Jon Stewart and the Ruination of American Comedy

[Ziggy Stardust]

When is the next Jon Stewart Daily Show?

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe each Monday?

 

[Gori the Grey]

When is the next Jon Stewart Daily Show?

Kyr is right; he's the host on Mondays. He has a team and they cycle for the Tue through Thu shows.

 

[Kyriakos]

It was ok. First ep was better though. Fwiw, Putin's statement about Poland was explicitly about Poland invading Czechoslovakia so as to steal a province - which at the time made it very unpopular to Britain/France.
Obviously Poland did not "start" ww2 - and Russia was more than happy to invade it, along with Germany.

 

[Crezth]

If someone watched filthy Frank in this thread they would instantly combust

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

From boredom?

 

[Kyriakos]

I haven't watched anything by him alone, but have watched a collaboration - assuming he is the one that Idubz was doing stuff with years ago (?).

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Tip: skip 3:15 to 5:45

 

[Joij21]

TikTok is peak comedy now. Not boomer stand up comedy.

Do zeitgeists matter?

Yes.

 

[danjuno]

TikTok is peak comedy now

 

[Kyriakos]

I personally like Jon Stewart. He may not be cutting edge, but for me (who don't live in the US) he seemed to be at least not outright a political troll, instead on occasion cauterizing ills regardless of the party.
He does the same now, just with less vigor - he is over 60, so that was a given. Imo he is still good.
As for funny, if nothing else, you can always find it funny how those bought and paid for, otherwise lame or senile etc, will be up in arms because Stewart says the obvious about Biden.

 

[Remorseless1]

So, the starting point for this thread is the announcement that Jon Stewart is returning to host the Daily Show--one day a week.

I learned of it watching Ari Melber's show. He had on James Carville and Michael Steele. Mostly they were talking about Trump. When he brought this up, all three of them were excited, and Steele said "That's exactly what we need right now; mockery is the best defense against fascism" (quoting from memory). On another site, I've heard Stewart described as a "cultural bulwark against the GOP propaganda machine."

Over in the Clown Car thread, there was some discussion of Stewart's return, and Lexicus, contra Steele, advanced the following bold thesis:


And then later elaborated, in a post that I'll trim to what for me is the essence, but also put the entirety in a spoiler:





I sounded him and others out on whether they would participate in a thread with basically this as its question: are Stewart and the gang he spawned (Colbert, Oliver, Bee, etc) and present ilk (Kimmell, Meyers) exactly what we need to fight fascism or a microcosm of the impotence of contemporary liberalism in the face of an explicitly fascist threat?

I'll spoiler my post, too, because it gives a lot of explanation of why I'm interested in this question that you probably don't care about:

Spoiler :

But one of the other ways I ask the question there picks up on Lex's starting claim: that Stewart is the ruination of American comedy. So that makes me ask: Is there some other, better form of comedy that Stewart's ascendancy drive off the stage? To which Farm Boy gave the surprising but insightful answer:


What I was really asking was: is there some better form of comedy for defeating fascism than Stewartesque? (And maybe this is Farm Boy's answer to that question, too.) Probably the quick answer is no; that's too big an ask for comedy.

So, those are our questions (plus anywhere else you want to take this):
Is Stewart's brand of humor politically efficacious?
Is there any form that is or could be? What form of comedy would best serve us in our present political circumstances?
Did it drive some better form of humor off the cultural stage? (better at fighting fascism, or just better as comedy)

The ruination of American comedy????

You're dumping all of that on one guy from Long Island?

Don't like his shtick? Don't watch. Hundreds of younger and older comedians out there -- men, women, gay, Muslim, Asian, etc.

I like him. Glad he's back. Besides returning to TDS , Stewart and his wife run a no-kill animal shelter in New Jersey, and Stewart has advocated before Congressional committees for healthcare for emergency workers who contracted serious illnesses due to their work at the site of the Twin Towers. He also advocated for veterans (full disclosure I am a vet), first through lambasting Congress for the ancient records systems at the VA and the fact VA computers can't interface with DoD computers, delaying healthcare for veterans.

Why y'all need four pages on this kind of nonsense is beyond me. Lots of great comedy shops all over the US.

 

[schlaufuchs]

i don’t think any of these insipid political comedy shows has ever gotten me to laugh as hard as random accounts on twitter or tiktok have

 

[Joij21]

I'm more of a YouTube/YouTube shorts kind of guy. Sometimes Reddit.

Twitter, Facebook/Meta are cringe. (no refinement possible, very stale)

I prefer my TikTok refined, not raw. Hence YouTube & Reddit since those sites regurgitate TikTok after the more cringe has been filtered out.

 

[Narz]

I don't think he's an amazing comedian but he's a good interviewer especially compared to the usual late show type dorks

 

[amadeus]

That’s a pretty low bar to set though. I wish there was another Tom Snyder or Dick Cavett (he’s still alive but long retired) out there.

 

[Plains-Cow]

 

[Hygro]

I’ve watched about half of them.

The first one was terrrrrrible.

But a couple others were pretty funny.

The Israel one was “right side” but useless and not that funny.

Overall he’s still really good at his thing.