The Daily Show

Wednesday

Neal Pollack

Who does Colbert think he’s kidding?

David Letterman, who by now has retreated into full comedy-hermit mode, posted a bunch of old Late Show clips on his YouTube page on Monday, where he continually and brutally spit-roasted CBS. In honor of CBS losing NFL coverage to FOX in 1994 (and selling off several affiliates in the bargain), he ran a “Top Ten List” of “New CBS Slogans,” including “you can’t spell ‘Bumbling Executives without C-B-S!’ and ‘If you bring your talk show here, we’ll sell all your stations!’” As a reward for that long-ago roasting, CBS said nothing in response and kept Letterman’s highly profitable show on the air for more than two decades.

Late night

Thursday

Cockburn

Why did Nathan Wade agree to this Daily Show interview, also?

Cockburn was left scratching his head last week after former Donald Trump prosecutor Nathan Wade’s disaster sit down with reporter Kaitlan Collins. Not having learned his lesson, Wade decided to double down and appeared on The Daily Show on Wednesday for a racy interview that highlighted the dazzling prudence of the Fulton County courthouse.  Comedian Marlon Wayans, who plays the Daily Show character ’Quon, grilled Wade on his affair with Georgia district attorney Fani Willis, even mimicking several sex positions. After his media team interrupted the CNN interview to dodge a question about his affair, it's almost inexplicable that Wade would place himself in such a raunchy situation — except that he’s clearly enjoying his five minutes of fame.

nathan wade

Friday

Stephen L. Miller

The battle of the late-night scolds

Chris Farley would have had his sixtieth birthday last week. One of the comedian’s most memorable live bits happened when, after being introduced by Late Show host David Letterman, burst through the back of the auditorium doors, charged down the audience aisle, slugging applauding attendees in the arm, grabbing them and eventually dumping a plant in a dumpster outside the theater. He ended this entrance with a double cartwheel — no small feat for someone of Farley’s stature at the time.The crowd was treated to a hilarious moment of personal interaction with one of comedy’s biggest stars at the time. That was then, though. It’s apparent to just about everyone how far late-night comedy and variety shows have fallen.

late night

Tuesday

Cockburn

WATCH: Jon Stewart jabs at Biden and Trump’s age in Daily Show return

After more than eight years away from the anchor desk, Jon Stewart returned to The Daily Show on Monday night for its election 2024 coverage. The late-night host came out swinging with pointed jokes at both eighty-one-year-old Joe Biden and seventy-seven-year-old Donald Trump. "They are the oldest people ever to run for president, breaking, by only four years, the record that they set,” Stewart said.  https://twitter.com/thedailyshow/status/1757253512625586177?s=46&t=KTzG0soGgiCKUdkuiUQOwA Cockburn can’t say that Stewart’s attacks on the elderly presidential candidates are all that original, but it’s a marked improvement on the hackneyed, partisan commentary of his successor Trevor Noah.

jon stewart

Tuesday

Cockburn

Brave: Biden finally reveals decades-long support for gay rights

Cockburn was pleased to see Joe Biden, the noted civil rights activist and former eighteen-wheeler driver who made it from the barrios of Wilmington to the White House, has finally opened up about his "epiphany" on same-sex marriage. It is a brave thing to do in 2023, but political consequences be damned! Biden was going to set the record straight, and explain to the American people that he has long been a fervent believer in the advancing the cause of gay rights. In an interview on The Daily Show with former Obama staffer and Harold and Kumar star Kal Penn, Biden explained that he could "remember exactly where [his] epiphany was" on the question of marriage equality. He was a high-school senior, he explained.

Sunday

Stephen L. Miller

Trevor Noah got lost in a sea of Jon Stewart wannabes

Trevor Noah’s announcement last week that he would be stepping down after seven years on The Daily Show was met with about the same level of attention as when he was announced as host. It trended on Twitter briefly, and then everyone went about their day. Noah never really caught on with the same media outlets that regularly juiced Jon Stewart, blaring about how he "Destroyed" and "Obliterated" things. There are several reasons why this was the case. One was that Stewart, for all his clown-nose-on-clown-nose-off theatrics, was still a capable and interesting interviewer. He was genuinely curious about his guests and didn’t seem like he was just asking questions handed to him on a notecard. Noah, a traditional stand-up comic, was never able to harness that same ability.

Friday

Matt Purple

How Jon Stewart killed comedy

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s June 2021 World edition. Click here to subscribe. Somewhere along the way, Jon Stewart discovered he could make stupid people laugh by smirking at Fox News clips — and the world has never been the same since. Stewart, who anchored The Daily Show until 2015, is often remembered as the progenitor of a long line of left-wing topical comedians, from Stephen Colbert to John Oliver to Samantha Bee. Yet before that he was something else: the most gloriously subversive personality on television. The Daily Show’s heyday came at the turn of the century, just after Stewart had taken it over from Craig Kilborn.

jon stewart