And my guest today, comedian Roy Wood Jr., takes the serious, sometimes absurd, stuff we deal with in everyday life and makes us laugh about it. Even news events that on the face of it are kind of scary, like white men in America gravitating to militia groups.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ROY WOOD JR: You had to know the militias was coming. You knew it was coming. It's America. What we do in America? You have progress. Then you have backlash. That's the cycle of this country. Progress, then backlash. You knew the militias was coming. Just look at the last four or five years. You can't have the first Black woman vice president, the first Black woman Supreme Court justice and the first Black woman mermaid. It was too much.

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: And they couldn't handle it.

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: That mermaid, that's the one that broke them. That damn mermaid.

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: When they did that "Little Mermaid" remake, they was like, oh, no, brothers.

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: Meet me at the bakery tomorrow, brothers.

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: We're losing the White House. We're losing the courthouse. There's a [expletive] fish in the water, brothers.

(LAUGHTER)

MOSLEY: That's Roy Wood Jr. in his latest comedy special "Lonely Flowers" on Hulu. It's Wood's take on how isolation has sent society spiraling into a culture of guns, protests, rude employees, self-checkout lanes, sex parties. And he also talks about why some of us would rather be alone than connected. Wood is known for his razor-sharp wit. He spent years on the stand-up comedy circuit, dissecting pop culture and current events. And for nearly eight years, he was a correspondent for "The Daily Show" with Trevor Noah. Wood currently hosts the CNN news quiz show "Have I Got News For You," which was adapted from a long-running British series under the same name. Roy Wood Jr., thank you for being here, and welcome back to FRESH AIR.

WOOD: Thank you for having me back. It is a pleasure.

MOSLEY: You know, at the end of that clip I just played, you heard the beep. That was the N-word. It was part of the punch line that you use in the joke, and it almost is like an exclamation point. And I know that you have weighed whether to use it. I think you talked about in another special how your uncle was, like, trying to not use it himself...

WOOD: Yeah, trying to quit it.

MOSLEY: ...And not get used...

WOOD: He's on the patch. He's on the N-word patch.

MOSLEY: Right (laughter). Right. He's on the N-word patch. How do you decide when to use it in your comedy?

WOOD: I try to use it in scenarios where I feel like if I'm impersonating a person who would have said it or if it is a feeling of exasperation. It's like, if there is an emotion, then there is a word for it. And not everybody agrees with particular words, but I feel like once you've had the conscious thought, then, as they say, God knows your heart, well, then you said it. So I'm not going to say fricking or gosh darn. That just, for me, does not work. I have resigned myself to the truth, though, that certain words are going to nail-to-chalkboard certain people because they just don't like those words. And if that's the case, then I'm not sure if everything that I do is going to be for you.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

WOOD: And that's fine. And when done properly - a comedy booker told me, ages ago - this was late '90s - she said profanity should be the seasoning, never the main ingredient. And so I curse way more when I am first starting a joke. And a lot of that is just nervousness and curse words become um words. Like, if you saw me in a comedy club working new material versus when it's polished, it's night and day. And so you have all of these curse words, and there is scaffolding, and then you slowly start taking the support beams away to see whether or not the joke is really funny.

MOSLEY: I did notice, though - I mean, I noticed when you were on Conan O'Brien, his podcast, you used it, and he didn't laugh. You know, and - 'cause he kind of...

WOOD: He's not sure.

MOSLEY: It also can make people uncomfortable. Right. It can make people - they don't know if they can laugh at it, you know?

WOOD: Can I laugh at this. Yeah. And that's the thing that for me, I'm just going to be my natural self. I'm not doing it deliberately to make you uncomfortable, but if you choose not to laugh, that's fine. I'm not the type of person that would trip at you laughing at it.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

WOOD: But you don't know that about me. You don't know what type of Black person I am. So I'm not - I'm still being myself for the people who rock with what I do. And if they get it, they get it. And if you choose not to laugh at that line but you laugh at the next joke, cool.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

WOOD: We're perfectly fine, but I just - I've lost the desire to change how I am in the presence of everyone to make them feel comfortable because then, when am I ever myself?

MOSLEY: I want to know how you got to that point, because I just noticed within a bit you do this thing where you reference something that the masses will get. And in that same bit, there are references that only Black people will get. I mean, an example of this was last season on your CNN quiz show. It was the one where you had Kara Swisher on, and you made a reference to the movie "Coming To America." Now, I mean, that is a popular movie, but it's a Black cult classic. And there was this line you said, like, as the punch line - whatever you like. Which is, like, a part of - that's - it's part of the movie...

