Comic Wanda Sykes feasts on the world’s crazy for laughs

Wanda Sykes may be known for her signature acerbic wit, which has had even presidents doubling over with laughter. She’s had her own talk show, where she showcased her intensely incisive comedic style to the masses. But when it comes to what makes her laugh in the privacy of her own home, the simpler the better.

“I’ll go to YouTube and sometimes just watch people falling down. Like, that’s my thing – people falling, usually when they’re dressed up. People falling on stage, people falling at weddings,” she said in a recent phone interview from her Los Angeles home. “That makes me laugh. Yeah, I’m easy.”

While the timeless hilarity of people falling down has its appeal, the 51-year-old comic has built her career on calling out the absurdities of modern life and the human condition. Her smart, unapologetic insights have earned her raves and fans across the country and led Entertainment Weekly to declare her one of the “25 Funniest People in America.”

In 2009, she headlined the White House Correspondents’ Dinner during President Barack Obama’s first year in office, becoming both the first black woman and first out LGBT person to receive the honor. The year before, Sykes came out as a lesbian during a rally opposing California’s now-defunct same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8. Earlier that same year, Sykes married her wife, Alex, and the couple now has 6-year-old twins.

But don’t expect married life to dull her razor-sharp skewering of societal stupidities when she brings her comedy Saturday, March 28 to the Gallo Center for the Arts in Modesto. Though, she admits, the topics she focuses on have shifted somewhat.

“My comedy is about what’s going on in my life. So (my family) definitely is in my act now because the kids and the family, they take up so much of my time that I have to talk about them,” she said. “Because they’ve stolen time from me watching or reading something else.”

The rest of Sykes’ time is spent on a variety of projects both in front of and behind the camera. She is doing voice work for the animated feature “Ice Age 5.” She also appeared in the franchise’s fourth installment, “Ice Age: Continental Drift.” She recently appeared in two seasons of the Amazon political comedy series “Alpha House,” created by famed “Doonesbury” cartoonist Garry Trudeau. Though the show has not been picked up for a third season, Sykes said she enjoyed her time on the series.

“I loved doing that. I got to join that awesome cast and go play with them for a few episodes. Garry Trudeau, he is a genius; I loved working with him,” she said. “And we worked with a lot of fun directors. So it was like summer camp.”

“Alpha House” was Sykes’ first show on a streaming service, though the comedy veteran is no stranger to TV. She wrote and appeared on “The Chris Rock Show” early in her career, landed her own sitcom series, “Wanda at Large,” for two seasons, spent five seasons on “The New Adventures of Old Christine” and briefly had her own late-night talk show, “The Wanda Sykes Show.”

But hosting the talk show, Sykes said, was a lot more challenging than being on the other side of the desk. Throughout her career, she’s been a regular guest on other people’s talk shows, from “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” to “The Tonight Show.”

“ As a talk-show guest, I come in and it’s quick, and the shows I do – like Ellen and Leno – I generally like them, so it’s nice to stop by and see them. And they’re funny, so, of course, while I feel pressure to be funny, I know we can also have a conversation and go back and forth and it will be funny,” she said.

“But being a host, you have to really look like you are interested in a lot of things that you probably don’t care about. I don’t have that face. You could see that. I would fake it, but you could see I was thinking, ‘Why am I talking to this person?’”

Still, people Sykes almost always enjoys talking to are her fellow comedians. So much so, in fact, that in 2009, she signed on to revive the reality competition “Last Comic Standing” for NBC and has served as executive producer for the past three seasons. The show, and Sykes, are set to return for a ninth season in May.

Sykes said she loves helping boost other comedians’ careers through the series.

“It’s great. I love doing it. Just from last season, I have seen how much it has helped the comics who have done the show. And even if they didn’t go far in the competition, they still got a lot of exposure. They’re booking more shows, they’re getting bigger audiences, more opportunities,” she said. “I’m really into it. It’s fun and it’s good for comedy.”

Stand-up comedy, meanwhile, has seen an influx of talent with the rise of online stars from YouTube, Vine and other social media platforms. Sykes said that while there is a way to incorporate the new venues, not everything translates to a sitcom deal.

“I don’t think anything has changed comedy. Funny is still funny. I think what we’re learning is that the way people consume TV is different now, the way they watch their shows. And I think the executives are learning that, hey, a little six-second Vine you watch on your phone might be funny and entertaining, but it’s not going to make a good 30-minute show you watch on the big screen. It doesn’t transfer like that,” she said.

“But you can have a show just incorporate it in it. ‘The View’ is now doing that, bringing in someone with a popular Vine and then doing a segment with them, and that’s perfect. It’s great that people have this medium, these little video things, to be creative and to be funny.”

As for Sykes, what she finds funny about the world – other than, of course, people falling down – continues to dominate her live shows. And, luckily for her, there seems to be no shortage of material on the horizon.

“I talk about my family and stuff, but you know, there’s a lot of crazy going on,” she said. “So I will be talking about that, too. Now that we see who the candidates are thinking about running for president, that’s always comedy right there.”

This story was originally published March 25, 2015 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Comic Wanda Sykes feasts on the world’s crazy for laughs."