Before reprising his role as Roy for the third season of TBS’s sitcom “Sullivan and Son,” comedian Roy Wood Jr. will be performing at Augustana through the Office of Student Life and Leadership’s Multicultural Programming Board.
He will be performing for the first time at Augustana at 8 p.m. on Saturday in the Gävle multipurpose room as part of MPB’s comedy club series.
“I’m very passionate about things that don’t matter,” said Wood. “That’s probably the best way to describe what I do.”
During this past week, he ended up unfollowing someone on Twitter after getting into an argument with them about whether waffle or curly fries were better.
“I’m very quick to argue with people,” said Wood. “Like, I don’t understand why I have to pay for extra sauce when I order nuggets from a fast food place, and I know that that’s not something I should get upset about, but I’m infuriated by it. I mean, it’s sauce. It should come with the meal. It should be an understood conclusion, but nobody agrees with me.”
Jeremy Watson-Freeman, MPB comedy club co-chair, said that when he first saw Wood at a National Association for Student Activities conference, he thought his performance was funny and relatable.
“Roy is on his way to superstardom,” said Watson-Freeman. “He’s been on ‘Conan’ and (‘The Colbert Report’). He’s really famous in that sense, so this is the first time we have brought a comedian with that much media attention to Augustana.”
According to Wood, he has done over 500 performances on college campuses.
“I haven’t really seen other comics and what they do in college shows,” said Wood, “but my job as a comic…is to (get a) couple of laughs and to get you forgetting about that midterm you’re going to flunk next month. I think that’s my job.”
While Wood enjoys watching comedians like Jim Gaffigan, he also performed on the radio for 11 years, ending in 2012. While he occasionally still appears as a guest host, he is working on his final prank call album, which was a common occurrence for Wood while he was on the radio.
“It’s been seven years since my last (album), and I’m still seeing a good response,” said Wood. “I wanted to turn that page (in life), and I feel like I should do one more to say thanks to all the people who supported me up to this point in my career.”