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- [00:02]
A
Welcome back. It's another Bob and Tom extra. This is Christopher. Not only is the Bob and Tom show live every weekday morning, but every afternoon we'll give you a little extra. In case you missed anything on today's big show, It's Roy Wood Jr. He's coming up in just a minute.
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B
Rocks.
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A
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B
The animal walks into a bar joke hotline. Here's today's animal walks into a bar joke. What's a recording? A horse walks into a bar, right? The bartender walks over and says, hey bud, why the long face? Thank you.
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So just one per day.
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One joke per day. Now some more Bob and Tom. This is Bob and Tom Extra.
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We're going to get hooked up, I think in just a second with comedian Roy Wood Jr. The man is a fine stand up comedian and he's asleep there. There he is. Hey, Roy. Now an author. The book is called the man of Many Fathers Life Lessons Disguised as a Memoir. I'm a couple hours in. Roy. I just got it yesterday on and you, you did the audible version. You read it and I, I enjoy the fact that there's some bad words in there especially. You start. Even though it's about fatherhood and fathers, it starts off with a lot about your mom and some of your adventures with your mom. It's great stuff. I'm really fascinated by the background of your life and a couple of exotic spots you lived in a bunch of different places. And I have a question I want to ask right away about it,
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and
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it's about you don't have an. You don't have a Southern accent at all. And yet you were.
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B
Well, I don't know where you got that there from that time. What you got to figure out, man,
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A
because you spent the bulk of your time in Birmingham and then you were in Tennessee, you were in Mississippi. And my question is, is, did you work on losing your accent or did you ever have one? And I asked this. I remember we spoke to Dan Rather once, and he was from Texas, and he said when he started in broadcasting, he had to work on getting rid of his accent. And your dad was a famous broadcaster and I've had occasion to hear a lot of him lately. Your late father, some recordings of your dad. And he had an amazing voice. Did that. Was that part of the reason you're so. You have such a great speaking voice?
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B
I think so. My dad would force me to re pronounce words. My mother's a college educator. My father is a journalist who must always enunciate every word and use every muscle in your throat. So it just wasn't there. Then I majored in journalism, and then they make you take voice and diction classes. Now, granted, I was learning how to speak proper English in the Florida Panhandle, so I don't know if I ever was taught proper English in Tallahassee, but it slowly kind of just got dissolved away. But I will tell you, if you give me enough liquor, what day that's so the next thing gonna come right back in time. I'll be right back there, boy. I'm like, man, boy, you better pull it up, man. We gotta drink this.
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A
I used to always notice that Barack Obama would sort of shift gears in front of certain audiences with his voice. One of the funny things you talk about in the book, you had a very unusual living arrangement with your dad off and on, but he would drag you to the radio station at five in the morning, which is what I did to my sons for years. And you would sit there in the air booth and watch him, and if you made any noise, he'd whack you with a newspaper.
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B
I didn't know that. This noise is going out over the air to millions of people in syndication. I'm trying to enjoy a biscuit from Hardee's. And my dad could literally just be talking, and then you could just Hear him in the WAGW News Center. I am Roy Wood. The top. It's 7:20. You can just hear, like a stutter step and like, oh, that was the slap.
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A
And we should point out Roy Wood Jr. Is our guest. He's a very fine standup comedian and his father was a very distinguished broadcaster. A very serious guy, very tight with the dollar. You tell some great stories about your ability to earn money on the side without telling him because he didn't want to part with a dollar. But he was very well known and went everywhere with the civil rights movement. Went to Vietnam, went to Africa, covered all kinds of stuff. But what struck me is you mentioned that you would follow him around on weekends and he would be doing, like, lectures at churches, et cetera. And you said that kind of reminds you of what your career has been like, standing in front of crowds. But maybe I'm not deep enough in the book. Did your father have a sense of humor at all?
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B
No, I don't think my dad ever laughed. He might have laughed at the barbershop or something, but he never watched sitcoms either. When I really sat and really reflected about my pops, because the book is essentially, well, you need to know who he is to know who I am. But he died at 16. So I learned stuff from other people. But what I really reflected, my dad did nothing but watch the news and Jeopardy. That's it. There was no chuckles. Not never. You remember the Soul Train story? My dad didn't know how to have fun. My dad could have been a part of the Soul Train empire with Don Cornelius and then told Don Cornelius, nobody wants to watch black people dance for an hour. It's a terrible idea.
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A
And your dad is the guy that got darn Cornelius into broadcasting? Yeah.
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B
Hired him from the Chicago Police Department, Said, hey, man, you got a good voice. Stop carrying a gun and come hold this microphone. And Don agreed and built a whole empire. So my dad did nothing but cover struggle in all of the worst moments globally from the 1950s all the way, say, through the Rodney King riots. I just think somewhere in there, you just lose your ability to laugh. I just. I just think he lost it. And I don't think he ever really knew smiling or happiness or anything like that.
