Jon Stewart is returning to The Daily Show, part time
In a shocking announcement, The Daily Show's new host will be... its old host
Aux News The Daily Show
The Daily Show finally hired a host. That long-awaited leader is… Jon Stewart, who will be returning to the hosting desk eight years after initially stepping down in 2015.
According to Deadline, Stewart is returning to the show every Monday night—apparently the show’s most-watched time slot—throughout the election cycle. The venerated commentator, who hosted the for over 15 years, will begin his tenure on February 12. He’s also on board to executive produce every episode of the show throughout 2025 in order to help “shape” its future.
“Jon Stewart is the voice of our generation, and we are honored to have him return to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show to help us all make sense of the insanity and division roiling the country as we enter the election season,” said Chris McCarthy, President/CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios in a statement (via Deadline). “In our age of staggering hypocrisy and performative politics, Jon is the perfect person to puncture the empty rhetoric and provide much-needed clarity with his brilliant wit.”
The rest of the week will be hosted by the show’s rotating door of correspondents, currently including Desi Lydic, Michael Kosta and Ronny Chieng and Jordan Klepper.
This brings a (temporary) end to Comedy Central’s year-long search for a host, following Trevor Noah’s departure December 2022. The network had previously honed in on comedian Hasan Minhaj, before a lengthy New Yorker exposé alleging he’d fabricated details in some of his more incendiary bits reportedly cost him the job this past fall. Longtime correspondent Roy Wood Jr. was also reportedly in contention for the post (and had previously expressed his interest). Wood announced his departure from the series, at least as a correspondent, this past October. “There’s no sense in me doing what I’ve been doing for the last eight years while concurrently trying to think of a new thing to do,” he said of his decision at the time. “The job of correspondent, it’s not really one where you can juggle multiple things. And after eight years, I think I’ve earned the right to just, you know, take a quick break before January.”
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And in another twist, our next president is… George W. Bush!
JEB!
Please clap.
Please clap! ?
That has since been replaced with the uber-successful campaign of….RON!
Please clap…
That exclamation point was Jeb’s first broken promise.
The only way I will approve of that is if I get to go back to being in my 20s.
We can do that?
If we wish hard enough I’m sure we can!
Really? Because I don’t think I can wish any harder than this.
“Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
Gone too soon.
I’d take him over all the fuck ups that are currently up for grabs. That’s a sad statement.
I mean given who quite possible actual end up in that role…again. I think we’d take it
He’s the reformed alcoholic most voters would like to have a beer with!
I like Stewart. I’m happy to have him back, especially with this being an election year.
But this is still dumb as hell.
Well put.
And what, exactly, makes it dumb?
It’s definitely just pushing the problem back. I don’t know why they think some obvious option for a host is going to reveal itself after November. Just pick somebody, shit.
It’s not kicking the can down the road if Stewart is considering continuing to hold the job after November. And I think the jury’s still out as to whether that’s what is actually happening here.Bear in mind, if both Stewart and Comedy Central are treating this as a test-run for a permanent gig, they probably would not tell us so.
I’d be extremely surprised if that was his plan. He’s in his 60s.
Rich 60 is middle-class 48, okay?
lol Fair enough.
So, he’s too smart to understand?
The idea might be that, as executive producer, Stewart takes on the task of finding a new host, and having him identify and anoint a successor will boost that person. The host search has been such a clusterfuck so far that, outside of appointing someone well known like Sarah Silverman, anyone they could have picked at this point would be seen as a D-list choice.
Ha yeah I just said that in another comment. lol I agree!
God this reminds of the Office, and how they dithered on finding a replacement for Michael Scott, so it turned into a rotating cast and so many resets I finally abandoned that show.
The Will Ferrell part was particularly strange. What was the point of that? lol
It felt like an Adam McKay movie from the mid 00s suddenly gatecrashed Gerwig’s set.
It felt a bit inspired at first, and it was slowly like ‘Wait, he’s just playing a completely different character in every scene?’, which would be everyone’s general theme for the rest of the series.
Do we get Gawker back as well?