WOOD: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...That, like, I wondered if everybody on the panel knew what you were talking about. Which made it even funnier, because it's almost like a nod you're giving to those who know. Is that intentional? Because you're able to bring, like, all parts of yourself to make everybody laugh.

WOOD: Yeah. I like that. I mean, it's funny - it's funnier for people who really connect with that part of my being culturally. But if you don't know that that's a "Coming To America" reference, me just saying, whatever you like, that works fine. And the joke is fine, but it's, like, a joke, and then there's a bonus joke, if you will. I remember in my first special - I can't remember how the joke goes, but basically - oh, when Black people die, they fall in slow-motion - and how when Apollo Creed died - when I look at the American flag, it makes me think of Apollo Creed's death. And Apollo Creed got hit by that Russian and died, and that was a terrible day. And then I imitate the slow-motion fall that gets a laugh. And then under...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

WOOD: ...My breath, I just go, Michael B. Jordan lost his father.

MOSLEY: (Laughter) Yeah, right, right.

WOOD: And then I continue on. Either you get that Creed reference, or you don't. But I'm not going to stop and explain that. And we're talking about literally a sentence. So if you don't get that sentence, OK, that's fine. There's other things for you to enjoy.

MOSLEY: Do you take a lot of time to find that bonus joke inside of the joke? Like those types of examples to, like, put into your sets?

WOOD: That comes way later once you're comfortable with the bit, and then you're on stage. And it's jazz, and you're just finding moments between the chords...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

WOOD: ...To kind of freestyle. But you have to be comfortable with the sheet music first before you start adding, you know, all of this other stuff in there. I don't necessarily write, like, a broader joke and then go, now, how can I get my people to chuckle a little more?

MOSLEY: Yeah, right (laughter).

WOOD: It just - if it's there, it's there, you know? If it's not, it's not.

MOSLEY: OK. I want to play another clip from "Lonely Flowers." In this clip, you're talking about grocery shopping and how it seems like most store clerks have been replaced by self-checkout. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY SPECIAL, "LONELY FLOWERS")

WOOD: We need that cashier back. The grocery store cashier was the connection for crazy people...

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: ...To feel seen. It's a lot of people that's alone in a basement, just loading a rifle, and once a week, they need a snack.

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: And that cashier was the connection. That's the job of the cashier to make lonely people feel like they have a connection. Grocery store cashier didn't care who you were. She making chitchat. While - the whole while you're [expletive] coming down the belt. Just bloop, bloop, bloop. I like this flavor, too.

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: Bloop, bloop. That brother go home and feel good about himself.

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: She asking him about his dog and his [expletive]. Bloop, bloop. How's Mr. Gibbles? Bloop...

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: ...Bloop. If you live alone and a cashier ask you about your dog, that will - you'll ride that high for two months. You go home and look at that rifle. Man, I'm tripping. Let me put this rifle up.

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: I got a friend at the grocery store. I can't be out here murdering.

(LAUGHTER)

MOSLEY: That was my guest today, comedian Roy Wood Jr., in his new comedy special on Hulu called "Lonely Flowers." Roy, I love that joke, because - I mean, of course, you went to the most extreme example. But all of us, we do get a little dopamine when we have nice interactions like that, and we are getting less and less of them, you know?

WOOD: When a stranger would just say, oh, I like your sweater.

MOSLEY: Yes.

WOOD: It's, like, that's gone.

MOSLEY: You know, writer Wesley Lowery said about you a few years ago - he wrote that you occupy this space between 1990s Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle in the early 2000s. Do you agree with that?

WOOD: I take that as a high compliment. Wow. You know, considering I grew up studying both of them along with Carlin and Sinbad. I don't know how to agree with that. You know, I feel like Chappelle takes on far bigger dragons than I do. And I feel like Chris Rock's observations are far more astute and sharp and simple. I use way more words than Chris Rock ever would to make the same points or to say the same things. And I think that's the brilliance of Chris Rock, is the brevity. You know, love him or hate him - you don't have to agree with everything, but there were no wasted words. I go back and watch my old specials, I'll be like, man, that whole joke could've gone.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

WOOD: That's - should put that joke on YouTube.

