Taking over Stephen Colbert’s Late Show to blast Fox News, the former ‘Daily Show’ host was unapologetically partisan while also seeking to build bridges.
"Appearing on television 22 minutes a night clearly broke me," Stewart says. "I'm pretty sure I can produce a few minutes of content every now and again."
Many moments from Stewart’s Daily Show have already become cultural touchstones: his 9/11 monologue, his Jim Cramer smackdown, his rants about New York pizza. But which segments best capture the exact atmosphere and attitude of this Daily Show? As his time as host winds down on Thursday night, Slate staffers recall the most Stewart-esque moments from the past decade and a half. (There’s a reason so many of these moments are from 2004: If any political year felt custom-built for the Jon Stewart treatment, that was it.)
As Stewart says goodbye to The Daily Show, Fresh Air listens back to interviews with the host. "I don't know that there will ever be anything that I will ever be as well-suited for," he said.
Stewart's last show airs at 11 p.m. ET Thursday on Comedy Central, with the guest list sure to include some of his fellow comedians.
Oh, we went there.
John Oliver’s status as wildly successful host of the eponymous Last Week Tonight with John Oliver doesn’t mean he’s forgotten his Daily Show roots. “[Jon Stewart] literally taught me how to do everything I am doing now. All the things I’m doing are the direct result of lessons I was taught by him,” Oliver told Fusion’s Jorge Ramos in a recent interview, adding: “I think it’s pretty much an objective fact I owe him everything… all I’m doing now is using the muscles he gave me.”
Every leader needs to prove that he has what it takes to lead others. John Oliver, host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, echoed this sentiment in a recent interview with Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air. Oliver cut his comedy chops in the U.S. with a seven-and-a-half year stint on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. In summer of 2013 he substituted hosted for Jon Stewart who was in Jordan making the movie Rosewater. Oliver was positively gushing in his praise for Stewart’s support and advice about running the Daily Show in his absence. Many of these lessons Oliver has incorporated into his HBO show.
Every leader needs to prove that he has what it takes to lead others. John Oliver, host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, echoed this sentiment in a recent interview with Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air. Oliver cut his comedy chops in the U.S. with a seven-and-a-half year stint on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. In summer of 2013 he substituted hosted for Jon Stewart who was in Jordan making the movie Rosewater. Oliver was positively gushing in his praise for Stewart’s support and advice about running the Daily Show in his absence. Many of these lessons Oliver has incorporated into his HBO show.
Mark your calendars, ask Siri to set a reminder and be sure to program your DVR because Jon Stewart has just announced the date of his final episode as host of "The Daily Show."
At the end of tonight's episode — right before the ubiquitous "moment of zen" — Jon Stewart announced that August 6th will be his final episode of The Daily Show. It will be a hard ticket to come by, but he directed fans who are looking to win a pair to an autism fundraiser he's helping run on the crowdfunding site Omaze.
n an interview with The Guardian newspaper, Stewart said he's been enjoying his hosting duties less and less and feeling more pessimistic about the subjects of the show -- politics and the news media. "It's not like I thought the show wasn't working any more, or that I didn't know how to do it," he said. "It was more, 'Yup, it's working. But I'm not getting the same satisfaction.'"
There was no one moment when Jon Stewart knew it was time for him to leave what he describes as “the most perfect job in the world”; no epiphany, no flashpoint. “Life,” he says, in the lightly self-mocking tone he uses when talking about himself, “doesn’t really work that way, with a finger pointing at you out of the sky, saying, ‘Leave now!’ That only happens when you’re fired, and trust me, I know about that.”
Ending one of the most venerable and trusted careers in making a complete mockery of the news, Jon Stewart has announced that he is stepping down as host of The Daily Show. According to sources who were there (some of whom are already passing word along on social media), Stewart let the news slip at the taping of today’s episode, telling those in the audience that he’s retiring.