The Commercial Break - TCB Infomercial: Roy Wood Jr.

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Episode #677: Bryan & Krissy get in deep with Roy Wood Jr. The LA fires Airbnb help The Daily Show Roy’s perspective Bourdain & Dave Attell Not making jokes at the expense of people who are suffering! Seating politics The National Anthem needs more BPM Social media woes Leaving The Daily Show When shit looks weird, you GO! Radio DRAMA Special Guest: Roy Wood Jr. Special: Lonely Flowers on Hulu January 17th CNN’s Have I Got News For You on Max Roy’s Tour Text us or leave us a voicemail: [phone]TCB Follow Us: IG: @thecommercialbreak TikTok: @tcbpodcast YT: youtube.com/thecommercialbreak www.tcbpodcast.com Executive Producer: Bryan Green Hosts: Bryan Green & Krissy Hoadley Producer: Astrid B. Green Producer & Audio Editor: Christina Archer Christina’s Podcast: Apple Podcasts & Spotify To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I was at the gun range and I saw somebody get bad service at the gun range. How you gonna be rude to somebody who showed up to practice murder? On this episode of the Commercial Break. And the Rock is Red, don't forget America is good. That's, that's, when you're at the DMV for four fucking hours, yeah, before you leave, sing the shit. Yeah, I'm gonna give you your license. Yeah, that's so true.

The next episode of The Commercial Break starts now. Yapa yapa yapa yapa. Oh yeah, guys and kittens, welcome back to The Commercial Break. I'm Brian Green. This is my dear friend and the co-host of this show, Kristen Joy Hoesley. Best to you, Kristen. Best to you, Brian. Best to you out there in the podcast universe. Welcome to a TCB Infomercial Tuesday. So happy to have you here. We are very excited because I think maybe we're, we, maybe the guest gods are smiling on us this year in 2025. Not that they haven't in the past,

but we're going to start off with a bang. We had Felipe Esparza, but he was recorded back before 2025. And now today, Roy Wood Jr. who I have often said is Roy Jones Jr. but that's a different guy altogether. My old brain doesn't work so well. I told Astrid this morning, I'm like, I'm so excited. We're talking to Roy Jones, and she's like, is Roy Wood Jr. And I was like, yeah, oh yeah, that's a boxer, Roy Jones Jr. Anyway, that's what happens when you get old. You start mixing names up. Roy Wood Jr. is coming in to talk to us. Daily show host, last comic standing

has had a new number of specials out there. Roy, J, uh, Roy wood, Jr. Dot com is where you can go to find out all the information, including on the 17th of January, his new special on Disney's Hulu, lonely flowers. And, uh, I'm really excited to see the new special. I, a couple of months, a couple of months ago, I watched his, uh, I guess the most recent special of that, No One Here Wants You or No One Wants You or something like that. And it was an hour of hilarity. He is really good at what he does. And he was in a huge room. I mean, it must have been 5,000, 6,000 people. Anyway, he's extremely popular. You know him from The Daily Show,

The Correspondents' Dinner. And now CNN. Oh, yeah. He does that thing on CNN too. Yeah, where he does weekly quiz about the news. I read, I haven't seen it, but I read that he also did a BBC version of that same show also. So, there you go. So, he's all over the place.

Started off in Morning Radio? He did. In Birmingham, Alabama. Buck Wilde. Buck Wilde. Is that Memphis or Birmingham, Alabama? I can't remember which one was the Buck Wilde show. Yeah, I think it might've been Memphis. God, that's gotta be a really difficult job. He was a writer on a morning show. A writer on a morning show. That'd be like being a writer on

the commercial break. How do you do that? Where do you even start? What are you writing about? I guess anything flies. Yeah, I guess you just like look at things, you know, look at the news and you have, but he's much more funny than we'll ever be. So there you go. But that's not, that's not like extremely high bar to get there. I don't know. But I did want to mention on a serious note, you know, Los Angeles is right now as we're recording this engulfed in flames and they, by some accounts may take weeks to kind of get all

the hotspots tampered down. And let's hope that the Santa Ana winds are with the people of Los Angeles and that these fires settle down just a little bit. I'm going to put a link in the show notes to an organization that is helping people find shelter if they don't have shelter. There's a lot of people out there that have been affected by this. They probably are not going to have a hard time finding shelter. It's Pacific Palisades is a very affluent, Ponce area and beautiful area of Los Angeles. Such a shame because it really is very, just out there months ago. And man, we drove through the Pacific Palisades.

It's gorgeous. We have friends that live out there. We have people that work with the show live out there, and everybody in Los Angeles is really scared right now. And so, we're going to put a link in the show notes to an organization that is helping people find shelter if their homes or their apartments or whatever have been set on fire. This is the time when we all need to pull it together. I mean, imagine if you live near a major metropolitan city, imagine that your city was just engulfed in flames with zero opportunity.

I mean, you can have all the firefighters in the world. When flames are out of control like that, you just need helicopters to keep dumping water and hope that, you know, your house doesn't go up in flames. So our hearts are with the people of Los Angeles right now and our friends and family that are out there. And I really hope that these people find some relief because it's terrible. Quite frankly, I thought Roy lived in Los Angeles. Danielle Pletka Yeah, he's in New York. Roy Bhandari We think. Jared Sarkissian We think. We don't know. I mean, he's coming on the show, so I'm assuming he's not

in any kind of danger, though we have had guests that have canceled because they are in danger. So, we know this situation is very serious. So, oh, and one more thing I wanted to shout out, my wife sent this to me this morning, I think this will probably still be the fact when this comes out just a couple days later, is that Airbnb is now offering free shelter to anyone that has been displaced by those fires. You can contact, you can go to Airbnb website if you live in Los Angeles and fill out some forms. I think I went on there earlier and you fill out some forms and then they will get you in touch.

