Nothing's Wrong If It's Funny!
Rod: The official weapon of the show is...
Karen: The folding chair!
Rod: The unofficial sport...
Karen: Is Bulletball!
Rod: And Bulletball Extreme!
— The second half of the standard show open
The Black Guy Who Tips
(often referred to by the initials "TBGWT") is a comedy podcast out of Charlotte, North Carolina, hosted by husband and wife Rod and Karen Morrow.
Inspired by the Keith and The Girl podcast, Rod and Karen (and a frequent guest host) discuss pop culture, current events and general randomness from a comedic perspective. The show's tag line is "Nothing's wrong if it's funny" and Rod and Karen revel in pushing the envelopes of good taste and audience discomfort. The show features several recurring segments, which include:
- Guess The Race - The show's signature segment. Rod reads off a real news story (usually) involving a crime, and has Karen, the show's live chatroom and (if they have one) the show's guest to guess the race of one of the participants (usually the perpetrator). Rod and Karen expect and encourage answers to be as creatively racist as possible. Authentic archaic slurs like "moon cricket" are especially welcome.
- Fucking With Black People - Spawned in the time period following the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin verdict, where it seemed like every other news story was a big middle finger to a black population already stinging from Zimmerman's acquittal. The stories are graded from 0 to 100, in intervals of 25 (0 = "Don't Care At All", 100 = "I Will Cut You")
- In May 2019, a score of "Dracarys" was added, for stories where 100 wasn't enough.
- Sword Ratchetness - The show's traditional closing segment: Rod's continuing quest to show the world that unregulated swords and assorted long knives are just as dangerous as guns by highlighting stories of people brandishing, using and occasionally killing someone using swords.
- LGBT News - Exactly What It Says on the Tin. But as they often state, it's as often horrible news as good.
- White People News TMZ-style celebrity gossip. With the Running Gag that Karen will have no idea who the majority of the subjects are (or an "Oh that guy" passing familiarity).
- Groupie Tales: Tales of groupies' escapades with various high rollers (mainly athletes and hip-hop stars), pulled from the Baller Alert blog. Currently on hiatus - not because he lost interest, but because the supply of Tales ran dry.
- Taking Out The Trash - A pseudo-spin-off of "White People News". Stories of famous (or at least notable) men being garbage towards women.
- Reading Rainbow - In late 2019, Rod switched out the show-opening rap verse for reading an excerpt from books from Rod's personal reading list, followed by a short discussion of the subject of said excerpt. And wrapped up by singing the ''Reading Rainbow" theme.
Several years ago, after being laid off from his day job, Rod decided to make the podcast his job, putting his archived shows behind a paywall, accessible for a monthly fee. To give those customers added value for their money, he also started up a slate of premium shows, available only to monthly subscribers (Though he'll occasionally post one for free as bonus content). Most are Rod and a co-host, and Karen drops in when she can:
- The Nerd Off: Nerd Culture-centric podcast. featuring Rod and Kriss from the MTR Network.
- Balls Deep Sports: Sports-centric show, featuring Rod and his friend, Justin.
- Pre-Game: The random conversations Rod and Justin have before BDS.
- Medium Talk: A (mostly) non-comedic interview show with people Rod finds interesting.
- Eventually ended in 2021, when Rod decided to simply make said interviews into regular episodes.
- Spoiled Movie Reviews: Spoiler-filled reviews of movies with Rod and a rotating roster of guests.
- In 2019, a free feed was added for older reviews. The new ones remain premium-only.
- Offseason Reviews: Rod and Karen review a select show after the entire season has hit the streaming services.
- Lip Smacking Good: Karen's foodie-centric interview show.
The show airs Saturday through Wednesday, with the week-starting Saturday show dedicated to listener feedback.
TBGWT contains examples of the following tropes:
- Berserk Button
- Rod and Karen are both proud HBCU graduates (Fayetteville State, to be specific), and Rod has been known to vent his anger at those who'd disparage them.
- Nothing will get Karen on her soapbox faster or harder than stories of young black girls being shamed.
- Rod and Karen are both proud HBCU graduates
- Forced Meme: One of the show's long-standing running gags is Rod trying to create a stereotype for white people equivalent to "Black people love fried chicken and watermelon." "White people love cheese and mayonnaise" are the ones that stuck in the show's vernacular.
- Happily Married: Rod and Karen are high school sweethearts who've been married since 2002.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Rod and Karen's singing of the "Fucking With Black People" and "Guess The Race" themes.
- Hurricane of Puns: Rod often responds to stories with strings of puns (complete with "YEAH!"
stinger). Karen, while not as prolific with the puns, will throw a couple into the mix as well. - It's Personal: Rod and Karen tend to let trolls and less savory types go without comment. Unless said troll comes for Karen through Rod ("You gonna let your woman talk like that?") and won't heed Rod's warnings to back off. The really extreme examples tend to end with Rod going into detail about how he tracked said troll down IRL, told the troll he'd done so, and going to the troll's employer when they won't take the hint to apologize and fall back (with Karen adding in her heated two-cents worth). The term "The Dudebros" has entered the fandom's lore as shorthand for "Rod humiliating a troll."
- N-Word Privileges: Rod, Karen and many of their guests make liberal use of the n-word. They also take a dim view of the "Why can't I say it, too" crowd.
- Neologizer: Rod occasionally uses his own brand of slang phrases, like "disasterbation" (the flurry of breathless news stories and social media hot takes following a tragic event) and "Impossible White Man" (a specific type of Badass Normal action hero)note .
- Noodle Incident: Because of Continuity Lockout, the term "The Dudebros"note is this for newer and non-premium listeners.
- Only One Name: For years, Rod and Karen tried to keep their "government names" off the show as much as possible. As the show has grown in popularity and notoriety (including write-ups in Ebony and The Huffington Post), that's grown pretty much impossible.
- Refuge in Audacity: The show's motto is "Nothing's wrong if it's funny."
