Lotion bottle failures. Costco parking lots. Skipping with your favorite homies. These are just a few of the innocuous things that Sheng Wang incites deep belly laughter over in his beloved Netflix special Sweet and Juicy. It’s certified as 98 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and made The New York Times’ Best Comedy of 2022 list. Before Sweet and Juicy, Wang appeared on Comedy Central and the 2 Dope Queens podcast, and wrote for the critically acclaimed TV show Fresh Off the Boat. You can also listen to some incredibly well-aged jokes on his 2015 album, Cornucopias Are Actually Horrible Containers. This is a sweet and juicy resumé for a comedian who has been working at his craft for over 20 years. Originally hailing from Houston, Wang is rounding out the year with new material at Bayou City Music Hall on December 28.

Wang enjoys discussing his love of clouds. “I had this really strong connection with the image of cumulus clouds in Houston, because they’re different in California. You don’t see them as often,” says Wang, who now lives in Los Angeles. His signature comedy style might open with a simple observation about mortgages (or clouds), but his genius turns that thought into laughter.

“I’ve always liked the idea of writing about some topic that everyone has experienced, or is pretty common or quite mundane, and put it in a light that there’s something a little below the surface,” he says. “It gives you that moment to slow down, think about that moment, and then, through a little bit of extra reflection, find something about it that’s sort of a universal truth and make it fun and funny at the same time.” 

What seems an impossible undertaking to most comes naturally to Wang. After graduating from Bellaire High School, he majored in business at UC Berkeley, where he also dabbled in poetry, photography, and comedy. Houston, specifically during the pre-internet era with its lack of distractions and prescribed fun, influences his work.

“I would go to the bayou and I would see what’s up, what’s happening, what birds are eating, what tadpoles are there,” he says. “Finding joy and digging a hole in the backyard…and then covering it up with twigs to make a little booby trap.”

Wang’s outdoor hijinks draw a straight line between the kid seeing what’s up with the birds on any given day and the comedian who can make health care deductibles belly-clutching funny. 

He makes it back to Houston a few times a year, with the primary objective of spending time with family. “For my family, that means eating meals together. If it’s April, we do crawfish boils, or Vietnamese food on Bellaire. [There’s] going to be some barbecue involved,” Wang says.

Brazos Bend State Park is also often on the homecoming itinerary, which should come as no surprise to fans who know that he goes up to enjoy the foliage. He compares Houston’s ever-expanding, heavens-touching freeway ramps to a René Magritte painting at the Menil, one of his favorite Houston museums.

Wang often posts pictures from meet-and-greet events, and it takes only a few scrolls to see that his fans are both diverse and delighted. Several people comment with thanks for being both funny and punctual, repeatedly calling out how lovely it is that his shows are aligned with an appropriate bedtime.

“It’s strange, but the staff at these venues, they want me back because they like my crowds,” he says. “They like that they’re considerate, kind, respectful. They’re having fun but don’t overdo it. They’re not rowdy and disrespectful, and they tip well. It just feels like they’re good people.”

What’s especially delightful is that his fans tell him how much they enjoy experiencing his comedy with their own parents.

“Growing up, even with my family now, sometimes we struggle to find things we can enjoy together,” he says. “I never thought I’d be so moved to hear people talk about how they share it with their friends and their parents or kids.”

Laughter surpasses all the trip wires adulthood trains you to lay between how you project and who you are. What you laugh at not only reveals what you find humorous, but ultimately, what you find to be true. In this way, Wang bridges gaps between people with different viewpoints, focusing on the minutiae of daily life that most of us can relate to. He makes audiences think in addition to laughing, giving them a chance to talk after watching his work and finding commonalities instead of divisions.

Wang is making even more trivial things funny during his current unnamed tour. Fans of Sweet and Juicy can expect his trademark observational humor, with a little something extra. “This new hour, I can be a little bit more free. It’s getting weirder here and there,” he says. “It’s just a fun time.”

Setting out on tour after the success of the special, Wang was initially anxious about making sure the experience met fans’ expectations, especially since it costs time and money for them to go out and see him. “I just wanted to make sure people are happy with their choices, because it means a lot to buy tickets to come up to a live show. But I feel like I’m past the anxious part. I’m always trying to make the show better,” he says. “Every performance is an opportunity.”