No charge. There's no charge. I don't know how long that's going to last for. That is an amazing thing, quite frankly, that Airbnb is doing. And while I've had my gripes with Airbnb in the past, I would say that if I was in that situation, I would be kissing the feet of Airbnb for allowing me and my family members to have some shelter during the situation. It's crazy. It really is. And we're here complaining about snow. We're here complaining about one quarter inch of snow.

And, you know, it's apocalyptic in Los Angeles. I saw those flames over the comedy store. The before and after. Oh, Chrissy. The crew of some of that stuff is just awful. There's quite a few landmarks that are just completely gone. I know they're really, like, the Getty, I think, museum was- Around it got burned, but they were managed to save the museum from any kind of damage. Yeah.

Scary. It is really scary. And I know they deal with this all the time out there, but it's, you know, you can predict a hurricane. You know what hurricane season is, you know when a hurricane's coming. You can predict a snowstorm, you see it coming down the pike. Even tornadoes, there's favorable conditions for this or that, even though there's a little bit more random. But earthquakes and fires, two things they deal with very frequently over there, there is no rhyme or reason. And once a fire gets going, remember Backdraft, the movie?

Yeah, of course. Backdraft was this movie, you can go watch it, Ron Howard film. And they talked about in the movie how the fire had a personality and it moved up the wall and it took on a life of its own. It could change this way, change that way, yeah. This way, it could go that way and it could move like a person and all this other stuff. And I thought it was kind of hanky panky, you know, hokey pokey bullshit when I first watched it. But I've come to believe over the years as I've watched some of these wildfires unfold on the news, that it's true. Like fire just kind of takes on a personality of

its own. And then it, you know, I think- Dry conditions, wind, I mean, it can go anywhere. I think I talked about this when it happened, but when the Hawaii fire happened, when the Maui fire happened, we, our neighbors, their, his brother, which I won't get into too much detail, but his brother, they lived out there, their house burned down. They were in a car with all of their young children driving through a nightmarish hellscape of fire all around them at as fast as they could to save themselves from burning and watching their home and their business go up in flames. And we had a chance just to talk to them briefly about this. And those, I don't know how the kids will ever recover from seeing that. And so anyway, listen, I don't need to dwell on the negative, but

if you can do some positive, because we know the TCB audience can do some positive when we put our minds together, please go do that. We'll put links in the show notes. Let's get on to happier things. Right? Well, hold on. I have to say on that subject though, Jeff and I were talking last night about it and

we were like, it got us thinking, like, if we had to get out right now, what would we take? And it's a good exercise in what's essential and absolutely necessary that you would, you know, take with you. Yeah. We have a location. Stuff is just stuff in the end. But we have a location in our house where we keep some stuff that is the stuff that I want to take if I can take it. And if I can't take it, I have a picture of it, a

copy of it, and medications on standby if you need them to take them, or like, you know, an EpiPen or whatever we have in a bag that we can, a Go bag that we can go. We have a little bit thought this through, but God bless, thank God we're not in that situation. We're actually going to be the opposite. Instead of running from our homes, we're going to be staying in our homes for the next couple of days as we try and get through, you know, whatever, Snow Apocalypse 2025 or whatever it is.

Anyway, let's get on to happier things. Roy Wood Jr., former host, rotating host of The Daily Show, you know him, you know Roy Wood Jr. Roy Wood Jr. is very famous and he's blessed us by agreeing to come on our show. And so, let's do this. Why don't we take a break? And when we get back from that break, through the magic of tele-podcasting, we'll be in conversation. Tele-podcasting.

You haven't noticed over all these interviews that that's how I say it. I have, but it just hit me funny. It just goes to show, just like Astrid, Chrissy is usually tuned out of everything I'm saying. She's learned to tune my voice out. But through the magic of tele- telepodcasting Roy Wood Jr. After these words, we'll be back. I have a wild idea. Go to our Instagram and follow us at the commercial break and then go to our TikTok and follow us there at TCB podcast. And then go to our YouTube, youtube.com slash the commercial break and follow us there. And then text us at 212-433-3TCB and tell us that you followed us on all of those other places.

And then go to our website, tcbpodcast.com and browse, I guess. Well, those are all the ideas I have for today. So see you tomorrow. Bye. Hey, I'm Ben Stiller. I'm Adam Scott. And we make a TV show called Severance. Bye. Yep, each weekday beginning January 7th, we'll be dropping an episode featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes tidbits and brilliant insights from our cast and crew and us. Patricia Arquette, Britt Lauer, Zach Cherry, John Totoro, the list goes on. All your favorite Lumen employees, their friends, families, enemies, in your feed every single weekday.

And here's the best part. After that, we're gonna keep going. Tune in weekly as we recap every episode of Season 2. feed every single weekday. And here's the best part. After that, we're going to keep going. Tune in weekly as we recap every episode of Season 2. The podcast drops on the same day the episode comes out. It's The Severance Podcast with Ben and Adam. On Apple Podcasts, the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for coming on the show, man. This is an honor and a pleasure.

We are big fans and thank you for agreeing to spend a little time with us Clowns over here. Hopefully you're not out in LA. Are you in LA? Yeah, that's the question. No, I'm in New York, thankfully, but I got a lot of friends down bad out there. We're kind of still waiting for all the comedians to do a roll call. And we'll figure it out.

You know, same as COVID, you know, there's a charity called Comedy Gives Back. Yep. I remember. That did a huge telethon to make sure that entertainers, because you know, entertainment's the first thing to go when the world shuts down. So, you know, we'll look out for people. I know that there, you know, there is the assumption of, oh, well, it's all rich houses. So they're all straight.

