I remember back when the show initially started with Kilborn. Great, great show. I watched Stewart for a while, but sometimes I felt he was pushing an agenda I either don't agree with or no strongly enough to continue watching (I think it was around the time of one of the presidential elections.) I am curious who they will get as a replacement.
I remember back when the show initially started with Kilborn. Great, great show. I watched Stewart for a while, but sometimes I felt he was pushing an agenda I either don't agree with or no strongly enough to continue watching (I think it was around the time of one of the presidential elections.) I am curious who they will get as a replacement.
M
Whereas I despised Kilborn's version of the show. I found it mean-spirited, bullying and cruel.
I remember back when the show initially started with Kilborn. Great, great show. I watched Stewart for a while, but sometimes I felt he was pushing an agenda I either don't agree with or no strongly enough to continue watching (I think it was around the time of one of the presidential elections.) I am curious who they will get as a replacement.
M
Whereas I despised Kilborn's version of the show. I found it mean-spirited, bullying and cruel.
I find Kilborn's work overall to be mean-spirited, arrogant frat-boy style of humor. Stewart and his team are at their best when they simply show people contradicting themselves or outright lying. I personally think he became so influential because the "news" media gave up on fact checking the people who appear or politicians, and his show was the only place that did research and showed the hypocrisy.
I remember back when the show initially started with Kilborn. Great, great show. I watched Stewart for a while, but sometimes I felt he was pushing an agenda I either don't agree with or no strongly enough to continue watching (I think it was around the time of one of the presidential elections.) I am curious who they will get as a replacement.
M
Whereas I despised Kilborn's version of the show. I found it mean-spirited, bullying and cruel.
I find Kilborn's work overall to be mean-spirited, arrogant frat-boy style of humor. Stewart and his team are at their best when they simply show people contradicting themselves or outright lying. I personally think he became so influential because the "news" media gave up on fact checking the people who appear or politicians, and his show was the only place that did research and showed the hypocrisy.
Completely agree with Stewart and SR.
I don't watch the show regularly, but I often watch the highlight clips. As long as the writing team stays more or less intact, and the spirit of the show is maintained, I think the show will continue to be successful. And if not, there's always John Oliver's show.
I found Kilborn's bit humorous. Not so much being a bully, but could be cruel, maybe mean-spirited. It's humor I'm use to getting & giving. The 5 questions & Moment of Zen were great.
Stewart at times seemed to want to be a news show version of what Bill Maher does. Maher has seemed to go off the rails, too...but I digress.
John Oliver certainly wouldn't entice me to give the show a chance. I only saw a clip of his show once when someone tried to debunk my opinion with something Oliver said about the Patriots. I only got 45 seconds into the clip. I found him as annoying as I do Talk Soup & shows in that format.
Real Time with Bill Maher debuted four years after Stewart took over The Daily Show, and I don't think Stewart ever looked to that show for inspiration. Real Time is more a play off of Meet the Press than anything, whereas The Daily Show is less a news show than it is a call-and-response to other news shows—at least that's the direction it evolved over the years.
As for Oliver, I don't really care for his delivery style either, but he has that same sense of outing the facts that The Daily Show has—at least in the few bits I've seen of it.
Real Time with Bill Maher debuted four years after Stewart took over The Daily Show, and I don't think Stewart ever looked to that show for inspiration. Real Time is more a play off of Meet the Press than anything, whereas The Daily Show is less a news show than it is a call-and-response to other news shows—at least that's the direction it evolved over the years.
As for Oliver, I don't really care for his delivery style either, but he has that same sense of outing the facts that The Daily Show has—at least in the few bits I've seen of it.
I was thinking more Politically Incorrect without the round table. I've never seen his new show.
I remember back when the show initially started with Kilborn. Great, great show. I watched Stewart for a while, but sometimes I felt he was pushing an agenda I either don't agree with or no strongly enough to continue watching (I think it was around the time of one of the presidential elections.) I am curious who they will get as a replacement.
M
Whereas I despised Kilborn's version of the show. I found it mean-spirited, bullying and cruel.
I think Colbert, probably the only one from the Kilborn era to find greater success in the Stewart era, described it as taking advantage of people who didn't know any better. Punching down, basically. Making a guy who claims he saw bigfoot look foolish is like shooting fish in a barrel. Humorously exposing the hypocrisy and ridiculousness of politicians and other public figures is a much better use of the show, regardless of how you feel about Stewart's politics.
