Results tagged “The Daily Show” from The Mayor of Television

Variety asks the question about the Obama Administration that's on everyone's mind: How will it affect "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart?" Assuming Obama governs with a modicum of competence, where oh where will the jokes come from?

Answer: Don't worry. Just because George Bush is no longer in Washington doesn't mean idiocy no longer exists.

And kudos to Variety for making a comedy show sound so dull: "A team of eight in the studio production department constantly monitors the news network and wire feeds, recording and then editing choice bits. All the show's writers and studio producers stay connected by email, and when something stands out, the clip is quickly disseminated."

But Variety doesn't stop there: They also realize, a few years belatedly but what the hey, that Stewart has become "a bona fide icon in American culture." Stewart may or may not be comfortable with that title, but he does have plans for the future: "I'm convinced that I'll leave the show two years after I become a parody of myself."

Oh, and Variety also manages to make Stephen Colbert sound boring in his effusive praise of Stewart, as well. Try getting your head around this quote, or simply imagining Colbert saying something like this on the air: "(Jon)'s telling us that this is the mechanics of the human interaction, and this is the actual message of the story."

We've previously discussed Christopher Buckley's new novel "Supreme Courtship," about a popular but unqualified (but pretty and charismatic) TV judge getting picked to join the Supreme Court and finding a nemesis in a long-winded Senator, got high-jacked by reality when Sarah Palin and Joe Biden became Vice-Presidential candidates. Buckley appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" last night to contemplate what happens when the real world trumps satire, and also what happened when his endorsement of Barack Obama alienated and angered his fellow conservatives:

And here's a bonus: Jason Jones' report Monday on the good people of Wasilla. His interview with the current Mayor Dianne Keller is priceless: She insists that serving as Mayor of Wasilla would "unequivocally" prepare her to serve as Vice President of the United States, then when Jones asks her what she does, exactly, she's sort of hard-pressed to come up with much more than signing checks.

By the way, despite his tapping into a Zeitgeist he couldn't possibly have predicted, Buckley's book thereafter gets really stupid, with the Biden character starring in his own TV show and the President running a re-election campaign whose principal theme is how he doesn't want to be President anymore.

Remember this, and everyone said it was the New Yorker's fault that people were too stupid to get the joke?

What will stupid people make of this?

Probably that Stephen Colbert is a cross-dressing revolutionary.

Any bets as to which one dresses up like Sarah Palin field-dressing a moose inside the issue?

I did a little math, and a $700 billion bailout translates into $2,333 for every man, woman and child in America. Jon Stewart finds that CNN has an even dumber way of explaining it:

And John Oliver reports that George W. Bush has achieved the Epic Fail hat trick as far as his legacy is concerned:

"It wasn't easy. It was like finding a vein on a failure junkie."

Another pretty brilliant "Daily Show" clip, evisceratingly demonstrating how Republican talking points flip-flop more than actual flip flops, particularly when it comes to Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

Palin gave a rousing, crowd-pleasing speech last night - she was wittier and more attractive than, say, Rush Limbaugh has ever been. She had little to say in terms of policy specifics, fairly lied about her opposition to that famous "Bridge to Nowhere," misrepresented Barack Obama's policies like a champ (is Champ one of her kids?) and even made fun of the notions of helping poor people and honoring the Constitution.

But she proved to be the sort of "celebrity" that John McCain's campaign had heretofore mocked - she had withering words for speeches that inspire wild applause even as she gave one, no easy trick.

If she can dodge any further embarrassments that were divulged by the McCain team's fairly lazy vetting, which is not a given, Palin will prove to be a most uncanny choice for McCain's ticket. She seems so aw-shucks likable to many who are looking for a reason, any reason, to vote against Obama except, of course, you know, that one because they're not racist or anything.

And any attacks on her political philosophies (even her edict against abortions even in the case of rape) are already somehow being construed as sexism (how touching that the Republicans have become such champions of women's rights, given that McCain is against equal pay for equal work). So Democrats and the media are being warned to treat her with kid gloves, while it's already obvious Palin's pretty good at punching below the belt.

It'll be a wildly entertaining campaign, more compelling than most of the new fall shows and more lurid than the worst reality programs. Offer your predictions: Who'll have an on-air aneurysm first, someone at Fox News or at MSNBC?

Here's a clip from last night's "Daily Show with Jon Stewart" that keenly combines the middling Day One of the Republican National Convention and Hurricane Katrina coverage three years ago:

Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee explained all you need to know about Jon McCain's strategy in selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate (there're a few potentially dodgy words thrown in here):

Stewart: "In many ways, Governor Palin seems to be the ideological opposite of Senator Clinton."