It ain't all rich people up there. No, no. Yeah, that's true. I was just out there a couple of months ago, or maybe six months ago, eight months ago. It's not all rich people. And even, even in rich communities, there are people who service those communities and people who work in those communities and people who live in the... Your job was in this place, that building burnt down too. Yeah. And that is a terrible thing. Those images are apocalyptic. They really are. And to think that it's happening in a

major metropolitan city, it'd be like the great fire of Chicago or something, right? Yeah. I stopped looking and then the thing that got me mad about all of the fires in Los Angeles is, how can I put this? Do you remember when there would be a tragedy in this country? There would be a tragedy and then we would all cry and the news would cover it and then there would be all the magazine articles that show you all the pullets or photographs of the tragedy. And then we would move on from that tragedy. And then about a year after that tragedy, then you would get the conspiracy theories. Then those people would come out and go, Hey man, what happened didn't really happen. And you go, Oh, tell me more. But now the fuck fuck, it's right away.

The conspiracies are happening in real time with the fucking information, motherfucker. Let people get through the shit. This seems real fishy that there's a laser beam in that fire. Did you see that? Yes. Bro, the fire's still going.

Yeah. People are still trying to get out of their houses. I was reading. The disrespect the fire's still going. Yeah. People are still trying to get out of their houses. I was reading- The disrespect. It's crazy. I was reading that fucking X which is just a cesspool of shit right now. I'm sorry, I just gotta say it out loud.

I'm sure everybody's thinking it if they're not saying it out loud. But I still go to X when these events happen because you can see things in real time and a lot of times, at least in my algorithm, it's been tailored to me, so some of the noise is flirted out. But it's Jewish space lasers already, and it's this stuff, and I think you're right about this. Everybody is so keen to be sure that they know something

that everybody else doesn't, that they're fucking special, that they understand something everybody else doesn't understand. You're a moron. Yeah. Like, imagine having the discussion about the melting point of steel on September 12th. Yeah. At least you got the loose change documentary. What was that, like three years after the fact? Yes. Like, it was way after.

Now we can dissect government conspiracy, but now everything is happening at the same time. And I say all I have to say that when you start trying to place blame mid tragedy, then you are taking focus away from the recovery efforts and people even the compassion needed for people to have for those people. So I don't like that. Jared Sussman You are so right about this. In Los Angeles, this is affecting people who have platforms. So, I think it's like, some people who have platforms. So, it's kind of out loud. It's a megaphone. But there's still people, they still have homes with families. And, you know, yeah, okay, maybe some of those people will be able to recover

and financially they'll take less of a hit than other people, but everybody gets caught up and it's a major metropolitan city. It's a heartbeat of this country. And we should all care about the, the exacerbation of these things because of the way that we're shitting on the earth. Yeah, I'm getting it for sure.

It's just, it's fucking morons yelling, well, the mayor cut the funding on the fire department. Which if you dig deeper, it's not even a goddamn truth, and there was a lot of money still given to the fire. So there's no space for truth, because we don't even take time to feel anymore. We just, we don't care about folks. How did you get such an, you know,

when you were on The Daily Show, which is I think when a lot of us connected with you, right? And I know you've been doing this for a long time. No, but that's fair, it's fair to say. Unless you watched me on last comic standing season 10. Or I heard your morning show. Or I heard your morning show. Or I heard your morning show. Yeah, you know Alabama, you know that.

Buckwild. Number one. We're in Atlanta, we're close to Alabama. We're close. I've been over to Birmingham. Right after Memphis, yeah. Yeah. We actually met in the radio business, so we know a thing or two about radio.

So when I connected in the Daily Show, you have such an interesting perspective on things. It's smart, it's quick-witted, it's sharp, it is, I think, gentle enough that, or you're soft enough sometimes that I think it can be received no matter which perspective you have. And I think that is a mix that doesn't come around a lot. Where did you get this kind of worldview? Is this just like life

under your feet? Is this miles under your feet that gives you this? I mean, I grew up reading newspapers. I'm the child of a radio news journalist. Your dad was very famous, right? And so my dad was, you know, for his era, he was the first black in a lot of strange newsrooms. And he traveled the globe covering various conflicts, got shot at pretty much everywhere, including America, got shot at a lot of places he was covering bullshit. So I grew up in a house where Larry King Live was always on.

C-SPAN was always on. You know, granted it was in the back room and my dad was recording it, but it was on. You know, that shaped a lot of just being curious about the world. And like, I remember, I remember fourth grade, man, in the 80s, everybody, everybody could write a rap song, like the teacher, I don't know, it was one of those, if y'all stop being assholes, I'll let you rap on Fridays. Nice. The teacher was bargaining with you. Yes.

You know, one of those... Smart. One of those dangerous minds, Michelle, who's the actress? Michelle Pfeiffer. Yeah, one of those Michelle Pfeiffer, hey you black kids in the inner city, stop being mean. you black kids in the inner city. Stop being mean. And I wrote a rap song about Michael Dukakis running against George Bush.

Oh my God, I remember that. Everybody else, I'm rapping, I'm the hip of the hop of the basketball, it's my favorite sport. Just vote, vote for Dukakis, for Bush and Quail. So that's me. You can get out the vote. That's me, That's who I've always been. And so, you know, when I look at the world now, I majored in journalism. I had an eye for more quirky, weird stuff. I always enjoyed watching pieces by Jenny Moose on CNN, Kenny Maine as well.

People were a little quirk, a little different, their approach to the, a little more kaleidoscopic in how they view things. So that's kind of where it came from. Were you a fan of Anthony Bourdain? No, loved Bourdain. Bourdain is the gold standard for any shows that are pitched after him.

I couldn't agree more. It's the Bourdain for this, the Bourdain for this. The only person that I think was more ahead of the curve than Anthony Bourdain in a way is Dave Attell. Ah, Dave Attell. He had a show on Comedy Central called Insomniac. Right, I used to watch that. We would, yeah.