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A
Did you ever do anything funny in front of him? Obviously you didn't become a stand up comedian for. Until he'd been long gone, but did you ever, like, do a speech in front of him at a class, anything like that?
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B
No. Well, I got in Duncan Booth in the seventh grade for my Soccer team to raise money for uniforms. And he came and cussed me out at the bake sale about, about, you know, you nobody's fool and nobody needs to be out here getting dunked in water for a uniform. You are being foolish.
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A
We're talking to Roy Wood Jr. Roy's book is called the man of Many Fathers Life Lessons Disguised as a Memoir. I'm a couple of hours into that. I'm doing the audiobook, Roy. And there's, there's, there's a little bit of cursing in it, even as a youth. But on your. On stage, you know, you don't curse a lot on stage.
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No, not a lot. And I felt like if I was quoting someone and something that they would have actually said, then we're gonna let the cuss word fly. We don't, we don't let it fly here and there just to, just to add a little bit of flavor, you know, to the book. A little bit.
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A
One thing I didn't know, I may not have the number right, but you were when you were born, your dad was what, 60 something?
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B
Yeah, my dad was 63 when I was born. But I have to give context to that because 63 is one of them ages that could look a lot of different ways. My dad was 63, but he looked 45. You know, he was one of them. He was one of them old players like that. And my mom was 30 or 31, I think, somewhere in there. So it was a different relationship. And I think once you get to an age where your parents can give you advice, if you have older parents, you don't really get the same childhood. You don't get to play catch and throw the ball and walk in the park. You get people that are trying to prepare you for life because they feel like they don't have a lot of time left with you. And I think that's kind of where my father and I's relationship got reduced to him just kind of taking me around to grown up stuff and him telling me about life as a whole and less so about. Let's talk about who you have a crush on.
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A
Yeah. And your dad had a lot of lady friends and it was very complicated situation. I'll let people that read the book find out about that. On a different note, we were talking about the return of Mr. Pibb and I was doing some homework and it says that a guy named Roy Wood Jr. Is the voice of the Mr. Pibb. I had no idea. That's pretty funny. Are you a fan? Did they give you. Do you get paid in, like, cases of Mr. Pibb for life.
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B
You know what's crazy? They don't give you Mr. Pibb.
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A
Huh?
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I guess they figured we gave you money. Go buy it. I've always been a fan of Mr. Pibb, and I have to give a shout out to a woman from Tallahassee named Gloria. Ended up trying to keep my Ford Focus, who showed me how to put lemon in Mr. Pibbit. Enhances the flavor. I never known that. Thank you, Gloria. If you somewhere listening from prison, we're
- [11:16]
A
talking with comedian Roy Wood Jr. Roy's been one of our favorites from the early days. Roy. I also. I don't know much about it. I saw a thing you're going to be. What'd you say? He's emceeing some baseball thing coming up.
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B
He's hosting. Oh, yeah, the MLB Awards. Myself and Mookie Betts are co hosting that. And it's. It's the end of the year award show for all of baseball. You know, we celebrate The Saigons and MVPs and Roberto Clemente award winners. All the old heads come back and we praise them. It's it. It's going to be a really good time. It's only their third year doing it, but it has grown into something that's actually pretty cool, man. I think baseball players are, like, off camera and off the field, probably one of the coolest. Not as cool. Hockey players are number one, but I think baseball is number two.
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A
Yeah. And by the way, I was looking, I was looking at your book online here. One of the reviews of Roy's book, the man of Many Fathers Life Lessons Disguised as a Memoir. One of the reviewers is Stephen A. Smith, but it's a Stephen. It's written down so you can't hear him screaming. He says, Roy didn't just write a book, he left a mark. That's gotta be cool. You know Stephen pretty well?
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B
Yeah, we met a couple times when I used to, you know, like 2012, 13. I was doing a lot more ESPN on a regular basis before I got to Daily Show. And so we would cross paths a couple of times, you know, in the ESPN hallways. And like, I always had a lot of respect for him when he used to write for the Philly Inquirer and he was covering Allen Iverson when he used to be on Fox Sports. And I know that he doesn't read a lot of books. Like, he's very selective about the books he chooses to read, rather. And so, you know, just, it's one of them Things that. Hey, man. Would be honored if you read my book and write a blurb and recommend it to other people. I will see about that.