Bee: "But she's her gynecological twin."

This comes courtesy of Wonkette.com, from where I stole it:

I know I've been railing against all those "McCain is old" jokes, but this one actually made me laugh.

And this comes from Radar Online - it's the billboard that will greet Republicans arriving at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport en route to the Republican National Convention:

"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" spent wads of cash sending their cast and crew to Denver; I'm sitting here at home, without a battery of writers and producers, watching the Democratic National Convention on the satellite TeeVee my editors won't even let me expense.

So Stewart and Company turned out to spend a whole lot of money to file last night's segment on MSNBC squabbling that's not a whole lot different from the one I submitted in the early afternoon. (That link is pretty much a goof, since the post linked above is just a scroll-down below this one.)

And Stephen Colbert's guest last night, former Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, was pretty engaging and even fairly complimentary to the Democrats, which is a heck of a shocker when it comes to Republicans.

You know political coverage has traipsed through the looking glass when Jon Stewart hosts a breakfast in Denver while the Democratic National Convention is firing up and draws a number of top political reporters and columnists, and slams CNN and its cable-news brethren as "gerbil wheels," and CNN reports on it. And all of those commenting on the story at the CNN.com site agree with Stewart.

Like Bob from Indianapolis: "Is it any wonder that thinking people get their news form Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, two comedians whose journalistic insights show how shallow and 2-Dimensional REAL NEWS has become. The Fourth Estate is largely responsible for allowing the criminals in the White House to operate without oversight for eight years while these tools followed Paris and Britney around like the second coming...."

And that Fox News actually feels the need to respond to Stewart's slams against them:

"Obama could cure cancer and [Fox News would] figure out a way to frame it as an economic disaster," Stewart said. To which a Fox News spokesman replied, "Being out of touch with mainstream America is nothing new to Jon, as evidenced by the crash-and-burn ratings of this year's Oscars telecast." This bears repeating: Fox News had to attack a comic making a joke about them. That sort of speaks volumes as to the influence Stewart wields these days. Well, that, and the fact that political pundits went to hear what Jon Stewart had to say about the state of punditry today.

It's not like Stewart saved all his vitriol for Fox: He called cable-news in general a "slow-witted beast," adding, "They drive the coverage, they drive the themes. It's as though we are in 'Of Mice and Men' and we say, 'Hey, Lenny, why don't you be the leader."

Stewart slagged (as we have, here) late-night comics who rely on the tired "McCain is old" jokes, and said of the Republican, who has appeared on "The Daily Show" more times than any other guest, "He knows we're there to introduce him to 20-year-olds smoking out of apple bongs."

(Fighting for truth, justice and the American way. Of ragging on stupid stuff.)

Just about everything you need to know about TV today, in a post that took more time to track down the art than to write!

The CW issued this statement this afternoon:

"The CW and our studio partner CBS Paramount Network Television have made the strategic marketing decision not to screen '90210' for any media in advance of its premiere. We're not hiding anything . . . simply keeping a lid on '90210' until 9.02, riding the curiosity and anticipation into premiere night, and letting all our constituents see it at the same time."

(Translation: They're hiding something.)

(The New York Times is sweet on Jon Stewart.)

The New York Times distills all of its many stories about "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" into one big mash note, because its book critic apparently has a crush on Jon. It seems to think that "the emergence of 'The Daily Show' as a genuine cultural and political force" is something they just thought up, even though people have been saying that sort of thing for years now.

(The very model of jurisprudence.)

Since there aren't nearly enough "Judge" shows out there, they're developing one for wrasslin' governor Jesse Ventura.

("You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.")

John McCain's campaign manager is accusing NBC of "abandoning non-partisan coverage of the Presidential race." When he makes that charge against Fox News, we'll sit up and take notice.

(Yingsel the Tibetan antelope and Olympic mascot is adorably running in terror from her Chinese oppressors.)

USA Today thinks NBC is providing too much of a happy-face portrait of China, grumbling that the network is ignoring "the sterile atmosphere on the Olympic Green in the first week caused by the Chinese government's aggressive security measures. That's something a viewer would have known only by omission. Gone were the Sydney pans of happy crowds, replaced by tight shots designed to hide their absence."

By the way, viewership of NBC's first night of post-Michael Phelps coverage was down, but just a little bit: An average of 26.4 million tuned in, as opposed to the 30+ million that were watching while the swimmer was on his historic tear. 38.8 million watched him splash into the history books Saturday night when he won his eighth gold medal of the games, the highest ratings NBC has received on a Saturday night since an episode of "Empty Nest" on Feb. 24, 1990, back when Phelps was 4 years old.