MOSLEY: And bringing up Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, I also thought about is, like, what does it mean for you to keep yourself grounded so that your humor feels connected to the larger sentiment, you know? As you become more and more successful, is that something that you think about?

WOOD: Yeah. You have to know what regular people are going through. And you can't do that by just living in Uber Blacks your entire life. I consider comedy to be a form of journalism, living anthropology in its highest form. You know, you're doing anthropology on things that are still alive, things that are still evolving. So you have to be immersed in that. You have to bathe yourself in that a little bit. So, yeah, take the train. Talk to regular people. But it's the thing I missed the most about morning radio more than anything, is just talking to strangers. And then that becomes the things that I can take and put on stage because now you're helping to embody - you have an opportunity, in a way, to be a voice of connection.

MOSLEY: How much time do you take to study your peers - other comedians?

WOOD: You know, like, some comedians have the ideology, I don't want to know what any comedian is saying because I don't want it to pollute my thinking - where I'm the opposite. I want to know every single piece of known data that has been performed.

MOSLEY: What does that do for you?

WOOD: Well, it tells me where not to go. That's - so when I did BET's "ComicView" in 2004, I'd gotten turned down three years in a row, and I'd gotten so angry with them. The year before I got "ComicView," I watched every episode, and I cataloged every topic that was breached by a comedian for the entire season. Here's how many jokes about, you know, ugly. Here's sex jokes. Here's race jokes. Here's president - famous people - Michael Jackson, like, Kobe Bryant - like, cataloged it all and then just told myself that entire year, I won't make a joke about any of these things. So now, at minimum, I'm original.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is comedian Roy Wood Jr., host of the quiz show "Have I Got News For You" and a new stand-up special about loneliness called "Lonely Flowers." We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MAX MORAN AND NEOSPECTRIC'S, "ALL RIGHT" FEAT FIEND AND NICHOLAS PAYTON)

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today, I'm talking to comedian and talk show host Roy Wood Jr. He has a new comedy special on Hulu called "Lonely Flowers." It's a satirical look at why we're so disconnected and isolated these days. He now hosts the CNN comedy news quiz show "Have I Got News For You." The second season returns to CNN in February.

I've been thinking a lot about the journalism industry with the decline and - of trust and the fractured attention spans. And as you said earlier, you feel like comedy is a form of journalism. But through your role on "The Daily Show," as a correspondent in this news quiz show, I want to know from you, like, that hasn't always been the case where - you know, you actually studied journalism. And then you decided to be a comedian. But when did it become clear to you that, wait a minute, this thing that I'm doing as a comedian is actually a form of journalism?

WOOD: When I started researching all the stuff I wanted to talk about and it was just like researching a dang story from college...

MOSLEY: Yeah, yeah.

WOOD: ...Documentary research. And then once I approached it as that, then it became, oh, you can find interesting - like, if you can sneak in something that people didn't know or didn't consider into your bits, oh, cool. You know, "The Daily Show" changed a lot for me creatively. "Daily Show" taught me overanalysis and how to find the angle on a topic that no one has touched yet. You know, we know what they're saying. What are they not saying? And how can we say that? And then Trevor Noah taught me, through observation as a Black man, when to use your anger and when to keep it in your back pocket, performatively. But performing in a state of aggression, as I was, for the most part, coming into "The Daily Show," doesn't help your point to land with everyone.

MOSLEY: Did you have a moment when you were on the show where that became clear to you?

WOOD: Yeah, the first piece that I did. The first segment I did that ever aired on the show was a segment with Jordan Klepper. The first field piece, I mean. It's the first week of the show. It was a segment called Are All Cops Racist? And Klepper and I did a ride-along with the Appleton, Wisconsin Police Department. Or was it Madison? It was in - it was a Wisconsin city. And we interviewed a former NYPD detective about overpolicing and police bias and, you know, just all the things in 2015. And this man said the N-word in the interview and..

MOSLEY: To you, with you there?

WOOD: Well, he didn't call me an N-word. He used the...

MOSLEY: But he used it. Right, right.

WOOD: He used the word. And so for me, the comedian in me and the Black man in me, we've got to talk about that. I - and so it's Klepper and I doing a two-man - two-on-one interview. And he's, like, reciting fictional rap lyrics, was the - just for context. You know, he said, if you're a Black person - like, basically, to keep from getting harassed by the police, as a Black person, be respectful and don't have your music blasting when we come up to the car. When you come up - when I come up to the car after I pulled you over, I don't want to hear yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. And he says it, right?

