Sheng Wang: ‘Sweet and Juicy’
The Last Laugh
The Daily Beast
4.6 • 661 Ratings
🗓️ 27 September 2022
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Comedian Sheng Wang has spent much of his comedy career trying to hide in plain sight. Now, thanks to a boost from his longtime friend and colleague Ali Wong, he is reluctantly stepping into the spotlight. In this episode, Wang opens up about everything that led to his first hour-long stand-up special ‘Sweet and Juicy,’ which premiered on Netflix earlier this month and also marks Wong’s directorial debut. He breaks down how seeing the late, great Mitch Hedberg perform forever changed the way he thought about comedy and tells stories about getting judged by Norm Macdonald on ‘Last Comic Standing,’ channeling his own childhood as a writer on ‘Fresh Off the Boat,’ the origins of his most famous bit about ripe avocados and more.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is how my guest on today's show introduced himself when he landed his first big half-hour special on Comedy Central more than a decade ago. |
| 0:09.6 | My name is Shang Wang. Sometimes when I tell people that, they're like, wow, that is perfect for pursuing stand-up comedy. |
| 0:21.5 | I'm like, yeah, but first I was trying to pursue childhood. |
| 0:28.3 | You know, it's tough when kids call you names. |
| 0:31.8 | It's always worse when they just use your name. |
| 0:40.1 | Even recently, I was making a reservation for this hotel in Arkansas. |
| 0:44.2 | I gave the guy information. It was all good. I told him my name. It's Shane Wayne. He said, |
| 0:47.4 | that's funny. You don't sound like that. |
| 0:55.0 | I was like, my bad. |
| 0:57.0 | I'm sorry if I don't meet your racist expectations. |
| 1:02.0 | I'm sorry if I don't sound like a complete stereotype, Arkansas. |
| 1:08.0 | You, on the other hand, doing a really good job. |
| 1:16.0 | This is the last laugh. |
| 1:18.4 | I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, |
| 1:20.5 | and that was comedian Shang Wang from his Comedy Central Presents special. |
| 1:25.0 | It has been a long road from that promising debut in 2011 to his first |
| 1:30.6 | hour-long special Sweet and Juicy, which premiered on Netflix earlier this month. With his |
| 1:36.5 | low-key style and refusal to conform to stereotypes, Shang has flown under the radar for much of |
| 1:43.1 | his comedy career. But that has started to change |
| 1:45.8 | in a big way after his old friend ali wang decided to produce and direct his first hour which is |
| 1:52.6 | easily one of the funniest specials i've seen this year so i really could not wait to have shang on the |
| 1:59.2 | podcast talk about what it's like to be in this moment |
... |
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