It'll be weird not having him around (I still watch the show, in its entirety, almost every night). But, in the past year he's had a harder time finding the humor in things. There were increasingly more nights where he felt the need to look into the camera and talk about the futility of making light of the day's events, yet Colbert and Oliver were able to do exactly that with the same news stories. That, as well as the over-reliance on running Fox news clips and pointing out how crazy they were, had me already thinking it might be time for him to move on before it turns into him hopping on a soapbox every night.
I remember back when the show initially started with Kilborn. Great, great show. I watched Stewart for a while, but sometimes I felt he was pushing an agenda I either don't agree with or no strongly enough to continue watching (I think it was around the time of one of the presidential elections.) I am curious who they will get as a replacement.
M
Whereas I despised Kilborn's version of the show. I found it mean-spirited, bullying and cruel.
I think Colbert, probably the only one from the Kilborn era to find greater success in the Stewart era, described it as taking advantage of people who didn't know any better. Punching down, basically. Making a guy who claims he saw bigfoot look foolish is like shooting fish in a barrel. Humorously exposing the hypocrisy and ridiculousness of politicians and other public figures is a much better use of the show, regardless of how you feel about Stewart's politics.
The essence of "punching up" is what makes for good comedy, and why certain types of comedy never break into the mainstream. Punching down doesn't work...imagine if Animal House was about the ROTC guys getting rid of the slobs at Delta House, or Groucho Marx making fun of the soldiers instead of the politicians in Duck Soup.
There was a brief time when "rich guys mocking the poor" became a hot comedy trend in the late 90's (see Maxim Magazine, Greg Gutfield, etc....) but it falls apart pretty quickly once the initial shock is over and people start to see you as a bully.
Stewart also just directed a movie, and while it didn't do all that well, it is a different world. You work for a few months rather than every day, you don't have the constant looming deadline, you can go serious... When I think of a show like The Daily Show, it reminds me of the digital clock on the failed show "Studio 60" Aaron Sorkin wrote: It counted down to the next show, and then, as the show started, it reset to count down again. No time to savor what you did, no time to do anything but gear up to feed the beast the next day.
We were damn lucky to have him for 15 years. That's an eternity in TV time.
Now where am I supposed to occasionally get my news.... Fox and CNN?
The Onion?
The Onion has long since lost its verve.
So much of the staff from the glory days have moved on (to The Daily Show amongst others) that it has become formulaic.
Almost every Onion article now is a variation on "Ordinary Person Does Something Ordinary".
It just occurred to me that I haven't read the Onion in years. I used to read it every day. Even when I drifted away in the past, something they did would go viral and pull me back in.
Onion AV Club, on the other hand, I still read every day. And yet I still never think to click on the satire site.
It's a weird feeling when you realize that something that was a daily routine for years stopped and it took you several more years to notice.
I remember back when the show initially started with Kilborn. Great, great show. I watched Stewart for a while, but sometimes I felt he was pushing an agenda I either don't agree with or no strongly enough to continue watching (I think it was around the time of one of the presidential elections.) I am curious who they will get as a replacement.
M
Whereas I despised Kilborn's version of the show. I found it mean-spirited, bullying and cruel.
I think Colbert, probably the only one from the Kilborn era to find greater success in the Stewart era, described it as taking advantage of people who didn't know any better. Punching down, basically. Making a guy who claims he saw bigfoot look foolish is like shooting fish in a barrel. Humorously exposing the hypocrisy and ridiculousness of politicians and other public figures is a much better use of the show, regardless of how you feel about Stewart's politics.
The essence of "punching up" is what makes for good comedy, and why certain types of comedy never break into the mainstream. Punching down doesn't work...imagine if Animal House was about the ROTC guys getting rid of the slobs at Delta House, or Groucho Marx making fun of the soldiers instead of the politicians in Duck Soup.
There was a brief time when "rich guys mocking the poor" became a hot comedy trend in the late 90's (see Maxim Magazine, Greg Gutfield, etc....) but it falls apart pretty quickly once the initial shock is over and people start to see you as a bully.
Stewart also just directed a movie, and while it didn't do all that well, it is a different world. You work for a few months rather than every day, you don't have the constant looming deadline, you can go serious... When I think of a show like The Daily Show, it reminds me of the digital clock on the failed show "Studio 60" Aaron Sorkin wrote: It counted down to the next show, and then, as the show started, it reset to count down again. No time to savor what you did, no time to do anything but gear up to feed the beast the next day.
We were damn lucky to have him for 15 years. That's an eternity in TV time.
