Ronny Chieng is still chasing the perfect joke

Wild Card with Rachel Martin

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 991 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Comedian Ronny Chieng's original path wasn't to become a correspondent on "The Daily Show." Plan A was to be a lawyer in Australia. But when he couldn't get a job in law, he turned to comedy as a backup. He talks to Rachel about his path to success and how he's more like his parents than he realized. His new stand-up special is "Ronny Chieng: Love to Hate It."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message come from the Walton Family Foundation, working to create access to opportunity for people and communities by tackling tough social and environmental problems.
0:12.0	More information is at waltonfamilyfoundation.org.
0:15.9	Hey, it's Rachel. Just wanted to let you know that if you want to watch this episode, we've got a full video version of it.
0:22.2	Just search for NPR Wildcard on Spotify, YouTube, or you can go to npr.org.
0:28.9	How do you consciously try to emulate your parents?
0:32.7	Oh.
0:34.9	I try not.
0:36.6	I don't think anything is that impressive.
0:43.1	That's how I mimic them because they're not easily impressed by much.
0:50.2	I'm Rachel Martin and this is Wild Card.
0:53.0	The show where cards control the conversation.
0:57.5	Each week, my guest answers questions about their life.
1:00.9	Questions pulled from a deck of cards.
1:03.4	They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one question back on me.
1:07.7	My guest this week is comedian Ronnie Chang.
1:10.5	I'm just looking for the funny bit.
1:12.6	You know, wow. If it happens to touch upon politics, so be it. You know, if it happens to touch
1:16.6	upon race, okay, you know, as long as it's a funny bit. When you've watched Ronnie Chang's comedy,
1:22.1	it becomes pretty clear that this is a guy who takes none of his success for granted. He knows life could have turned out differently.
1:29.3	What were the odds that a 20-something Chinese Malaysian guy trying to launch a comedy career after law school in Australia was going to make it big in America?
1:37.1	Whatever the odds were, Ronnie Chang beat them to become one of the biggest names in comedy right now.
1:42.4	He's been a regular correspondent on the Daily Show since 2015 and is now a rotating host. He absolutely crushes his role as Jimmy O'Yang's
	...

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