Roy Wood Jr.

While in college, Wood worked as a morning news reporter for Birmingham, Alabama, radio station WBHJ 95.7 Jamz Hot 105.7. He began focusing on a career in comedy after filling in for the station's in-house comedian, Rickey Smiley.[5][9]

In 1998, when he was 19, Wood began his career as a standup.[10] Wood recalls that he passed on his midterm tests, essentially failing the semester, in order to open for Tommy Davidson.[11] Wood spent his last two years of college doing dishes on the weekends.[12]

In 2001, after graduating from college, Wood returned to Birmingham and became the head writer/producer for the Buckwilde Morning Show (WBHJ 95.7 JAMZ), a position he held until 2006.[5] He continued working in radio, providing prank calls and content to various morning shows nationally and contributing to Jamie Foxx's Foxxhole station on Sirius XM Radio.[5] Wood released three prank call CDs: My Momma Made Me Wear This (2003), Confessions of a Bench Warmer (2005), and I'll Slap You to Sleep (2007).[9] Wood's pranks have been featured on numerous hip-hop mix tapes.

In 2007, Wood moved to Los Angeles.[5]

In 2010, Wood finished third in the seventh season of NBC's Last Comic Standing[13] and began hosting his own morning show, The Roy Wood Jr Show. The show garnered top ratings and won 'Large Market Morning Show of the Year' from the Alabama Broadcasters Association for several years.

From 2011 to 2014, Wood appeared on the TBS sitcom Sullivan & Son.[14] He had a guest starring role in the first season, but was then promoted to series regular for the second and third seasons. Sullivan & Son was canceled in 2014.

In 2013, Wood's first stand-up comedy CD, Things I Think, I Think, was released.

In 2015, he was cast by ABC to play alongside Whoopi Goldberg in the comedy pilot Delores and Jermaine; the show did not make it beyond the pilot stage.[15]

In 2015, Wood joined The Daily Show as a correspondent.[10] Wood moved to New York City to take the job.[12] Wood has said that his background in standup coupled with his degree in journalism prepared him for the job.[16] Wood said that his work doing guest roles in sports on ESPN and related companies prepared him for The Daily Show, giving him experience with acting, timing, and building characters.[2][4]

His first Comedy Central stand-up special, Father Figure, premiered in 2017, with an extended uncensored album of the same name released by Comedy Central Records. In 2017, he was named the new host of Comedy Central's storytelling series This Is Not Happening. Wood's second Comedy Central special, Roy Wood Jr.: No One Loves You, premiered in 2019.

Wood has appeared as a comic on many late night talk shows, including the Late Show with David Letterman, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Chelsea Lately, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Conan. Wood has performed for the troops on numerous USO tours in the Middle East and the Pacific Islands.[17]

In 2018, it was announced that Wood planned on shooting a TV show in Jefferson County, Alabama.[18] The pilot, called Jefferson County Probation, started shooting in May 2019.[19] As of March 2020, a completed pilot for the show, now called Jefferson County: Probation, was shot for Comedy Central, with the show in development.[20] The show, created in collaboration with Aaron McGruder (The Boondocks), is about two probation officers in Jefferson County, Alabama. It is loosely inspired by a 1998 experience Wood had as a 19-year-old college student, when he was arrested for stealing $400 to $500 worth of blue jeans and was sentenced to probation.[4]

In 2019, Wood did a series of YouTube videos centered on the Popeyes chicken sandwich craze called The Coalition (Chicken Sandwich Coalition).[4][21]

In 2021, he was a guest on the PBS series Finding Your Roots, where he described how he unexpectedly got probation at 19 for using credit cards he stole while a mail sorter for the US Postal Service to buy fashion jeans, and where it was revealed that he was a distant cousin of Congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis.[22]

In 2023, Wood hosted the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. [23]

On October 5, 2023, it was announced that Wood had quit The Daily Show and would not be returning as a correspondent.[24]