I am trying to get him to stay in that pocket and repeat himself. And Klepper is trying to keep him on the topic of police reform and antibias training. So we're both fighting each other, essentially. And so neither one of us is getting what we want from the person that we're interviewing. And the producer wisely called - he could tell I - because I was getting mad. I was trying to make a joke, but I was mad. And it was not - the conversation wasn't going anywhere, and the producer called for a battery change, which is, like, our move to, like, call a time out. He'll just lie and say that the camera batteries are low, so we need to swap batteries.

MOSLEY: (Laughter) Yes, they do do that. Yeah, I get that.

WOOD: And so we went out in the hall and reset for a minute. And, you know, we have limited time with these people. We don't have all day, and, you know, the idea of me getting mad at him was not going to end in anything funny. And at the end of the day, this is about the jokes and honoring the segment and the story we're trying to tell about trying to fix the police to save the lives of innocent people. So I can't go on my N-word side quest, because - I could, but I'm wasting tape, and it's not going to make the edit.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

WOOD: So you just have to - like, you just have to go, wow, that was racist, and go on back to your business. So, you know, I say all of that to say, going into my first special, learning where to put that anger and when to play it here and there, and then allowing my curiosities to go in the same way that it would when I was pitching stories. Because "The Daily Show," as a correspondent - you know, like, people talk about "Saturday Night Live," man, and pitching to Lorne Michaels, and you pitch in a big room on a Tuesday morning, and, you know, your idea either lives or dies right then. Like, "Daily Show," like, a lot of stuff is pitched over email. But then you have a field meeting, and you could suggest a topic, and then four people in the meeting will ask you three or four things about the issue. And if you don't know it, it's a weak pitch. So you're...

MOSLEY: Like a newsroom.

WOOD: Yes. So you're literally - you live in fear of having your idea ripped to shreds. Where "SNL," it's, well, it's not funny because of this, or this idea is funnier. Whereas "The Daily Show," it's you have not made an accurate argument to show me why there's a good level of confliction within the story because that is where the comedy will come from. Go back and - you go away, go figure that out. Sometimes they let you leave a room. And the meeting lasts, like, a hour or 90 minutes, so you could leave the room for 20 minutes and come back and have it together. But that still never felt good. So that research discipline from "The Daily Show" bled over into my stand-up, and I'm so happy that none of my hour specials came out before I got that show.

MOSLEY: Our guest today is comedian and talk show host Roy Wood Jr. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE BIG BAND'S, "DON IS")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today I'm talking to comedian and talk show host Roy Wood Jr. He has a new comedy special called "Lonely Flowers." It's a satirical look at why we're so disconnected and isolated.

At what point in your life did you discover you were funny?

WOOD: Maybe elementary school, fourth grade, fifth grade. Humor was a weapon. We moved to Birmingham when I was in the fourth grade.

MOSLEY: It was a weapon?

WOOD: Yeah, it was a weapon. It was a deflector, a smoke screen.

MOSLEY: What were you...

WOOD: I got picked on...

MOSLEY: ...Trying to deflect? Yeah.

WOOD: Just you trying to keep from getting bullied and get your sneakers stolen. It's the '80s, crack era. So, you know, it's - some cats is dangerous, and if they're not dangerous, they got a older brother who is. You always wanted to be cool. I kept my head low. I was a little class clowny in middle school. But, like, the idea of explicit thinking and premeditation of humor - I remember in JROTC, we would have drill every morning in high school. And so there was three tennis courts in a row side by side by side, and we ran the perimeter of that like a makeshift track. And so you would have to run - I don't know - three or four laps around the tennis courts. And I would deliberately just jog and be well behind everybody, like two, three turns behind. And then on the last lap, I would call my comeback like a Kentucky Derby announcer.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

WOOD: And everybody else - we're all exhausted. And I'm trying to talk and run.

MOSLEY: Right.

WOOD: It's Wood on the outside. Wood is coming up strong. Oh, my goodness. What a comeback as they get into the backstretch. Drool was coming from...

MOSLEY: (Laughter) What was your ROTC coach, like, or teacher, instructor saying to you?