Maybe if someone buys it? News came out today G/O Media is now willing to sell its properties individually and not as a package.So if any of you have any spare change around, how about buying AVC and save it from its sadsack current statehttps://www.adweek.com/media/go-media-portfolio-sale/
Do we get the old comments back?
What about our avatars?
This is a bit like hiring an Alex Trebek impersonator to handle Jeopardy for a bit until a real host is found.I think Stewart is just a product of the Bush years and really not the draw he was. The comedy styles have changed and ‘annoyed sanctimonious guy who makes you sorta chuckle’ is a tired formula. There’s tons of fresh new talent out there looking for a break. Its a shame they’re trying a nostalgia act now. I just don’t like how there’s no feeling of responsibility on CC’s or Stewart’s part to make room for the next generation.
“I just don’t like how there’s no feeling of responsibility on CC’s or Stewart’s part to make room for the next generation.I’m hoping that’s Stewart’s plan for the 2025 season he’s going to EP. It could be he’s decided to come back part time to keep the show from going off the air completely during this bungled search, and he’s trying to curate a new host during this time.
I think Stewart is just a product of the Bush years and really not the draw he was. The comedy styles have changed and ‘annoyed sanctimonious guy who makes you sorta chuckle’ is a tired formula.And as much as I loved TDS at the time, in hindsight they did a lot of reporting that focused almost exclusively on how silly conservatives are while largely ignoring that they are nevertheless dangerous. A whole generation of people still seem to think that ridiculing them is enough.
Jordan Klepper certainly fits into that mold.
And as much as I loved TDS at the time, in hindsight they did a lot of
reporting that focused almost exclusively on how silly conservatives are
while largely ignoring that they are nevertheless dangerous. A whole
generation of people still seem to think that ridiculing them is enough.
This is exactly it. Stewart never sunk to the depths of playfully fluffing a rapists dictator’s hair, but he would sit there and laugh and banter and smile with pieces of shit like Bill O’Reilly like they weren’t actually pieces of shit. He treated absolute monsters like they were his old friends, all in the pursuit of “civility”.
Yes, to the extent that when TFG first appeared on the scene, it was seen as a hilarious comedy act for way too long until it was too late.
it’s just another example of pop culture feeling completely stagnated. we’re constantly supposed to get excited about an old guy coming back to do the thing he stopped doing 10-20 years ago.gimme the new blood!!
So, he’s too smart to understand?
I think it sounds pretty cool, it’s just once a week during an election year, it will get me to tune in anyway.
So it might be watchable again ?
usually the 10 year cycle of repeating trends isn’t quite this on the nose. funny that he got fired from apple and apparently has no other ideas. literally noone must have watched those movies he directed.
The Peter Principle, I guess, extends to entertainment. He was legendary as the host of the Daily Show (and back in the day a pretty good stand-up) but that clearly didn’t translate into being excellent in other creative arenas.I mean I can’t really blame him, Hollywood does this to lots of people, although I would have liked to think Stewart of all people would be canny enough to know what his limits were.
He didn’t leave Apple because he was bad at his job. He parted ways with Apple because they didn’t want him criticizing China and AI.His interviews on The Problem were second to none. I would kill for him to find an arena in which he can continue to grill entertainment moguls, politicians, and world leaders about complex problems. If you haven’t watched his interviews with that Colorado State Senator about guns, or the AG of Arkansas about transgenderism (or really just the whole episode he did about transgenderism) you are missing out.
I didn’t watch The Problem so I have no direct opinion, but it sounds like it’s exactly in his wheelhouse. I was referring to fictional narratives like Rosewater being something he’s not nearly as talented at.
The Problem was sooooo bad. Wow.
I think your liberal use of the word fired implied that sometime will replace him and at worst frames your statement as disingenuous in order to make the statement about him not having any other ideas. I can’t think of a single time we either colloquially or technically use the term “fired” to refer to actors in a show when the show gets cancelled. Jon won’t be replaced because he wasn’t fired. The show was cancelled. And the show was cancelled over creative difference. I promise, of the audience was actually big, Apple would have worked with Stewart too resolve the difference.