I think the daily grind is why John Oliver opted to do a weekly show on HBO instead. I know the common thought is that the timing simply didn't work out, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of offer made to get him to stick around until Stewart left.
Whenever I think of punching down, I instantly recall a moment on Chevy Chase's awful attempt at a talk show. He had an elderly man on who held some record for eating hot dogs or something, and my memory is very fuzzy on why they did this, but they blindfolded him and had him eat different hot dogs and sausages. For a punchline, Chase says he has one more for him, stand up, and unzips his pants before sitting back down and telling the guest they're actually out of time. The audience is laughing, the man takes off his blindfold having no idea why he's being laughed at, and I'm sitting there thinking "So that's why everyone thinks Chevy Chase is an asshole."
I'll miss him, but you can't fault him for wanting to move on and try other things. To me the Daily Show was a half hour of SNL's Weekend Update, but a version of it that went with showing how humorous the real world out there is as opposed to just going with one-liner reactions to the weekly news. If they can keep with that formula, I think they'll be fine with a new host.
I'll miss him, but you can't fault him for wanting to move on and try other things. To me the Daily Show was a half hour of SNL's Weekend Update, but a version of it that went with showing how humorous the real world out there is as opposed to just going with one-liner reactions to the weekly news. If they can keep with that formula, I think they'll be fine with a new host.
I'd actually like to see a shake-up in the formula. I think people may have forgotten how different the show actually was back in the heyday of Colbert and Carell. Carell's biggest bit was a parody of those green grocer guys who review produce on the nightly news, while Colbert's was a weekly bit on religion. I feel like they got out of the studio more, too. I actually miss the days when they did more than just politics. I'm not saying go back to that, but they've definitely fallen into a routine that I've found predictable.
Now where am I supposed to occasionally get my news.... Fox and CNN?
The Onion?
The Onion has long since lost its verve.
So much of the staff from the glory days have moved on (to The Daily Show amongst others) that it has become formulaic.
Almost every Onion article now is a variation on "Ordinary Person Does Something Ordinary".
It just occurred to me that I haven't read the Onion in years. I used to read it every day. Even when I drifted away in the past, something they did would go viral and pull me back in.
Onion AV Club, on the other hand, I still read every day. And yet I still never think to click on the satire site.
It's a weird feeling when you realize that something that was a daily routine for years stopped and it took you several more years to notice.
I'm always linked to their reviews by one source or another. They review everything.
Sure. But if the thing that happens is very esoteric and specific, but totally rings true, like this one, then it works for me.
Gotcha.
But the plug-and-play structure of nearly every current Onion story pales in comparison to their glory days, with stories like the Society for Creative Anachronism accidentally conquering the Russian Republic or their brilliant saga of the Red State/Blue State War in the aftermath of the 2000 Election.
Sure. But if the thing that happens is very esoteric and specific, but totally rings true, like this one, then it works for me.
Gotcha.
But the plug-and-play structure of nearly every current Onion story pales in comparison to their glory days, with stories like the Society for Creative Anachronism accidentally conquering the Russian Republic or their brilliant saga of the Red State/Blue State War in the aftermath of the 2000 Election.
One of the problems, I think, was that they really didn't have anyone gunning for them back in the glory days. Nobody did what they did as well as they did, and they set up a model that tons of other sites began following (with varied results).
Doesn't excuse laziness, but once you get to the pinnacle and set yourself apart, it's on you to beat down and destroy all pretenders to the throne by *continuing* to be better than they are. I think The Onion kind of just sat on their throne and watched the barbarian hordes gather around them.
I still go there occasionally. Beats the hell out of one more "news site" that will tell me about the most amazing thing that happened, particularly #17, if you just... Click here for more information
Sure. But if the thing that happens is very esoteric and specific, but totally rings true, like this one, then it works for me.
Gotcha.
But the plug-and-play structure of nearly every current Onion story pales in comparison to their glory days, with stories like the Society for Creative Anachronism accidentally conquering the Russian Republic or their brilliant saga of the Red State/Blue State War in the aftermath of the 2000 Election.
I miss when Galactus and fifty others were running for President :p
A few years ago, This American Life profiled The Onion and recorded a brain-storming session for the next week's headlines. At that time, the standards were pretty high, and the cuts were brutal. Stuff I thought sounded perfectly funny was both rejected and mocked, usually because it was too similar to something they'd done before.
Looking at the page now, most of the stories sound like the ones I heard getting cut in that session.
Used to be those stories of "normal" situations might pop up once in an issue, and it was never the main headline. Definitely doesn't seem to be the case now.