(Is joining the cast of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" taking the red pill or the blue pill?)

It's official: Lawrence Fishburne is joining the cast of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" in the upcoming season's ninth episode, just before William Petersen lights out for the territory or whatever it is he's gonna do. He plays a pathologist who battles his own violent impulses, which he probably had to do when he read this line in the Variety story: "It's a homecoming of sorts for Fishburne, who played Cowboy Curtis on the Eye's classic Saturday morning series 'Pee-Wee's Playhouse' in the mid-1980s."

It's hard to think when your brain's melting, so I'll leave you this week with Comedy Central's cut-downs of the entire week of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report." Interestingly, both offered respectful send-offs to Tim Russert. But, you know, with these cut-downs available, what's the point in wasting four hours a week watching entire episodes?

Here's Jon:

Here's Stephen:

Here's to the temperature slipping under 90 degrees sometime soon.

CBS News' Lara Logan, tonight on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:" "If I watched the news on American TV, I would blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts."

Gee, Laura, tell us what you really think.

Not that she's wrong. Logan has been covering the war in Iraq for CBS. She has some pretty harsh words for American news outlets that have buried the war, the Pentagon's censorship practices and for Americans who have grown weary of the coverage, leaving soldiers feeling forgotten in the midst of such complacency. Even Stewart seemed slightly taken aback at the vociferousness of her criticism, unsure of how to respond.

From this clip from last night's "Daily Show with Jon Stewart," it's really hard to tell if Clinton spokesman Terry McAuliffe is just playing along or truly is a lunatic.

We've all seen children on playgrounds throw unseemly temper tantrums when things don't go their way, but Hillary's inability to be realistic or even remotely gracious in her contentiousness makes a kid rolling on the floor and holding his breath seem downright statesman-like. As Stewart says, the Clinton strategy seems to be, "If we act deranged enough, maybe they'll just give us the country."

By August, they'll be wiping pieces of the Democratic Party off the rafters of Denver's Pepsi Center. It'll look like the prom scene in "Carrie."

Today, I received my ballot for the Television Critics Association's annual TCA Awards, and it must be said, my colleagues (and I) did an exemplary job of picking nominees this year. We can vote for up to two nominees in each category, and there are several where even two doesn't seem generous enough.

Herewith, the nominee:

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR

"John Adams" (HBO) 

"Lost" (ABC) 

"Mad Men" (AMC) 

"Ken Burns' The War" (PBS) 

"The Wire" (HBO)

As you will see, "Mad Men" is all over the place on this list, so that's what I'm going to predict will win. "The Wire" might squeak in because it was the show's final season and I don't believe that TCA had a much-better record in honoring the show than the Emmys (though it got more nominations from TCA, if memory serves), so, as they say, it's due. Despite a resurgent season, "Lost" may be a bit past its prime to win and both "John Adams" and "The War," good as they were, weren't absolute game-changers in their genres, which is usually what it'd take to win this top prize.

ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY

"30 Rock" (NBC) 

"The Colbert Report" (Comedy Central)
"The Daily Show" (Comedy Central) 

"Flight of the Conchords" (HBO) 

"The Office" (NBC)

Well, here's one category "Mad Men" isn't in. It would be hard to declare a grave miscarriage of justice no matter who wins in this category, though everyone has their favorites.

ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

"Damages" (FX) 

"Friday Night Lights" (NBC) 

"Lost" (ABC) 

"Mad Men" (AMC) 

"The Wire" (HBO)

Again, a fairly unassailable list, although I kind of think the people who keep beating that "Friday Night Lights" drum should just let it go. That self-defense murder plotline that opened the season really soured it for me. And again, it's probably a toss-up between "Mad Men" and "The Wire."

ACHIEVEMENT IN MOVIES, MINISERIES AND SPECIALS

"John Adams" (HBO) 

"Masterpiece: Cranford" (PBS)
"Masterpiece: Jane Austen Collection" (PBS)
"Ken Burns' The War" (PBS) 

"A Raisin in the Sun" (ABC)

Flip a coin between "John Adams" and "The War."

NEW PROGRAM OF THE YEAR

"Breaking Bad" (AMC) 

"Damages" (FX) 

"Flight of the Conchords" (HBO) 

"Mad Men" (AMC) 

"Pushing Daisies" (ABC)

And again, not a bum pick in the crowd. I voted for two, but if I could've voted for all five, I would have. (Of course, that really wouldn't have accomplished anything, now would it?)