How does the Peter Principle apply?In what way are those other creative arenas akin to being promoted?
Well, it’s not exactly the same, obviously, but moving into other entertainment arenas from the one you became famous for is sort of akin to a promotion. I just don’t know if there’s a name for that particular phenomenon.
I’m reminded of Mitch Hedberg’s joke about how people in Hollywood always want you to do something different to the thing you’ve proven you’re good at. “It’s like saying to a chef, ‘Hey, we know you can cook, but can you farm?’”
Haha, I was actually thinking about that joke when I wrote the comment. I don’t know why I didn’t mention it; there’s never a wrong time to bring up Mitch Hedberg jokes.
I dunno. You can be “Big” on AppleTV and not actually big.
While their offerings are top notch, the audience is still pretty small.
That being said, Jon Stewart isn’t creative like a Donald Glover or Seth Macfarlane. He really only does 2 things and he is really great t it. 1. Giving anybody that disrespect 9/11 firefighters the business and spot on, fact based political comedy. I’d argue and say that he is the prototype for the behind the desk social commentary
i never said he was big just that he got fired.
Not sure if you meant “no one”, but I watched one of the movies he directed and I am literally someone. It wasn’t the best thing ever, but I’ve seen worse.
i watched both of them. we are no one.
Or it’s possible he’s just decided this is what he likes doing.There’s a possible “the grass is always greener” scenario. He was burned out when he left and wanting to do other things. If those other things were less fulfilling, it tracks that he’d circle back.
Good. Some twerps who were still dragging on their momma’s nipples when Bush went to war will learn something.
Yeah fuck those people for being born recently!
I know! Assholes.
This but unironically.
there’s nothing young people listen to more than a 60’something year old on cable tv.
Yeah, they are too busy thinking the world owes them something
when those clips hit tiktok they watch
This is like seeing Elvis in concert, but pudgy Las Vegas Elvis.I’m sure it’ll be…fine.
Jon Stewart paradoxically is a better political animal and advocate than he was when he was alternating between limp-lipped calls for sanity, fanboying Obama uncritically, and pissing off his co-hosts with awkwardly racist impersonations of Herman Caine.This version of Jon Stewart is the best version of Jon Stewart that has ever existed, but it’s also the version that terrified AppleTV+ into canceling him despite impressive ratings because of his tendency to catch out his interviewees in their ideological autopilots and dismantle their talking points. (See: Medhi Hasan as the NBC version of this.)Unfortunately, it does show a problem with The Daily Show’s producers in that they don’t really know what to do if they don’t get exactly what they want. Hasan Minhaj went to the New Yorker and brought receipts showing the reporter tanked him on purpose and ignored all of the proof of his stories but The Daily Show can’t walk that one back. Then go back to the time when Trevor Noah’s sexism and racism hit social media before his hiring, but they decided they wanted a half-black guy with an African dad behind the desk like Obama because “it’s what the kids are into,” so they just ignored it all and set him up as the face of the program for optics waiting almost three or four years before he finally actually got good at his job.Jon Stewart is obvious because Jon Stewart worked. Jon Stewart has also evolved into a self-critical, hyper-conscious force of nature whose previous politics he would shout “LIB!!!” at derisively. Good luck keeping up with that guy now, I know a lot of AV Club people in the comments handwaving his firing who grew up on Sweet N Low Stewart but would choke on modern full calories Stewart.
Why in the fuck did this feel like a reply worth publishing?
This is fine. Stewart is pretty funny still. We’ll see if he’s still got it. I would watch. The reason I stopped watching The Daily Show 10+ years ago was because it’s 4x a week. That’s just too much. I’d watch once a week for 20 minutes, 20 weeks a year or so.
I agree with this sentiment, but it’s also because I got old. Getting up the next morning after watching a show that starts at 11:00 pm just hurts anymore.
Still, I’ll hunt down John Oliver youtube videos, but the massive amount of Daily show material (plus the fact that they don’t have to distil an entire week down to 20 minutes means it’s not all A material) means I don’t bother watching it after the fact. Maybe a 1 day a week TDS with John Stewart will be worth watching again (later, on youtube or wherever).
but you could have just done that anyway. you make it sound like you didn’t have a choice.