WOOD: Sergeant Posey (ph) was not feeling this behavior at all. But what can you say? I'm running. You said run, so I'm running.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

WOOD: And we would collapse across the finish line and just be howling with laughter. And it worked every time. And it just made me laugh. And there was no purpose to it, but it was just funny.

MOSLEY: But you went to college for broadcast journalism. You got into some trouble, though, with the law that kind of changed...

WOOD: Oh, yeah.

MOSLEY: ...Your trajectory. Yeah.

WOOD: Yeah, I mean, that whole thing, though, is part of what got me into stand-up.

MOSLEY: And that thing...

WOOD: Because when I was 19...

MOSLEY: Yeah, tell me.

WOOD: Yeah, we stole some credit card. Well, I stole a credit card. They was with me when we bought the stuff. And so, like, we were - we'd...

MOSLEY: They being your friends?

WOOD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so - codefendant, as they're called in a court of law. So '98, I get arrested for stealing some credit cards and buying stuff and selling clothing on campus or whatever. And so in that time, I get suspended from school. So this is Thanksgiving of '98, and I get suspended at the top of the year in January for essentially that whole year, except I think I got back in school in, like, September or October or something.

So during that time, I start doing stand-up because I think I'm going to go to prison. I'm like, OK, well, I'm going to prison. Let me try everything I want. What was that thing Sinbad used to do? Oh, yeah, stand-up. OK, well, where does stand-up happen? Oh, OK, open mics. Oh, OK, well, I'll go up to Birmingham. And I took a Greyhound up to Birmingham and performed and then went back to the bus station, slept there because I didn't want my mom to know I was in town. I didn't want her to know because, you know, it's a Black mom. You're not going to...

MOSLEY: She didn't know. She didn't know about your arrest? Or did she know about...

WOOD: No, she knew about the arrest. That's why she didn't want me to doing comedy. You need to be somewhere with a job looking gainfully employed so they don't send you to prison. To which I said, thanks, Joyce - I think I'm going to sleep in bus stations (laughter).

MOSLEY: Right. And go do comedy.

WOOD: Yeah. This activity makes me happy, and I just want to be happy right now. And I ended up getting probation.

MOSLEY: Yeah. Why were you doing that? Why was the credit card ring the way to make money? 'Cause I assume it was about making money.

WOOD: No, it wasn't. I mean, money is part of it. But at its core, what that started as - and it took going to therapy to really connect these dots - I didn't want my mother to worry about me. You know, I had a good father. He was a bad husband. And so, you know, money was tight a lot of the time because Pops was tripping. And we moved to Birmingham because my parents reconciled in the third grade. I was in the third grade, maybe fourth. So I remember nights laying in my bed, first grade, second grade, and I could hear my mother asking friends for money, like the late-night calls asking, you know, the borrow the money calls, right?

And then I remember when my dad died when I was 16. And, you know, my dad was one of them hyper Black, you know, I'm not paying no taxes. The Black man ain't got no rights. The right to vote expires, voting right, whatever. So my father never paid federal taxes. So when he died, they came for everything. They came for everything. And I remember that very well. I remember working 30 hours a week in high school to help with the bills because I didn't want my mom picking up another job. And, you know - and I'm still trying to just be a child. I'm still trying to just play baseball, but I'm also working closing shifts. I mean, I violated every labor law you could name.

MOSLEY: And you had all types of jobs, too, didn't you?

WOOD: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

WOOD: Just for my mom to be able to keep the house through my senior year of high school. And so when I got to college, I just don't want to be no damn burden, man. I'm tired of asking you for stuff and hearing this deep sigh. And I know what you got to go through to try and make this pair of sneakers happen for me. So I'm just - I don't want to bother you. I just didn't want to be a burden to my mom. And I think that it wasn't about thrill-seeking. It wasn't about stacking a bunch of cash and buying - saving up to get a car and a gold chain. Everything started from a place of, I just want some clothes for myself so I don't have to call my mom and ask for clothes.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

WOOD: And then, hey, man, I bought a couple extra pairs of jeans.

(LAUGHTER)

WOOD: Would you like some jeans?

MOSLEY: Right.

WOOD: And then that guy going, hey, man, I told my friend about those extra jeans you got me. Can you get him some jeans? And then the next thing you know, you're kind of running an operation. And then the police come and go, hey, this is illegal, So we're going to put you on probation for a little while. Go find a career during that time. And then when probation concludes, you can continue that career. And that's what happened. I was blessed to have a probation officer that gave a damn and allowed me to travel while I was on probation. That is not the norm.