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY

Christina Applegate ("Samantha, Who?")
Alec Baldwin ("30 Rock") 

Stephen Colbert ("The Colbert Report")
Tina Fey ("30 Rock") 

Ray Wise ("Reaper")

A bit of a surprise nominee, with Ray Wise getting a nod - he's hilarious as the Devil, but that show flew beneath most people's radar this past season. I'm going to guess that Fey and Baldwin will cannibalize each other (that'd make a good episode of that show, actually) and that Colbert will win for his ability to surf so deftly along the top of the Zeitgeist.

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

Connie Britton ("Friday Night Lights")
Glenn Close ("Damages") 

Paul Giamatti ("John Adams") 

Jon Hamm ("Mad Men") 

David Simon ("The Wire")

There are more categories, which I won't try to predict (or even bold-face their category titles):

Jon Stewart has always insisted that "The Daily Show" is not a news program, but
a new study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, after following the show for all of 2007, has decided it's no more a news program than any other news program on the air. Which either means Stewart is wrong, or that Stewart is right and there're no news shows anywhere on TV.

I won't bore you with the details of the study, but the Project for Excellence in Journalism compared Stewart's show to the traditional news media's coverage of sundry issues, and found:

* "When Americans last year were asked to name the journalist they most admired, showing up at No. 4 on the list was a comedian. Jon Stewart, host of 'The Daily Show' on Comedy Central and former master of ceremonies at Academy Award shows, tied in the rankings with anchormen Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and cable host Anderson Cooper."

* "In its use of news video, The Daily Show is often quite documentary, culling through archives to show official hypocrisy, abuse of language, and spin. ... In its choice of topics, its use of news footage to deconstruct the manipulations by public figures and its tendency toward pointed satire over playing just for laughs, The Daily Show performs a function that is close to journalistic in nature--getting people to think critically about the public square."

* "'The Daily Show' not only assumes, but even requires, previous and significant knowledge of the news on the part of viewers if they want to get the joke. ... The survey also suggests 'Daily Show' viewers are highly informed, an indication that 'The Daily Show' is not their lone source of news. Regular viewers of 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report' were most likely to score in the highest percentile on knowledge of current affairs."

* "The presidential campaign and the policy debate about the war in Iraq, together added up to a quarter of the time spent on 'The Daily Show' (26%) for the year (2007, remember). This was significantly more than in the mainstream press, where the two stories commanded 18% in the same time period. ... Washington-related pieces, U.S. foreign affairs (especially the Bush Administration's Iraq war policy), and general politics accounted for 47% of the show's airtime in 2007. In that regard, by the numbers The Daily Show closely resembles in its topic agenda the news menu of many cable 'news' shows."

* "'The Daily Show' is clearly impacting American dialogue. ... Some of the show's sway as an information source could also come from language, and the sense that it is more candid, and thus somehow closer to one sense of accuracy than the more hidebound traditional media. 'My students tell me they read the news for facts, but they watch Jon Stewart for the truth,' Professor Steve Lacy of Michigan State University has observed."

Hence, PEJ's study concluded: "In its subject matter, 'The Daily Show' is indeed journalistic. Its topic agenda is highly focused on the public square, on issues of significance, particularly those focused around Washington. Its agenda is not dissimilar, indeed, from other cable talk shows. The language is even more blunt, and its point often more direct. 'The Daily Show' is no doubt entertainment, but it is entertainment, measurably, with a substantive point. It is, in its own way, another kind of No Spin Zone."

Bill O'Reilly, who dismisses "Daily Show" viewers as "pot-smokers," no doubt will love being compared to Stewart. He should be that talented.

John Oliver, the vaguely hapless British scamp who serves as a genially inept correspondent on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," has a bit of a mean streak. Who knew?

Anyone who watches his Comedy Central special, "Terrifying Times," will figure this out this Sunday. While Oliver's work on "The Daily Show" is generally fairly benign, his standup show has some serious teeth.

Here are just a few of his sharp lines that draw blood:

(On the new American imperialism) "America has received so much criticism for its foreign policy when the only mistake you've made is you're doing what you're doing now in the era of 24-hour-cable-news. We didn't do that. ... I am glad that the massacre in Amritsar, India was only captured in watercolor." (He displays the painting.)

"I think, deep down, this planet yearns for the days of the British Empire once again - they yearn once more to be treated that badly, that politely."

(Championing the notion that textbooks discussing evolution should have a sticker stamped on them, declaring that evolution is just one theory, should be taken even further) "Slap a sticker on the Bible: 'Of course, this could all be bu!!sh!t.'"

(On the Oreo Pizza, which since its obscene media launch has seemed to have mercifully disappeared) "That is the biggest imaginable f@%&-you you could ever issue to terrorists. ... (It tells them,) 'There is nothing you can do to us that we are not already doing to ourselves.'"