And Insomniac, he would go around third shifts, various cities, and it was kind of part Bourdain, part Dirty Jobs. You're right about that. It was a brilliant show. Brilliant show. Yeah, it really was. I was just talking to somebody that works here with us, like a booking agent, and she was talking about Dave Attell.

And I was like, Dave Attell, to me, is one of my heroes, because as a young man growing up, that show was mind-blowing. The fact that he could sit there and go with the garbage man in Manhattan for two hours, three hours on his shift or go into the city in the sewers or whatever, make it funny, make it interesting, but then teach you something along the way was,

it just broke the mold. He was fucking heckling tattoo artists, mitt needles while they were poking people. This man is psychotic, this is great. So this exploration of the world and what's going on and why things are the way they are, I had that. I get at The Daily Show and what changed was, The Daily Show, when you look at any world issue

and you're trying to mine humor from it, right? The more painful and terrible and horrific the thing is, there's not pain in the actual thing. The jokes come in the causation or the prevention. So- Wow, interesting. If you're looking at, say, the LA fires, we could go back and roll back the clocks

and look at Mayor Karen Bass and her policies regarding fire funding. Find truth in that or not, go back and roll back the clocks and look at Mayor Karen Bass and her policies regarding fire funding. Find truth in that or not. Or you can go on the angle of conspiracy theorists muddying the information pool when people are trying to evacuate. So those are two realms where you could crack jokes safely and it's not at the expense of the people that are suffering the most. The victims. True.

Yeah. So, The Daily Show gave me an eye for that. Because Trevor Noah, my comedy before Daily Show was very angry. I was rooted in anger. Anger was the main ingredient from which I mined the humor where you can change anger into why is or have you ever noticed and you can go to the same places and People are more inclined to receive that I Think yeah, I think that's that's a really keen observation and it's a keen way of looking at things and

May maybe that is part of the ingredient that attracts me to your comedy, is that it's not, you're not coming at someone hot. There are comedians who do this really well, right? There are comedians who do this well. And I think, who is the, Lewis Black was one of the guys. Lewis Black is great. He's great. Ron Chang is kind of like a new Lewis Black-ish in a way.

Agreed. He can get ranty. I just, I can't do it. Also, I think my face is too round. You want to. Teddy bear face. So as we were recording this, Jimmy Carter's getting laid to rest.

And Jimmy Carter, probably the best ex-president that ever lived, I think some people would argue that maybe not the best president that ever lived, but he certainly was a man who dedicated the second half of his life to amazing things, right? We were watching and I'm interested to hear your perspective. We were watching some of the coverage of this and we see all of the ex-presidents are sitting there in the first two rows. Five, yeah. And Trump over there chuckling with Obama. He's chuckling with Obama and then Bush, Bush walks into the row.

Obama stands up to, because Laura Bush is there with, with George and so he stands up, I imagine to let them in and to be a gentleman and Trump doesn't even look at them nor does George Bush look at him. What, Roy, what is your take? I think it's so insane that even when petty, it's petty bullshit. And there are six people on this earth, five people on this earth now that are alive that have been the most powerful,-unquote men in the world and Usually the funerals are where we can at least act like civilized fucking human beings for a minute But this guy can't even for two seconds swallow his fucking I don't know what it is Here's the here's the bigger thing you missed as well

Michelle Obama's not there. I thought that too earlier. I was like, she doesn't even want to be in the room with him. But if you know you got to sit by Trump and Melania, maybe you don't want to do it. You know, you're looking at the same thing the week before when Vice President Harris is swearing in all the members of Congress. And the husband of one of the Nebraska. Doesn't shake her hand.

Wouldn't shake the arm, wouldn't shake her hand. Yeah. This is your wife's first day at work, asshole. Why are you even here when they're giving out name tags? Yeah. It is unbelievably insane to me. What is your take on- These are the same people that go,

we need to come across the aisle, we need to come together. Right, work together. We got together, we're together. You won't even shake my hand and another dudes fucking funeral Roy they can't even get in the same aisle together they can't even shake hands when they're on the same aisle it's become a totally dysfunctional I mean the government has been dysfunctional for a lot of people for a long time it doesn't work for many people and I think that's part of the reason why we end up

with a second Trump term but what is your take on it? It's like award shows. It's like award shows. I went to the BET Awards and they like literally have like the seat place signs the day before for rehearsal. Yeah. And you're like, okay, we got to make sure 50 cent can't be next to Ja Rule, but Ja Rule can't be too close to Ashanti. But he elevates this guy.

So Ashanti sits here, they have to move Nelly and Ashanti over here. But Jay-Z, he's not confirmed. Ooh, he's excited. Shanti, but Nelly hates this guy. Shanti sits here, they have to move Nelly and they shun you over here. But Jay-Z, he's not confirmed. Whoa. I don't know. Like it's that weird thing, but with old politics. With old white men. I think that we're in a bad place.

And I think even within Trump's cabinet right now, you're still seeing infighting and disgrace. So they can't even come across the aisle on the same side of the aisle. So I really think to a degree, a lot of this presidential term will come down to how efficient of a cabinet he has. Pete Slauson Yeah. Pete Slauson This isn't even about Congress or the Senate or This isn't even about Congress or the Senate or the House coming together and can they... No. Can you motherfuckers at your private decide on what you're going to propose for the people

to argue about in the chambers? I couldn't agree with you more. You can't do it, can you? No, they can't. Argue about immigration. What's the best you got so far, motherfuckers? Oh, let's buy Greenland. Change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

Imminent domain? That's what he voted for? Hey, I make Canada the 51st state, you fucking idiots. It's unbelievable. I don't even think Panama has a standing army. I mean, you're picking a fight with someone that I don't even think has a standing army. Why don't they go down there and take their little river dock machine? I know. And by the way, Mexico's building a better river dock machine. So I don't think

the Panama Canal is going to be as valuable as Trump thinks it is. When you did a special, I wanted to say this to you, you did a special, I watched it a couple of months ago and I was reminded before you came on of the very beginning of the special, you start talking about the National Anthem and how uncool it is, and if you just made a cooler National Anthem, maybe we could all stand for patriotism a little bit more. But don't you agree that this was done well one time, one time by Whitney Houston, the National Anthem was sung in a way where we could all get the feels about the national anthem. I'm not gonna say what I'm saying in an unpatriotic sense. I'm simply asking a question of why at fun shit do we have to sing the anthem and remember the country's great. Don't forget, America good.