MOSLEY: Not the norm.

WOOD: You know, and I'm very, very lucky. And that life that I was given back, you know, that's a life I've tried my best to not fumble since then.

MOSLEY: If you're just joining us, my guest is comedian Roy Wood Jr., host of the quiz show "Have I Got News For You" on CNN. And he also has a new stand-up special about loneliness called "Lonely Flowers" on Hulu. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ROBBEN FORD AND BILL EVANS' "PIXIES")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today I'm talking to comedian and talk show host Roy Wood Jr. He has a new comedy special called "Lonely Flowers." And he also hosts the CNN comedy panel news quiz show, "Have I Got News For You."

Your dad, you mentioned Roy Wood Sr., he did not pay taxes, as you said, but he was a pioneering radio reporter in Birmingham. I mean, he covered the civil rights movement. He co-founded the first Black radio network.

WOOD: Yeah, Chicago. Yeah.

MOSLEY: Yeah, did you get to be around his work much when you were growing up?

WOOD: Yeah, I mean, I was there. I mean, he was a great father. He'd come with me to the radio station. I would sit at his feet while he read AP wire stories in the '80s. And, you know, I spent every summer with my father before my parents got back together. So I was around, you know, this man holding court in barber shops, you know. Talking to people about issues, talking to the mayor. You know, talking to everyone about stuff. And I really feel like that was the early days of - how can I put it? The foundation of my ideologies, you know? My father knew all the Black leaders. You know, my father was, you know, I don't want to say the man around town, but he kind of was.

MOSLEY: He also was, like - I mean, he was the news guy. You describe him as the voice that we would hear on the car radio in the morning, giving the news on the way to school, on the way to work. It just got me thinking about how much radio - that kind of media - it leaves an imprint on us. But it's also ephemeral, you know? Do you have any tapes or recordings of his work still?

WOOD: Yeah, but they're all reel to reels. I haven't straightened that out yet. You know, that's something I definitely need to get to. Because, you know, so much of what my father talked about in his commentary work was about a lot of issues with the Black race that are still happening today. You know, as much as I - you know, I spent, you know, like any child, you go through a rebellion period against your parents while you want to be nothing like them. And then I look up and I look at the type of comedy that I talk about and I am him. I'm just a little funnier.

MOSLEY: Right. Did he have a sense of humor?

WOOD: No, he - now you want to talk about somebody who used nothing but anger to drive what they was talking about (laughter). He - it was clear he was mad. Now, he could be smooth with how he delivered the knife into your rib cage, but you was going to get the knife messing around with my dad.

MOSLEY: He wasn't jokey. He was not silly, but he did help create one of Black America's great contributions - "Soul Train."

WOOD: Yes.

MOSLEY: Please.

WOOD: Yeah.

MOSLEY: You please tell us the story.

WOOD: Yeah. So my dad was the first Black announcer at pretty much both stations he worked at in the 1950s and '60s doing news, for the most part. And so he got with some people up in Chicago and decided to create the National Black Network. And the National Black Network was a series of syndicated news stories and articles and programs that would be sent out to Black radio stations across the country. And it was simply Black - it was the first of its kind - news for Black people on Black stations. So my father was the co-founder of this joint up in Chicago at WVON, and they're looking for reporters. And my dad gets pulled over by a cop, and the cop has a really deep voice. And the cop goes, hey, man. My dad goes to the cop - he's getting a ticket. He's in the middle getting a ticket, and my dad goes, yeah, man, you have a nice voice. You should quit the police force and come work for me. The cop was, like, what the hell are you talking about? He was, like, yeah, you have a nice voice. You have a voice for radio. You should be on the radio. You shouldn't be out here doing this. And my dad gave the cop his card, and the cop he gave the card to was Don Cornelius - Officer Don Cornelius of the Chicago Police Department. He'd only gone on the force a year. He quit. Started working at WVON as a reporter. Got a itch for media. Eventually came up with the brain child for a show like "Dick Clark's American Bandstand." And he goes to my father and goes, hey, man, I'm taking up money, you know, if you want to be an investor in this show. And my pops gave Don Cornelius some of the money to shoot the pilot for "Soul Train." Now, where the story takes a turn is that it took Don Cornelius too long to sell the show. And we're talking about, like, my dad gave him maybe, like, let's just say $1,000, which is a gajillion billion dollars in 1960.