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A
Roy Wood Jr. Is our guest. Once again. Roy's got a book out there. One of the things that you talk about is. Once again, we're talking about Roy's book. We're talking to Roy Wood Jr your. Your father would. If I get the story right, would never let you watch your tv. When you were at his house, all he watched was the news. So it was kind of forced on you. You didn't get to go to the other room and watch something on a different TV set. Am I getting it right?
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Yeah, like, you just have to watch what I'm watching. That's part of why I became a Cubs fan, because they came on during the day when he was gone, so I could actually watch the tv. But my pops would come in and he just. He would. We just. I guess we're watching Larry King Live. I'm five years old watching Larry King Live. Okay, cool. I go back to school the next day. All my classmates are talking about them. Oh, man. Did you see him living color last night? Like, no, but did you know Mikhail Gorbachev Be tripping. I knew that.
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A
One more thing before we let you go, Roy, musically, and maybe you get to this later in the book. When you were in the car with. With your dad or your. Even your mom on the radio, were you allowed to listen to contemporary hip hop or rock or anything? Or was it always news on the radio, too?
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B
In the car, it was news and, like, 70 Soul, Lionel Richie, Dionne Warwick, or jazz. Like, I think I was the only kid who had a favorite Diana Ross song. Not a knock on Diana Ross, but, you know, I shouldn't be humming. That's what friends are for.
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Yeah.
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In the fifth grade, do you know the way to San Jose? It's like, what are you talking about, bro? You don't have LL Cool J in your house. So, no, I had to wait until I got a Walkman. Once I got a Walkman, like, I think sixth grade was when I really kind of had some autonomy with music, and I went straight to Easy E.
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A
Your book, you talk about discovering the world of finance. You get a rake, leaving a rake. What is it? Raking leaves business up and running. That's a great story. Lots of great stories. So far, I'm only partway into the book. Once again, it's called the man of Many Fathers. Life Lessons Disguised as a Memoir. And you talk about your mom a Lot and your dad. And then you start meeting people that help you what, understand fatherhood because you're a dad.
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B
Yeah. I just think if you look back at the values you have, they didn't all come from your parents. And there's probably some very interesting stories to why you believe the things you believe. And, like, if you can go back and really think about that, I think knowing why we are the way we are, it gives us an opportunity to be a better parent. The other thing I learned from this book is that, yeah, my pops was in the streets. He had a lot of women. You know, I'm the ninth of 11 kids, but to be a really good father, part of you has to let go of what you did not get as a father. You can't be resentful for what your parents lacked and also be present at the same time for your kids. So there's a degree of forgiveness that I had to learn on the way, too, bro.
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A
It's a great book, and it's a really unusual thing. You were kind of an only child, but as you said, you were one of nine. You were. You pretty much. You never had a brother or sister in the house with you. Am I getting that right?
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B
Correct. Never had one in the house, but they were always kind of around and stuff. Like, I just. I don't know. I had siblings who just come in, like, weird sitcom neighbors. My dad, like, that's your brother's name is? Tim. Good to meet you, Tim.
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A
There may be more.
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Yeah. Oh, bro. When my dad was getting ready to pass, like, the month before he passed, and he was, like, really sick, and they knew it was, like, it was over. This is, like, random women coming to the house. I just want to say my goodbyes. And the more I think about. This is not in the book, by the way. The more I thought about it, I say, I think as a man, we all want to have a pipe game. That's so good that your girls from the past come to say goodbye to that.
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Me? Your pipe game is so strong. I've learned a lot. Roy Wood Jr. Has been one of our favorite comedians since he was an opening act.
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Oh, you're gonna run me off? Like,
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how dare you say.
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What was it?
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Pipe job. What did he say? Pipe game. How dare you say pipe game on this show. Say goodbye to that meme next time you're around. Roy, Come on in. It's always a great pleasure.
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Congratulations.
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Congratulations on the book. It's really good. I'm really enjoying it. See you, man. Bye, Roy.
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Thank you.
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Pipe game. Yeah, the pipe game. The pipe game. The pipe game is how you lay that pipe. Okay, so it's not a crack pipe. No, honey.
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B
Okay. Sorry.
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A
Thank you. That's it for another Bob and Tom show.
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Extra.
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Catch us on itunes, Google play and stitcher for Bob and Tom. Extra. This is Christopher. Take care, everybody. Hey, I'm Chris Van Vliet. Go behind the scenes and beyond the headlines with the biggest names in pro wrestling and beyond. Mr. Sandman. Oh, I ever wanted to be. He was a pro wrestler, so I
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B
got to live my life and make people really happy.
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A
The Heartbreak Kid himself, Shawn Michaels. Do you think there's anybody better than you were?
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B
I think I was great at what I did, and I think other people
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were great at what they did as well.
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B
Greatness is more a mindset, I think, than anything else.
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Mindset, motivation, Insight. With Chris VanVleet. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.