A few years ago, This American Life profiled The Onion and recorded a brain-storming session for the next week's headlines. At that time, the standards were pretty high, and the cuts were brutal. Stuff I thought sounded perfectly funny was both rejected and mocked, usually because it was too similar to something they'd done before.
Looking at the page now, most of the stories sound like the ones I heard getting cut in that session.
Used to be those stories of "normal" situations might pop up once in an issue, and it was never the main headline. Definitely doesn't seem to be the case now.
That TAL segment was what made me realize how formulaic The Onion had become.
Comments
Like Gary Larson and Bill Watterson, he is wise enough to walk away before he becomes stale.
M
I don't watch the show regularly, but I often watch the highlight clips. As long as the writing team stays more or less intact, and the spirit of the show is maintained, I think the show will continue to be successful. And if not, there's always John Oliver's show.
Stewart at times seemed to want to be a news show version of what Bill Maher does. Maher has seemed to go off the rails, too...but I digress.
John Oliver certainly wouldn't entice me to give the show a chance. I only saw a clip of his show once when someone tried to debunk my opinion with something Oliver said about the Patriots. I only got 45 seconds into the clip. I found him as annoying as I do Talk Soup & shows in that format.
M
As for Oliver, I don't really care for his delivery style either, but he has that same sense of outing the facts that The Daily Show has—at least in the few bits I've seen of it.
M
It'll be weird not having him around (I still watch the show, in its entirety, almost every night). But, in the past year he's had a harder time finding the humor in things. There were increasingly more nights where he felt the need to look into the camera and talk about the futility of making light of the day's events, yet Colbert and Oliver were able to do exactly that with the same news stories. That, as well as the over-reliance on running Fox news clips and pointing out how crazy they were, had me already thinking it might be time for him to move on before it turns into him hopping on a soapbox every night.
There was a brief time when "rich guys mocking the poor" became a hot comedy trend in the late 90's (see Maxim Magazine, Greg Gutfield, etc....) but it falls apart pretty quickly once the initial shock is over and people start to see you as a bully.
Stewart also just directed a movie, and while it didn't do all that well, it is a different world. You work for a few months rather than every day, you don't have the constant looming deadline, you can go serious... When I think of a show like The Daily Show, it reminds me of the digital clock on the failed show "Studio 60" Aaron Sorkin wrote: It counted down to the next show, and then, as the show started, it reset to count down again. No time to savor what you did, no time to do anything but gear up to feed the beast the next day.
We were damn lucky to have him for 15 years. That's an eternity in TV time.
So much of the staff from the glory days have moved on (to The Daily Show amongst others) that it has become formulaic.
Almost every Onion article now is a variation on "Ordinary Person Does Something Ordinary".
Onion AV Club, on the other hand, I still read every day. And yet I still never think to click on the satire site.
It's a weird feeling when you realize that something that was a daily routine for years stopped and it took you several more years to notice.
Here was a recent favorite you would probably appreciate:
Oh No, Performers Coming Into the Audience
Whenever I think of punching down, I instantly recall a moment on Chevy Chase's awful attempt at a talk show. He had an elderly man on who held some record for eating hot dogs or something, and my memory is very fuzzy on why they did this, but they blindfolded him and had him eat different hot dogs and sausages. For a punchline, Chase says he has one more for him, stand up, and unzips his pants before sitting back down and telling the guest they're actually out of time. The audience is laughing, the man takes off his blindfold having no idea why he's being laughed at, and I'm sitting there thinking "So that's why everyone thinks Chevy Chase is an asshole."
I miss that paper. I'm always linked to their reviews by one source or another. They review everything.
But the plug-and-play structure of nearly every current Onion story pales in comparison to their glory days, with stories like the Society for Creative Anachronism accidentally conquering the Russian Republic or their brilliant saga of the Red State/Blue State War in the aftermath of the 2000 Election.
Doesn't excuse laziness, but once you get to the pinnacle and set yourself apart, it's on you to beat down and destroy all pretenders to the throne by *continuing* to be better than they are. I think The Onion kind of just sat on their throne and watched the barbarian hordes gather around them.
I still go there occasionally. Beats the hell out of one more "news site" that will tell me about the most amazing thing that happened, particularly #17, if you just... Click here for more information
I miss when Galactus and fifty others were running for President :p
Looking at the page now, most of the stories sound like the ones I heard getting cut in that session.
Used to be those stories of "normal" situations might pop up once in an issue, and it was never the main headline. Definitely doesn't seem to be the case now.