MOSLEY: In today's dollars.

WOOD: Yes. And my dad goes, hey, Don, I need that money, man. And Don goes, instead of giving your money back, why don't I just keep you on as a producer? You can be an executive producer the rest of your life. To which my dad said, nobody wants to watch Black people dance. Give me my money. Don paid him back. My father took the money. Signed away his rights to any claims of the "Soul Train" empire.

MOSLEY: Did he ever talk about that...

WOOD: And that was that.

MOSLEY: ...With you?

WOOD: No, and I could not...

MOSLEY: And did you ever talk to him?

WOOD: I could not...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

WOOD: ...Watch "Soul Train."

MOSLEY: You never watched it...

WOOD: I don't - I...

MOSLEY: ...Growing up?

WOOD: I was - not around him. Better watch "Solid Gold" or MTV's "The Grind." But you're not watching "Soul Train" in this house. That's a story that was told to me by my older brothers. My dad never spoke of it, never brought it up. And I met Don Cornelius years later, and just - I couldn't bring it in me to bring it up. I wanted to so bad, but it just - it didn't feel like the right time and place. But I'm very thankful to Don Cornelius' children for including that part of my father's contribution within the BET show that they had about Don's life.

MOSLEY: Oh, wow. Wow.

WOOD: So yeah, my dad was - you know, there was an actor that cast him. That whole get-pulled-over scene is in the show.

MOSLEY: That's your dad - yeah...

WOOD: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...That's in the show.

WOOD: It was very kind of them.

MOSLEY: Wow. Yeah.

WOOD: It was very kind of them.

MOSLEY: You mentioned your son, and I'm just wondering, as your son gets older, are there any parts of fatherhood that you're like, now I understand, looking back at your dad?

WOOD: It's more of in reverse. How could you miss all of this? I know this is a wrong can of beans to open up. This is late in our conversation, but I think the moments I have with my son, a lot of them are moments that my father missed with me. So it's like, damn, man, how did I - you miss this? You missed this? You can't show up to the Boy Scout joint? You ain't show up to the chess tournament, baby? Where was you at? What were you doing? Like, that would be the bigger question, is, hey, man, I need you to account for your absences. So it would probably be like a terrible accountability evaluation conversation. Like, if my dad was alive today, it'd be me yelling at a 80-year-old man - probably not fair.

MOSLEY: I know that you're writing a book about fatherhood. You've been reflecting a lot on your relationship with your dad. I mean, I can relate to this journey that you're on trying to understand him to understand yourself and your role as a parent and what you want to do and be and show up for your son. Has that process brought about any compassion for him, you know? You talk about how he was a good dad but a bad husband, so you saw a lot of stuff.

WOOD: I think that at its core, yes. The short answer to your question is yes. Therapy helped me, and you understand that if you're, you know, computer software, if the software is corrupted, then any program that you attempt to run on that computer is not going to run properly - in this case, parenting.iOS or being a good communicator, being emotionally vulnerable. All of that additional software is being built on corrupted firmware. So I have to grade everything that he did on the curve because of his own childhood traumas that I started learning about a little later on.

And so I think that helps to inform it, but it still doesn't - for me, the book that I'm writing, though, the book is about the lessons I learned as a man and who else I learned them from in lieu of not getting all of those lessons from him in lieu of his death - of his earlier death. You know, so I think that, yeah, there is a degree of compassion when you understand, but having compassion and understanding why doesn't change the what. And so how to survive the what and to protect my son from future whats is the purpose of the book.

MOSLEY: Roy Wood Jr., this was such a pleasure. I could talk to you forever, but thank you so much for this conversation.

WOOD: Thank you. Thank you for this in-depth conversation. Thank you for caring, researching and stuff. I can tell you went deep. You didn't just go through the first two pages of Google results on me. You went deep - about 70 pages in, some of these questions.

MOSLEY: Roy Wood Jr.'s new comedy special on Hulu is called "Lonely Flowers." His CNN comedy panel news quiz show, "Have I Got News For You," starts its second season next month.

Tomorrow on FRESH AIR - when Donald Trump talks about taking over Greenland, perhaps with military force, is he serious? We'll talk about that and the challenges Trump will face in Ukraine, Iran and China with David Sanger, veteran national security correspondent with The New York Times. I hope you'll join us.

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MOSLEY: To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram - @nprfreshair. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper, and Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

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