And now football. No, you should be singing this shit. I got audited, I've been audited three times by the IRS and I don't know if you've ever been in a labor dispute with an employee over like wages and stuff where it gets really messy and you have to go up to the Department of Labor in New York State, I had to drive up to Albany

to prove I did not owe this fucking guy what he said, I owed him. And I was very angry at how fucked up this country is that someone can literally just, on a sheet of paperwork and a rumor without even having an opportunity for discourse have all my shit fucking frozen. So I can't even do business with the other people just on a sheet of paperwork and a rumor without even having an opportunity for discourse, have all my shit fucking frozen,

so I can't even do business with the other people that are honest and that I wanna pay. No way. That's awful. Now you should make me stand for the anthem, because I'm not feeling very patriotic right now. Yeah, exactly. Because this country is fucked,

and the way you allow people to fuck each other and the Rockets red hair, don't forget America is good. That's, that's, when you're at the DMV for four fucking hours, yeah, before you leave, sing the shit. Yeah. I'm gonna give you your license. Yeah. That's so true.

I understand the need for the anthem, but I just wish we would write a new one that was jamming a little harder. Just because something's old doesn't mean we have to keep doing it. True. Yeah, no, I don't disagree with you. Yeah, I don't disagree with you. You can strive for more.

And that was the funny, when you get into the idea of research, and to your earlier question to me, journalistically, the idea of doing research on a topic, I find fascinating. And it wasn't until I wrote that joke, and I went, well, where did the anthem, we know Francis Scott Key made the flag,

but who wrote the anthem? And then you realize, the anthem is a remake of a British song. Oh, this is right, you've talked about this in a special. That's right. So it's not even an original fucking track. This shit we've been singing this whole time is based on a beat by the motherfuckers we whooped.

Yeah. I'm nominating you to come up with something new. Maybe we should have a new anthem. And that was all that was. And thankfully, the real patriots didn't get mad. They understood where I was coming from. Well, I mean, I think we can all agree that the national anthem as a jam is a little bit outdated.

As a jam, it's a little bit outdated. But it- The BPMs are too low. I know, but I still, every time I hear that Whitney, BPMs are too low. Every time I hear that version by Whitney Houston, gives me chills on my spine. I think that's the only version of the National Anthem

that has given me chills. It's the only one I would counter with Jimi Hendrix on the guitar. Oh yeah, that's a classic. That's like Woodstock where he did it. Yeah, he did it at Woodstock and he did it at the Montreal Jazz Fest. Also, and there's two versions that float around. The one where he set the guitar on fire was the Montreal one, but man, yeah, he slayed it.

It's like, okay, give me that. Yes. But otherwise, just let the game start. We know America's dope. I don't, you know, or maybe like after you, like when the McGrib comes back, commercial. The McGrib. You think this country's fucked up,

but then the McGrib came like right after the election and I was perfect timing. You think that's not a coincidence? No, it be happening. The mainstream we don't want you to realize this because they give us the food to pacify us and we don't get angry about the election I saw a laser beam in the fire and the fire came right after they took the McGreeable way I ain't saying that the McGreeable keeps us peaceful that guy have two million followers while I'm struggling to get three likes on a fucking TikTok.

This is a fucking crazy shit, Roy. We have been saying that we've been doing this for five years. No bluster in these sales. I'm just going to say it like it is. We tend to be somewhere near the up of the charts of the podcast universe. We've been blessed in our audio sense. But we're on the struggle fucking bus to get anybody to pay attention to us on social media. It is the worst. The algorithm has put us in algorithm jail. My penis is small. I don't know

what's going on, but at YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, it's just so difficult. But then I will see, yeah, I will see an old white man with his shirt off, with big old man titties flopping around to some song. And he's got six million followers and anything that he does, he farts on the camera and then he gets 50,000 likes. It's unbelievable. This is what's wrong with this country. And a brand deal.

And then some brand you drink They give him a hundred thousand. Hey, I'm fart man. When I'm farting, I drink, again, extreme murder water. Or whatever they call it now. Right. Death. It's me, McGillicuddy Floppy Titties here for murder war. Mouth Drown.

He, uh, you know, uh, I, when I, this is like, tell me about the daily show. Your take on leaving the daily show to me was, I think you said it best. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I saw a number of places where you said this and I know this is a little bit old news, but I'm interested in it. You said, Hey, listen, I know that I am dispensable because that's what happens in media. Everybody, all personalities are dispensable. Everybody's dispensable. My brother works in media, we work in me, we know it, in entertainment in general. So, before somebody else has a chance to take control of my destiny, I'm going to take control of my own destiny. I'm going to call the shots. And I thought that was, I thought that was brilliantly said. Do you feel, um, not vindicated, but do you feel good about leaving The Daily Show? Has that

been, does that feel like a good move? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the, I think that, I think that when you look at people who make choices that people call brave or good or bold, who make choices that people call brave or good or bold, you have to look at their assessment of fear and what they're jumping into. I didn't feel like in leaving The Daily Show, I was jumping into anything that I hadn't already been in before. I've swam in these waters.