"You could grab any Fox (News) journalist square by the shoulders, shake them backwards and forwards, scream into their face, 'Be worse at your job,' and they'd be entitled to say to you, 'How?'"

- "John Oliver: Terrifying Times:" 10 p.m. Sunday, Comedy Central.

A shocking development in the otherwise harmonious world of TV comedy: Tina Fey suggests in an interview that "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart panders to his audience:

"My friend, 'SNL' writer Seth Meyers," Fey is quoted as saying, though one doubts she would employ such a stilted, journalism-friendly turn of phrase, "coined the term clapter, which is when you do a political joke and people go, 'Woo-hoo.' It means they sort of approve but didn't really like it that much. You hear a lot of that on [whispers] 'The Daily Show.'"

Someone with the brass to take a poke at Jon Stewart? Stop the presses! Incredibly, the interviewer doesn't follow up or ask her to elaborate.

But then, the questions are awfully canned and insipid: "Your humor has been described as biting. Are you a mean girl?", "What's the difference between male and female comics?", "Your mom was one of your comedy inspirations. Did you play to her at the dinner table?", "What TV shows influenced you?" "You costar (in the upcoming movie 'Baby Mama') with former 'SNL' castmate and good friend Amy Poehler. Did you make each other laugh on set?" "Where did you get your drive?" and, of course, "Which of the Three Stooges do you like best?" So clearly, our intrepid journalist conducting the interview was charged by her magazine (Readers Digest, BTW) with being as drab and colorless as possible.

Still: Tina Fey is calling out Jon Stewart for kowtowing to his audience? Is this the same Tina Fey who sat behind the "Weekend Update" desk at "Saturday Night Live?" The same "Saturday Night Live" where laughs at the "Weekend Update" material often comes more from the anchors (currently Meyers and Poehler, BTW) than the studio audience?

Remember during the writers strike when Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Conan O'Brien had a mock brawl that wasn't really all that funny, but at least killed a lot of airtime for each of them? I'm thinking a serious catfight between Stewart and Fey would be even better. Who's with me?

As Jon Stewart pointed out Monday night (called "Broken Arrow," it's currently the first video offered at the "Daily Show" site), CNBC's Jim Cramer last week offered some of the most disastrous financial advice since "Don't waste your money investing in Google - the Internets is just a passing fad:"

Asked by a viewer if he should take his money out of investment giant Bear Stearns, Cramer, in that emphatic fashion he employs as if speaking to incredibly dim children - scratch that; most children's show hosts have a more placid demeanor than Cramer - blustered:

"No! No! No! ... Don't move your money from Bear - that's just being silly! Don't be silly!"

Overnight, Bear Sterns went from financial giant to financial gnat: After selling for $60 a share late last week (down from $171 last year), on Monday, it was going for two bucks a pop.

Stewart announced Cramer's new show, "No Matter How Good I Am At This Over The Next 10 Years I Will Never Make Up The Amount Of Money I Blew For People Last Tuesday."

So this must be Cramer's going-out-of-business sale: an online auction peddling his bobble-head, his "stable of bulls" toys and, perhaps most useful for the coming apocalypse, a hazmat suit he once tried to wear on the air but got stuck in.

I mention this only because proceeds go to the United Way, which will help out all of us when we're homeless, and because way down the line in the future these will be valuable memorabilia recalling the final seconds of a gilded age.

So Jon Stewart's preparing for his second tour as Oscar host with even less time for his writers to prepare, and, apropos of something, he wore Army boots while discussing his assignment with the New York Times.

"I think there's a way to do it where either you're a guy hosting a party for your friends, or a guy watching a party you were invited to," Stewart told the Times. "I'm much more in that category. I embrace that."

Adding, that for many in the audience, this isn't a joke: "This is the pinnacle of their careers. ... Their lives could change, and they're very on edge. So you've got to give respect to the fact that this is the most important night in film. But for the audience at home, you also have to let them in on the fact that it's still film. It's not war; it's not cancer. No one's going to come out of it and say, 'My God, I can walk!' "

Stewart actually did OK the last time he hosted, warming to the gig as he went along, but all most people remember were those tight shots on his face betraying a smidgen of flop sweat as the room refused to laugh at his first few jokes. With less time to fret over every detail, here's guessing Stewart will be looser and do much better this time around.

But what do you think? Will the writers have not had enough time to prepare some really killer material? Or will not having enough time to worry whether to include a crowd-pleasing punchline in favor of a genuinely funny joke work in his favor?