I think Deb is obviously hoping that if Stewart only does one show per week, he’ll be able to cram the best material into that one show, rather than spacing it out across four.
Once his Apple show was cancelled this seemed to be a fait accompli, as long as Paramount was willing to pay him whatever he asked.
He didn’t just quit TDS back in the day because Apple was dumping money on him, he was burnt out from what he said.I doubt he’s discovered a Fountain of Youth at age 60. I’d be beyond shocked if he went back to 4-day a week shows.
No I wouldn’t have expected him to come back as permanent host or do 4 days a week, I just assumed that he’d either do a guest slot like the others or specials with the Daily Show branding, which is essentially what this is. The idea that this is a “shocker” or totally out of left field is what’s strange to me.
Ugh. Old cis white male Jews run everything don’t they? #KanyeWasRight
BadBoys2ThisShitJustGotReal.gif
Part timers club.
PART time.
Top. Men.What are we doing?
The only thing that could keep me sane if Trump is reelected is a return of The Colbert Report.I had the spin off book “America Again, Rebecoming the greatness we never weren’t” on display for the a long time after MAGA became a thing.
I think that show wouldn’t work with a president more extreme than the character.
“I think that show wouldn’t work with a president more extreme than the character.”That’s why Veep was ended—-they realized the satire they were coming up with was tame compared to what Trump was actually doing IRL, which ruins the premise of a satire.
I’ve heard that before, but the show (which I absolutely love) was also just running out of steam after Iannucci’s departure.
Pfft—-they could have done a whole spinoff series with Furlong or Jonah IMHO.Or Uncle Jeff!
I’ve lured many a friend into watching Veep by playing for them the clip of Jonah—in close-up—telling someone on the phone, “How am I doing? Eating so much pussy I’m shitting clits, son”, followed by Uncle Jeff grabbing said phone and screaming in Jonah’s face, “Hey! This is an elementary school! Watch your spewing mouth, you animal!”, as the camera pulls back to reveal that they are indeed in a classroom full of small children.
Why can I hear exactly how the characters said this in my head? Is it the great writing, tremendous performances of the fact I’ve seen the show an unhealthy number of times?I think TDS and the Colbert report, together with Yes Minister, Veep and Clarke and Dawe are responsible for more of my political opinions than I’d care to admit.
My favorite scene of the entire run.Either that or dinner at the Furlongs.
It had my favorite final scene of any show I’ve ever seen.
It keeps happening.
Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. —Tom Lehrer
That’s always been the problem with Trump, and now just Republicans in general. You could parody Dubya-era Republicans because they were still clinging to a thin veneer of respectability. They, too, were shameless ghouls and con men, but they still behaved as if they could be shamed. Trump’s schtick has always been “I’m a gross asshole and I love being a gross asshole and I love it when my supporters are gross assholes so let’s just fling shit everywhere and laugh about how much we’re owning the libs for being grossed out.” There’s just nothing to talk about beyond repeating what he says verbatim every fucking day.
Colbert got lucky that the Colbert Report ended when it did. Otherwise he’d just be spending four nights a week giving Republicans actionable ideas to try next.
Dude was the original “cancel” because he thought making fun of Asian people was the best counter to white people being racist against Native Americans. He had to get out of that box because white people kept telling him his political acumen was beyond reproach and he had, likewise, surrounded himself with nothing but white people in the process.He had to kill Colbert before Colbert became him and he says he’s never regretted it.
Wait, you actually take the side of the “cancel Colbert” people all these years later?The joke was funny and inoffensive and the subsequent segment they did explaining the controversy was great. They ended it with something like: “I don’t see race, people tell me I’m white and I believe it, because I just spent the last 8 minutes explaining how I’m actually not a racist”.
“Dude was the original “cancel”Such a strong correlation between functional illiterates and people who whine about cancel culture.
“he thought making fun of Asian people was the best counter to white people being racist against Native Americans.”
WTF are you talking about? The only thing I ever remember Colbert doing could possibly be construed that way was a single bit he did early on where he was mocking some other hosts who had been caught on tape making bigoted comments or jokes.