What, career uncertainty, not sure what's next, trying to figure it out? Yeah, I know those waters really well. I've been in this place, but every other time I was in those waters, I was pushed in the pool. Yeah. So I can look around here and I can go, okay, there is no host. Ha-Sum-Min-Ha is out. You don't know when or what. This is before John, I left before John Stewart was even a rumor. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So John Stewart returning I mean so

Huh? Well, if you don't know what the fuck I Could stay for a little while but eventually It's gonna be what the fuck. Yeah, yeah, And I don't know, I should probably start thinking about what I wanna do next. Yeah. Because if I'm not careful. And that's now you're seeing it.

And keep in mind, but keep in mind, at that time, that show had no host, correspondents were guest hosting, which was working fine for the ratings. I thought so, I thought it was good, yeah. Fine, but this company's in a merger. What if you merge and you don't wanna do this show no more? And don't tell me that that's not a possibility,

oh, this show has been on, it's an institution. All these shits is institutions. Until they're not. Anything's possible. Until they're not, yeah. 1230 on CBS was an institution. That's right. And then you're like, no, we're not gonna spend that kind of money anymore. We'll do something that's cool and affordable

and we'll do after midnight. How cool? So what is bulletproof when you're in an era where they will shoot a 30 million, a 50 million, a 100 million dollar movie and not even release that bitch? That's crazy. Because it does not even release that bitch. It's crazy. Because it does not make sense. Wow.

So that's fucking expendable. So anything is fucking possible. So now, with that understanding of the landscape, and you're on a show that, and then you're looking at everything that's going on with media companies and uploading, we're making less shows, we're laying off people. The writers just ended. Um, we're going to pay writers more, but to offset it, we're going to make less

shows. We're like, so I don't know what's going on, but I do know an election year is coming up and I know what I do really well is talk shit about. And I know what I do really well is talk shit about politics. Yes. So if there's ever an opportunity to build a new place for myself, it is going to be now. And it is evident to me, per my conversations with Comedy Central, this ain't nothing to do with the Daily Show producers.

This is above them. And I know for a fact within Comedy Central, y'all aren't trying to build any new fucking pedestals right now. You're not trying to put nothing on after Daily Show right now? And you got a child to feed, then you're probably smarter to leave now and figure it out and you're blessed enough to be able to go and sell a special to Hulu and go sell a book and sell two TV shows. And that'll kite you, that'll kite you. That'll get you to the next thing.

Yeah, congratulations. Yeah, congratulations. So we're out and we, it's not like a full parachute, but it's like that drag chute. Yeah. To start slowing you down Yeah, hopefully you get a hope you land somewhere. Well, I would say I mean I've now seen the Hulu special promoted in a number of different places on the 17th, right? Yeah. Yeah, Jerry

I think I think this was a I think this was a good move because you're right It's like, okay, you could keep on doing the spinny wheel thing and John coming back made sense, I guess, in context for Comedy Central or whoever was doing that and kudos to John for towing the line through the terrible election. But at the end of the day, you writing your own check. I think that's what I like about podcasting,

if I'm being honest. We all come from radio, you come from radio. Radio is a place where you learn really quickly that you are, the personalities are treated like such shit. Talent is not fostered, it's not welcome, it's not loved on. Yeah. Once you know that pedigree.

Once you know that. Once you know that. Yeah. You know what to do. Anytime shit look weird, you go. I'm fucking gone once you know that you know that yeah, you know what shit look weird Yeah, you fucking go fucking gone. That's right I'm leaving now because this shit looks weird and I don't know what the fuck. Yes, and I think John Oh with John if you knew John Stewart was gonna be there would you have left? No, I would have fucking stayed That's John Stewart, but I still would have been wondering, what's next?

Cause it ain't gonna be hosting this, cause it's fucking Jon Stewart. So now, if anything, being with Jon Stewart or some other, I would have stayed with Hassan too. Like, I would have bought some time, but that five months of the writer's strike gave me a moment to go, wait a minute, what the fuck? I need to be in control and I'm going to be,

I'm eating at other people's tables, bitch, I got to build mine. So the idea of, man, I remember in radio, man, I've seen so many motherfuckers get fired. So, oh my God. Yeah, we did too. Me too. But I mean, you know, you go home one night

and they would change the format of the station. The whole fucking station would get fired. At one in the morning. And then you come in and everybody be like, I guess we're selling Spanish now. I guess that's what's happening. We had the reverse. We had,

AGG was 1320 and then it was like 680, La Mexicana, La Mexicana. Birmingham's number one for La Mexicana. And they was playing all the Latino shit, and then one night, I'm just in the production room, I hear like, ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. And then at midnight, on the nose,

Jesus, you're the center of my joy. They will flip a format and email you motherfuckers in the dead of night until you don't come in. We've already boxed your shit. That's it. We're going to FedEx it to you. So I'm not waiting for that one. I know that's one of the possibilities right now.

I think that's why it's so difficult to be in entertainment for someone like you right now. How many comedians we've talked to that say, well, listen, you know, the Netflix special is great, but I went to Veep's because I can kinda, you know, control my own destiny a little bit. Like everybody has to make their own lane and those lanes are getting smaller and smaller

and harder and harder to define. And so you have nobody else to rely on except for yourself and possibly a team if you're lucky enough to have one. And that's it. But the good news is, I think out of this, is that the world is evolving in a way, technology is evolving in a way,

that we can make our own lane and we don't always need the huge players in the game to kind of get from point A to point B and make a living doing this. But hey, listen, having a Hulu, having a special on Hulu or having the comfort of a daily show check or whatever it is, is still a good thing, right?

It's still a thing that feels good at night when you lay your head down and you go, well, at least tomorrow I go into Comedy Central and I get a nice paycheck on the 15th and the 1st. That's it, right? And I work with great people and talented. I mean, you spent what, six years there? Was it six years?

