NEW YORK — Comedian Jon Stewart is rewinding the clock, returning to “The Daily Show” as a weekly host and executive producer until the 2024 US elections season.

Comedy Central said on Wednesday that Stewart will host the topical TV show, which he governed for 16 years beginning in 1999, on Mondays beginning February 12. The remainder of the week will feature a rotating cast of show regulars.

“Jon Stewart is the voice of our generation, and we are honoured to have him return to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show to help us all make sense of the insanity and division roiling the country as we approach the election season,” said Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, in a statement. “In our age of staggering hypocrisy and performative politics, Jon is the perfect person to puncture the empty rhetoric and provide much-needed clarity with his brilliant wit.”

Jon Stewart Will Return To ‘The Daily Show’ As Host — Just On Mondays

Over the years, “The Daily Show” — originally anchored by Craig Kilborn, then Stewart and Trevor Noah — has ridiculed the left and right by turning the media into a character and playing it completely straight, no matter how ludicrous.

The show, which received an Emmy Award this month for Best Talk Series, has not had a consistent host since Noah left last year. Current correspondents include Desi Lydic, Michael Kosta, Ronny Chieng, and Jordan Klepper.

Stewart did not depart the show in anger in 2015 and has talked kindly of it throughout the years.

“When you lose that structure, you’re untethered from the thing that prevents the bad mind from doing its corrupt best,” he explained on the Strike Force Five podcast during the Hollywood strikes last year. “It goes south and dark really fast.”

“It’s not as if I thought the show was no longer working or that I didn’t know how to run it. It was more like, ‘Yup, it’s working. But I don’t get the same satisfaction,” he told the Guardian newspaper in 2015.

The show has a solid long-term record as a talent incubator, launching the careers of John Oliver, Larry Wilmore, Olivia Munn, Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Aasif Mandvi. Stewart received the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humour in 2022.

Jon Stewart Will Return To ‘The Daily Show’ As Host — Just On Mondays

Two previous reporters, in particular, received significant boosts: Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert. Carell went on to have an Oscar and Emmy-nominated playing career in television’s “The Office” and films such as “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Foxcatcher.” From 2005 to 2014, Colbert hosted the Comedy Central offshoot “The Colbert Report” and is now the host of CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

Stewart’s show “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” which was set to premiere in 2021, was just cancelled on Apple TV+. It addressed polarising issues such as racism, climate change, mass incarceration, and gun control, but some critics found it too harsh.

The host spends some time looking for his old rhythm, the soft-loud-soft approach, in which he rockets from calm to horror to a person crouching in a corner croaking “help,” according to a review in the Los Angeles Times.

Jon Stewart Will Return To ‘The Daily Show’ As Host — Just On Mondays

The show’s unexpected closure was caused by disagreements between Stewart and Apple about their coverage of issues about China and artificial intelligence.

A spokeswoman did not immediately reply to inquiries regarding who might host “The Daily Show” following the November election. Stewart will stay as an executive producer until 2025, according to the network, and will also assist in shaping the show’s future direction.

SOURCE – (AP)