You don’t remember decade old internet drama?!In response to the Redskins opening the “The Washington Redskins original Americans Foundation” Colbert joked he would found “The Ching Chong Bing Bong foundation for sensitivity towards orientals or whatever Foundation”.To me that doesn’t make fun of Asians, it makes fun of the Washington Redskins. But some people on Twitter got upset, back when the Twitter user base was rather different from today.Bazzd seems to think the joke was problematic or racist or the product of being surrounded by too many white people, idk.
IIRC it was actually The Colbert Report’s Twitter account—which Colbert himself had nothing to do with—tweeting out “I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever” without the context of the original joke, and Suey Park and others called for the protest:https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-campaign-to-cancel-colbert
You are right, the firestorm was sparked by Twitter people seeing the tweet without context, but the tweet is clearly inspired by the segment some days before. I linked to the video in which Colbert explained (his side of) the drama some days later in another comment here. Back in those days we didn’t need no fancy pants New Yorker, the AV Club reported on it back when the snark here was good, got over 300 comments
I actually knew somebody who thought Colbert was playing it straight.“I’m not watching that Right Wing Crazy”.
At least that’s better than the right-wingers who thought he was one of them.
If Trump is re-elected, there’s no way a show like The Colbert Report is getting approved by the Minister of Culture
colbert is far too weepy now to tap back into that.
Colbert’s so much happier smirking first draft clapter bait to an audience of tourists and sleepy Gen-Xers. He would never go back.
I checked out when Roy Woods Jr believed he probably wouldn’t get the hosting job. On the last episode of his podcast he goes into it a little bit.
They should do a continuing bit at the end of every episode where the other staffers gather in a conference room and are like “Should we tell Jon he’s not actually on the air?”
So they reallllly didn’t want to give Roy the chair, huh?
Nope…Good, sorry not sorry, being “black” isn’t enough. Roy Wood Jr isn’t funny. Neither really was Trevor Noah, its not a good thing when your writers need to explain what your talking about because you don’t really know American politics well enough…Besides the fact its time to stop proclaiming that someone needs to be instantly hired because of their skin color, gender or sexual preference. They should actually have to earn the job and, they let that person go along time ago when they got rid of Larry Wilmore right when the Nightly Show was finding its groove
Because he isn’t funny.
“Jon Stewart is the voice of our generation, and we are honored to have him return to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show to help us all make sense of the insanity and division roiling the country as we enter the election season,” said Chris McCarthy, President/CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios in a statement (via Deadline). “In our age of staggering hypocrisy and performative politics, Jon is the perfect person to puncture the empty rhetoric and provide much-needed clarity with his brilliant wit.” Look I like Stewart. As to the bolded, I get that is just corporate speak but really what is there to make sense of? Stewart is going to make jokes about how shitty repubs are because its true. Their candidates are terrible and their positions (when they appear to have them) are even worse. That doesn’t clarify anything. It will make me feel better to hear Stewart cleverly put down a bunch of aspiring fascists and occasionally call out the left if they deserve it. But that is a lot different from somehow making sense of what politicians are saying. That shit used to matter all the way back in the 2000s when many repubs still kept the quiet part quiet and there was value in dissecting it. In 2024, they say the quiet part out loud, proudly.I realize this is a throwaway quote by an exec happy to have Stewart back, but it just irks me because it makes it seem like Stewart is affecting some kind of change when the reality of the situation is that I would bet good money that 99.9999999999999999999999% of the people who watch TDS already know who they are voting for and probably have for years. I’ll now go back to yelling at clouds.
Also, Stewart is 61. He might be the voice of a generation, but calling him the voice of our generation might be missing a few demographics sectors.
I did wonder which generation was being referred to in that quote. Presumably that depends on the age of Chris McCarthy, or else it’s a cliched statement devoid of any true meaning.
I think McCarthy is about 50, so perhaps Stewart is the voice of his generation? Maybe? But he’s certainly not the voice of the generation that now forms the core audience of Comedy Central and the Daily Show.
