The Daily Show's Jon Stewart - He's Still Got it
Why Comedy Central is Still the Funniest Network for Late Night TV
Oct 7, 2009
This is the seventh consecutive year that The Daily Show has won as best comedy or variety show and even after a decade of hosting TDS, Jon Stewart is still as funny and clever as ever. This was evident in his September 24th broadcast when he interviewed former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Just in case there's anyone out there who's actually unaware of who Blagojevich is, he is the one who's accused of trying to sell Barrack Obama's Senate seat for profit and was recorded on tape as saying, "this is a [expletive] valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing."
Rod Blagojevich vs. Jon Stewart
Overall, The Daily Show interview was funny and made for compelling television. From the moment when the former governor walked out on to the set and Stewart reached over to try and touch his hair, the audience was laughing. Stewart dares to do things that other TV personalities won't do, like appear on CNN's Crossfire and talk about what a horrible job CNN is doing.
But not everybody believes that Stewart did a good job that night. Eric Zorn at the Chicago Tribune believes that Blagojevich rambled on, for far too long. But perhaps some of us are taking the interview far too seriously. As Rachek Sklar of www.mediaite.com writes, "...it didn't matter what [Blagojevich] said -- his credibility is nil, we all know that."
Another way of looking at the interview is to presume that Stewart let him off easy in the beginning to allow the former governor to dig himself into a hole. Those of us, who watched the interview, know that there was finally a moment towards the end where Blagojevich did appear to be cornered.
How it really happened?
Rod Blagojevich played the victim card, arguing that the whole story hasn't come out because only a censored version of tapes were released. He went on to argue that if we knew the whole story, we would see that he was acting in the public interest.
"I know exactly what comes after f-ing golden...," Blagojevich tells Stewart, referring to the next missing line in the tape, "but I'm prohibited by a court order by the prosecutor to tell you that. But I can tell you generally it's about a role for me in health care, about helping Illinois and politics."
To which Jon Stewart quickly interjected, "But a role for you in health care is a job and that's a quid pro quo and that's probably unethical."
In response, Blagojevich, looking a little dumbfounded, begins saying, "Well I don't-," and interrupts himself in mid-sentence. He then switches back to his original talking point about how he was really doing this for the people. But right at the "Well I don't-" comment, you can here a few people in the studio audience respond with nervous laughter. It was pretty clear at that point that the former governor had just put his foot in his mouth.
Better than Rush Limbaugh vs. Jay Leno
Besides, even when Stewart has an off day, he still does a lot better job dominating an interview than most talk show hosts. On the same night that Stewart interviewed Blagojevich, Jay Leno interviewed controversial radio host Rush Limbaugh. But unlike Blagojevich, it was pretty clear that Limbaugh came out looking pretty good in his TV appearance.
The Limbaugh interview actually started out pretty equal on both sides up until the point when Leno tried to get him to admit that it's not exactly fair for some CEOs to make hundreds of billions of dollars while other people have nothing. Limbaugh had no trouble counter-arguing.
"The economic pie is growing. It's not a zero sum game. Just because someone had 800 million dollars [it] doesn't mean that somebody lost it. It means the market produced it..."
At this point, Leno could no longer get a word in edgewise. Meanwhile even moderately liberal TV viewers are yelling at their TV sets with a dozen reasons why Limbaugh wasn't making any sense. Really Rush? The market produced 800 million. We're talking about the marketplace, not David Copperfield.
The Daily Show is still funny after all these years
Bottom line, The Daily Show is still one of the most interesting shows to watch on late night television. Stewart is funny and insightful because it takes a comedian, in the form of a fake news anchor, to go where the others don't dare. Sometimes it takes a jester to point the finger.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart can be seen Monday thru Thursday at 11PM ET on Comedy Central. (Also on in Canada on The Comedy Network and on CTV, check your local listings)
The entire unedited interview can be viewed online at both the Comedy Central (US) and Comedy Network (Canada) websites, if you're interested.
Sources:
http://www.emmys.com, http://www.huffingtonpost.com, http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca, The Daily Show and The Jay Leno Show
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