“Yeah, I am black. You need to illuminate me,” Roy Wood Jr. shouted after the dim lighting was brightened in the Pit Theatre.
A plethora of jokes were told by Wood at the Campus Activities Board’s Friday Night Laughs. Wood said he takes pride in his appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman” in 2006 and taking third place on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.”
The comedian started out his performance talking about being a broke college student. Wood asked the crowd for a show of hands of who eats Ramen Noodles. He went on to ask if anyone had tried Hot Pockets with Doritos stuffed in them. No one raised their hand.
Wood gave advice about why it is good to have different races of friends in college. He said it is good for a black person to have a white friend just in case they have to talk to the cops. He pointed to the crowd with a black girl sitting between two white girls and stated how she already knows how it is.
“She’s being greedy though,” he said. “She has two.”
Then he explained why it is good to have a black friend because if you ever are going to get in a fight, that friend is the best to have. That friend will have your back, they talk as if they can fight and no one will mess with you.
Wood’s next set of advice was to never mess with fast-food employees. He said they are certified murderers. You do not want to mess with a middle-aged man making burritos for drunken people, he said. The worker never dreamed of this being his job, and the last thing he wants to deal with is how your order is wrong.
Wood’s favorite joke is another fast food story. He walked into McDonald’s, and a man was yelling about how he was going to beat up all the employees. The man had his shirt off and one shoe on. Wood said you know that he was infuriated because he had his shirt off. It turned out that the man ordered a six-piece chicken nugget and only got five. Wood tried to calm him down, but the man said they were racists because if he were white, he would have got seven instead. The man continued to ask where they were hiding his nugget and to give it back to him.
He then takes a transition into bad rap songs. If Wood were going to be a rapper, his song would be a spin off of the nonsensical “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” by the Buckwheat Boyz. He said his song would go something like: “Turkey and gravy, turkey and gravy, turkey and gravy with an iPod battery.” In the music video, girls would hold up gravy and sing along.
The laughter-filled room made it clear that Wood was doing his job as a comedian.
“I really liked his performance,” said Megan Locke, freshman biology major. “I saw Brian Moote last time, but Wood seemed more experienced. CAB needs to keep doing this.”
While he has done prank calls for radio and has some acting experience, Wood said he enjoys doing stand-up more.
“I like stand-up the most because it is the most fulfilling, but the most difficult,” he said. “The prank calls I have always done to be just silly and fun.”
Wood started his comedy career during his junior year at Florida A&M University.
“I was always captivated with comedians, but I never had the guts to do it,” he said.
After taking a public speaking class his sophomore year, Wood found his talent for making people laugh.
“I did a couple speeches, and my speeches always got laughs and it was never on purpose,” Wood said. “It would always frustrate me, but then I started embracing it and that is where it took off. The joy of being in front of people and making them laugh and seeing the look of disgust on my teachers face just made me smile.”