Eight years? You spent eight years. So, you know, and that was a great run, but it was, if whatever I'm gonna do next, this is the year to go do it. This has been a great job and a great opportunity, but I know this is not permanent, regardless of John Stewart, John Oliver,

Colbert, they all could have come back one by one and all had a respective day. Sooner or later, my time here is finite. Yeah. Your time in any place is finite. So if you want to do more, then you're gonna have to leave. So when you leave, can either be up to you

or can be up to them. And so I just chose to leave and I'll figure it out. I always have. I started this shit sleeping on the fucking bus. So don't talk to me about, oh, there's a big chance. Are you scared? I know at minimum, at minimum, I can leave my house right now and there are 30 cities I can travel to where strangers will show

me love and I will give them jokes in exchange for money and my bills will be paid, my son will be straight, his mama too. And that's all that matters. That's all that matters. As long as I got that. All this other shit is extra gravy, bro. So I tell my wife, I tell my wife, I say, hey, listen, babe, in times of struggle, and there have been, especially during the pandemic, right when we're starting the podcast, in times of struggle, financial struggle, I told my wife, I said, babe, at the very least, I know I can pick up the phone and start shaking the tree and something will

fall out of it. It may not be a brand new car or a beautiful big house, but it'll be food that we can put on the table. I know I'm smart enough to do that and I know I have the ability to do that. And in life, if I can give that to my kids, if I can give that same attitude and skill set to my kids to maneuver, to make it happen, then I will have given them the biggest blessing ever because in this life you need to learn a couple things and one of them is it's all on you. Ain't no one coming to save you, not the government,

sometimes not friends and family, even though they may want to. Yeah, if you wanna get something done, do it. Yeah, and I think you take the best attitude in the world about The Daily Show when you say, hey listen, the tail is gonna wag the dog on this one and I'm gonna make it. So the Hulu special comes out on the 17th.

Yeah. And you're doing one with CNN. Hulu's on the 17th and CNN, we're back season two, have I got news for you. Great show. I'm excited. You can stream the last couple episodes on Max. All we're doing is doing a fake quiz show

about the week that was in politics, but a lot of these issues are timeless So I think it makes the show still very streamable. Yeah, that's not a word We made it a word. We just made it a word. It's a streamable Senior floppy tits on the stream of Roy Wood Jr.'s brand new streaming platform. That comes in 2027. How was the, how was doing the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2023? Yeah, that must have been a highlight.

That was chaos. It's wild. You can look out, you can do a political joke, look out and you can see Caitlyn Jenner staring at you with a scowl. And then you look two tables over and it's Lester Holt grinning. Yeah, that's gotta be wild. Just... And not like a full-throated laugh because these are still his colleagues and joking about. But it was that... It was a black man giving me that encouraging...

You got it, brother. Mr. Miyagi at the end of the first karate kick when Daniel wins, he looks on at him and smiles and goes, hmm. That's great. I think when you do the White House Correspondence Dinner, you have officially made it. They ask you to get up there and roast them. Listen, the White House Correspondence Dinner and Jimmy Carter's funeral are the two places where we're supposed to be at least a little bit jovial and kind to each other.

We'll see. We'll see if they even have a Correspondence Dinner this upcoming year. Didn't it get canceled? Yeah. I hope they don't just have some author or something. I really hope they Roy Wood Jr. For the White House Correspondents Dinner Would you grab an award show would you if you had if you were given the option to do the Golden Globes Would or one of those, would you

jump up there and do that? I'd say yes to all those shits, man. They're fun. And in fact, I would argue those are more difficult, award shows are more difficult than a correspondence dinner because politicians and journalists don't necessarily take themselves as serious as actors. Yeah. That's true.

Politicians aren't going to necessarily argue, they're not going to laugh at everything because of the politics of the room. But actors, how dare you make a joke about anything? And why would you make a joke about him? He is a stellar performer. Wow, that was a mean joke. It's a lot of that shit. So if you can make those people laugh, then that's a whole different world. I'd say the only room that's probably more difficult or an actor that I think does a great job hosting I think is underrated is Anthony Anderson with the NAACP Image Awards.

I think he's done some stuff with the Emmys, but when you're dealing with a room full of black folks and reverence and history and culture and how dare you and civil rights and you can get them to laugh? Yeah. Yeah. Anthony is really funny, by the way. And I thought Nikki did a good job at the Golden Globes, by the way.

No knock on her. I heard she got paid a pretty big... Astrid asked me and my wife asked me, how much do you think those people get paid? And I said, I don't know that they get paid much at all because it's just like raising their profile, you know, they get, but I was wrong. It's kind of like Super Bowl hosting. I don't know what Nikki got, but I know the Emmys pays dick and I know that the correspondence dinner doesn't pay much. And I say not much in the sense of this is just enough to turn around and just pay your writers.

Right. And stuff like that. Yeah. She said on Stern, I think she said she got paid close to half a million dollars to do the hosting. That's good. Yeah, that's not a bad... That's good. She's got a team of four.

That's a solid day. We have to do 200 episodes of this show to gross that. Roy Wood Jr.'s brand new special is out on Hulu. Just a couple of days from now, we're releasing this just a few days from when it comes out. We'll make it Roy Wood Jr. week. We're gonna make sure we talk about it. We'll have the links in the show notes.

CNN season number two. Roy, you are welcome back anytime. It is honestly, we have been so excited about this since we agreed to it. Yeah, thanks for coming on. And I have enjoyed watching you get super famous and I hope you continue to kill it. We're on your side. I appreciate it.

And next time I'm on, I'll have the right map where Africa is the right side. That's right. Thank you. Thank you. I've been saying this. And so has the West Wing for a long time. That's what I learned about it on the West Wing. But anyway, that's for the next conversation.

Thanks, Roy. We appreciate it. Have a good one. I learned about it on the West Wing. But anyway, that's for the next conversation. Thanks, Roy. We appreciate it. Have a good one. Have you got a hankering down deep in your soul to tell us what's up? Well, I am encouraging you to do just that. Text us at 212-433-3TCB and tell us what's going on. Give us the haves.

