It has been announced that Jon Stewart will be leaving the Daily Show. I will demur commenting on living in times that show that comedy show host has been considered one of USA's most trusted journalist, and I will not use this commentary to extol the show, even though I am fond of it.
What bothers me is that from the few articles (hardly a scientific sample) that I have seen such as this one from Time Magazine, by Tessa Berenson and Dan Hirschhorn leave out important parties. This is amplified by the statement that Craig Kilborn started the Daily Show.
This is untrue. Kilborn was the first host, but Madeleine Smithberg and Lizz Winstead were the creators of the show. Also, the article mentions Stephen Colbert's stint on the Daily Show, but it does not state that he was hired before Stewart joined the show.
The Daily Show was quite a different beast in those days. The show was less concerned with news and seemingly more concerned with making fun of people; take a look at this clip at about fifteen minutes in, or the Lewis Black segment at eighteen minutes. Now, in all fairness, one does not end up on a show like this without signing a release, but the humor of those days felt much crueler, because the people that they mocked were not public figures. About the most public many of the figures got was public access TV, which is known for varying standards of quality.
Kilborn's puckish attitude during these times may have hastened his exit, doing himself no favors by making some scurrilous comments about Winstead, however, the show was not without some charm. The "5 Questions" segment got some funny responses. John Cleese was asked, "Why does English food suck?" He very quickly responded, "We had an empire to run!"
Jon Stewart, who made his presence known to Comedy Central viewers with the clip show "Short Attention Span Theater" along with Patty Rosborough (who seemed to do an inordinate amount of laughing), along with his crew did the Daily Show a great favor by shifting the focus away the average person and focusing on politics and politicians.
The Craig Kilborn version of the Daily Show, had it ended when he left, would not be remembered as fondly as the current incarnation. As a matter of fact, in his first show, Stewart does the 5 questions bit with Michael J. Fox and says after a stumble, "It's not my bit, what do I care?"
Kilborn has gone on to other ventures and even had a longer stint on the "Late Late Show" before Craig Ferguson took over, however, he has not gone on to anything of great note.
As stated in the previous entry, in times when information is easily obtained, DO YOUR RESEARCH.
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