What demographic watches The Daily Show? The median age of the Daily Show has always bin mid-30s so while there may still be some semantics issues there, I’m pretty sure Stewart is still pretty aligned with those who watch the Daily Show.
First guests: Jay Leno and David Tennant.
Does this mean I can also regress to the early 2000s by smoking weed most mornings and generally avoiding all responsibility?
You not only can, you must!
I’ve been playing a lot of Resident Evil 4 now that you mention it. Maybe the 20th anniversary of the 2004 election is conjuring some stuff.
He’s going to wear a denim suit.
Poor Arby’s.
I really liked his show The Problem with White People in which he brought up a bunch of out-of-context stats to “prove” systemic racism (whites have more money than blacks…because whites are an older population, etc.), featured guests whom you buy dinner for so they can come call you racist at home, attacked colorblindness and meritocracy, and stuttered in disbelief when Andrew Sullivan flatly called the whole thing anti-white racism which drives people to the right, which, of course, it was/does. He’s a fucking sell out. He used fucking phony stats to “prove” that the number one cause of death for “kids” was guns…that included fucking 18 & 19-year-olds in the study. He was grandstanding over an politician with these cooked stats, foaming at the mouth, when it was total, known, obvious horseshit.He’s done. The Daily Show has been done. Pathetic.
The rest of the week will be hosted by the show’s rotating door of correspondents, currently including Desi Lydic, Michael Kosta and Ronny Chieng and Jordan Klepper.Come on, this is a perfect opportunity for the Craig Kilborn Redemption Tour.
America is ready for another five questions!
He’s blonder than Koppel!
One day a week can be the warm up to come back full time for the second Trump term, when we’ll need him most.
First David Tennant, now this.
I say bring back Johnny Carson. Kids will want to see the original late night TV host.
I keep telling you, he’s 80 years old, and he’s dead.
Granted…
I will not tolerate this flagrant Steve Allen erasure!
[Craig Kilborn stares at phone.]
Did Roy roast the hell out of a Comedy Central executive or something? He was the funniest correspondent and seemed to actually want the job. This is a cop out. Nostalgia will carry it for an episode or two but people rarely get funnier or stay at the same level as they age, especially when they leave the target demographic behind and perform less often. Stewart is not exempt from this.
The ratings were in freefall when Trevor Noah left so I suspect this is somewhat of a hail Mary to try to keep the show alive while they choose a permanent host. Jon is good at talent spotting (see Colbert, John Oliver) so I suspect that’s part of the job he’s being given. I do think if they gave the job to Roy and the ratings stayed where they were, he would have ended up Conan and the Tonight Show round 2.
I don’t think the ratings have that much to do with the host anymore, the problem is that their competition is now anyone with an opinion, a YouTube channel or Twitch stream and some level of charisma/humor/attractiveness. And the competition can fine tune their content for their audience in a way TDS just can’t.
The ratings allegedly fell 81% after he left. I’m pretty sure they care about that.
Aside from possibly nostalgia and public interest in the odd arrangement driving numbers for the first few episodes, ratings aren’t going up because he comes back. It’s been a long, strange near-decade; lots of things that worked in 2015 don’t now and TDS is among them, regardless of who’s the host. The landscape has changed.
I think there is a genuine question of whether he can still cultivate talent and I suspect that’s what they’re banking on. Use him as an immediate draw, use him to bring in the next Colbert or John Oliver. As I said, I’d call it a Hail Mary. It might not work, but I think it’s the plan. I think the part where he’s host is less important to them than the EP part where they are hoping he can bring a return to glory by identifying the best new host.
I don’t think this is going to work out the way they hope. Folks keep trying to turn back the clock but it can’t be done. A lot of what Stewart said and did over the years is going to get a fresh look and it won’t be pretty. He’s also on board to executive produce every episode of the show throughout 2025 in order to help “shape” its future.Also a really bad idea.
Jon Stewart was great at cultivating talent. While I’m skeptical of the “he’ll just host on Mondays” part of this plan, I think they are likely planning to use him to rebuild the bench, get new blood in as correspondents and identify who would make the best host.