Tell us the dirty secrets of your life. That's all we've ever wanted to hear. You can also leave us a voicemail at the same number that's 212-433-3822. And also, follow us on Instagram at The Commercial Break and on TikTok at TCB Podcast. And if you want to see any video episodes, you can go to youtube.com slash The Commercial Break and they are all right there. And if your hankering is not to tell us what's up but it's for a new sticker I'm sure there's probably one on the website go to tcbpodcast.com click contact us and find

I want my free sticker. I know you can do it and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on anything and everything. Love you bye. Bye. Okay, so like a little behind the scenes about Roy in our interview with Roy, 99,999% of the time. Guest comes on through this little software portal that we have. The magic of tele-podcasting. The magic of tele-podcasting. We have the guests come on, we do a little chitty-chatty,

we explain how the show goes and the structure of the show and then we tell them, okay, we do a little chitty-chatty, we explain how the show goes and the structure of the show, and then we tell them, okay, we're now going to go into the interview portion. But we were so engrossed in conversation with Roy right from the beginning that we never even did that. You actually heard everything that had to do, every moment of the conversation with Roy Wood Jr., which is unusual, quite frankly, for us. But I think that's good.

You know, you pointed out the new Severance podcast, which is is unusual, quite frankly, for us. But I think that's good. You know, you pointed out the new Severance podcast, which is on Odyssey, our network, and you can go download it for, download the Odyssey app for free and then you can listen to Severance or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. And I say this because I love Severance. And ours too. And ours too. And I say this because I love Severance, the show, and I am so excited that on the same day Roy Wood Jr.'s new special comes out, the next episode of Severance will be out. It's very exciting.

Chrissy pointed out to me last night, she called me and she said, or she texted me and she said, hey, listen, did you listen to the Severance podcast where they were talking about podcast guesting? Uh-huh. Like, who was the guest? What, on the Severance one? On Severance. Yeah, it was the guy that Lauren Ruffin What, on the Severance one? Jared Ranere On Severance. Lauren Ruffin Yeah, it was the guy that plays, I think his name's Zach, but he plays Dylan.

Jared Ranere Oh, that's right. His name is Zach, you're right. Okay, so Zach is on there with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott, and they are talking and he is explaining that it's often a little uncomfortable with podcasts because they either have to be in the studio or on some phone call or video phone call for 30 or 40 minutes while the guests listen to the hosts blabber on like they're not even there. Exactly. So weird. So the guy, the guy, Zach was like, yeah, I thought I had more phone time. Sorry. You're ready to go into it. Yeah. I thought I, I thought I had time to waste. Oh, you actually want to talk to me. Yeah. But Chrissy and I made a decision a long time ago. I'm glad we're not doing that. That the guests would probably leave immediately. If we had them, we just

had to go in and talk to them. If they had to listen to us for 15 to 20 minutes before they actually came on. So we don't make them suffer through that. Anyway. All right. So Roy Wood Jr. new special on Hulu, January 17th. Please do check it out. What a good guy. I really had enjoyed my conversation. Very pleasurable. I, I, there's some guests you see you could go out and have coffee or a beer with.

And then there's other guests where they're good. It's a great conversation, but you're like, I don't know if I could sit. I don't know that we would get along had the lights and cameras not been on. Right. Not got along, but had such a good conversation. If it wasn't, I feel like Roy was one of those people you could go and sit and have a beer with and you would feel very comfortable that you wouldn't run out of conversation.

He's got an interesting life. He really has. And from radio to last comic standing to daily show to now, you know, a man of the people. Specials and CNN, yeah. Yeah. I look forward to seeing what's next with Roy. All right. So, all the links in the show notes, go check out his special and we're going to

catch you tomorrow on another episode of The Commercial Break. Sorry, Christina and I just- Your conversations in your hands. Yeah, baseball hand signals to each other. You guys do need like a, some signals. We do. It's this. Yeah, I just point over there when I want to end the show.

All right. Well, you know how to get ahold of us. DCB podcast.com. That's where you find more information about the show. All the show notes, all the sponsors, links and codes, all of our guests information. You can get your free TCB swag. You can do that by hitting the contact us button drop down menu. I want my free sticker. Give us your physical address and we will send you something. Please do. 212-433-3822, 212-433-3TCB. Questions, comments, concerns, content ideas. We do take them all there. You can also leave a voicemail if you're

so inclined. But if you leave a voicemail, we may play it here on air. So just be mindful of that. Add the commercial break on Instagram, TCB podcast on TikTok. We're up to past 5,000. Come on, let's keep the momentum going. We're getting very close to 6,000. And I will tell you this, not because of our listeners, but because of the Venezuelans. Exactly.

That reel just doesn't know how to stop. It just keeps going and going. Every time I open up, every time I look at Instagram, it's another hundred notifications. Wow. Who knew? Who knew? Throwaway line. Anyway, speaking of Venezuelans, a special episode with our good friend and my brother-in-law Gustavo will be broadcast later on this week on Saturday special bonus episode for you so tune in and if you want to know what's important about Venezuela and how to bed your own Venezuelan if you want to get a Venezuelan in bed I'm gonna teach you

how so tune in this Saturday like talking to him about betting his sister well it won't be the first time or the last time I've had that conversation thank God he's cool that's all I gotta say thank God he's cool we have the many time I've had that conversation Thank God, he's cool. That's all I gotta say. He's the best. Thank God. He's cool. We have the many kids I think he knows what's going on. You know what I'm saying? YouTube.com slash the commercial break for every single episode on Video including this one with Roy. So go check it out subscribe like comment on your favorite video. We'd appreciate it Okay, Chrissy. That's all I can do for today I think so. I'll tell you that I love you best you best you best you out there in the podcast universe Until next time Chrissy and I will say we do say and we must say good What's your profanity.