Jon Stewart’s Return To ‘The Daily Show’ Felt Familiar To Those Who Missed Him While He Was Away

NEW YORK — Jon Stewart hasn’t been sitting at his desk at Comedy Central for the past nine years, waiting for someone to switch the lights on.

It almost felt that way when Jon Stewart returned to “The Daily Show” on Monday night. His distinctive manoeuvres — biting satire, facial grimaces, intelligent use of video, and occasional lectures — remained intact. Public personalities have been notified that the media’s sharpest bull detector is back on the job.

Jon Stewart has stated that the absence of a humorous outlet for his thoughts throughout the presidential campaign influenced his decision to repeat his most remembered role one night every week throughout the election. The much-reduced Comedy Central, unable to find a replacement for Trevor Noah as host, gladly welcomed him back.

Questions concerning the future of late-night television, which is fast losing viewers and influence, will not be answered in one night. Neither will that night demonstrate Jon Stewart’s ability to reclaim the notoriety he lost in August 2015.

Jon Stewart’s Return To ‘The Daily Show’ Felt Familiar To Those Who Missed Him While He Was Away

But it was a promising beginning.

“Are you disappointed yet?” After making a stupid joke about dubbing “The Daily Show’s” election coverage “Indecision 2024: Electile Dysfunction,” Stewart added.

He dived directly into the news of the day.

Stewart appeared to borrow a leaf from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow when she expanded her daily hosting job to a weekly one. Both avoided the temptation to jam a week’s — or nine years’ — worth of content into a single show. He quickly got into the news and the latest activities of President Joe Biden and his Republican adversary.

In Biden’s case, this meant explicitly addressing questions about his age and fitness for office, which the president’s supporters will undoubtedly want to avoid. He analyzed Biden’s news conference last week, intended to dispute characterizations in special counsel Robert Hur’s report on sensitive papers discovered in Biden’s residence.

“Joe Biden had a big press conference to dispel the notion that he may have lost a step and, politically speaking, lost three or four steps,” claimed the former vice president.

He responded to Biden aides who felt it was a good idea for him to reject a Super Bowl interview in favour of a TikTok appearance, “Fire everyone.”

Jon Stewart’s Return To ‘The Daily Show’ Felt Familiar To Those Who Missed Him While He Was Away

Stewart played a video of administration officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats, testifying to Biden’s sharpness and urged that the president be filmed at those meetings so that the public could see him.

However, Stewart utilized carefully edited videos of Donald Trump and his family admitting they couldn’t recollect things during depositions to refute the assumption that Biden is alone in exhibiting memory impairments during such high-pressure legal hearings. “The Daily Show” even discovered one in which Trump claimed he couldn’t recall discussing his excellent memory.

His major point: Concerns over whether 81-year-old Biden or 77-year-old Trump can handle the world’s most difficult job should be addressed.

“It is the candidates’ job to assuage concerns, not the voters’ job not to mention them,” Stewart said in a statement.

He was well-received by critics.

Based on one night, a few critics praised Jon Stewart’s smooth transition.

Variety’s Alison Herman stated that “it almost seemed like he never left,” which was mirrored in the headlines of reviews by NPR reviewer Eric Deggans and CNN’s Brian Lowry.

“From the show’s opening moments, Jon Stewart eased back into the host’s chair without missing a beat, firing off jokes with a familiar style that felt like he had left just a few weeks ago, rather than in 2015,” he wrote. “He brought a confidence the show sorely needs.”

According to Jeremy Egner of The New York Times, “Stewart’s first night found him greyer—at one point, he used his own wizened face as a prop in a joke about the presidential candidates’ ages.” However, he was otherwise in classic form.

930,000 people on Comedy Central saw the show, but viewership increased to 1.85 million when a later rerun and simulcasts with other Paramount-owned networks, such as MTV and Paramount, were included, according to Nielsen. It was the most-watched episode of “The Daily Show” since 2018 and more than quadruple Trevor Noah’s average for 2022.

Jon Stewart’s Return To ‘The Daily Show’ Felt Familiar To Those Who Missed Him While He Was Away

The similarity between Stewart returning to “The Daily Show” and two candidates potentially staging a rematch was too clear to ignore. Correspondent Dulce Sloan, purportedly speaking about disheartened voters, stated that they needed someone new rather than “old white dudes” returning to regain a position.

“We’re talking about the election, right?” Stewart stated.

After his departure, the “campaign” break allowed Stewart and fans who had fallen away from “The Daily Show” to become acquainted with new cast members. An on-set interview with Jordan Klepper, who will host the show for the remainder of the week, went less well.

Stewart spent his time away as an activist lobbying for benefits for 9/11 responders and hosted “The Problem with Jon Stewart” on Apple TV+ for two years. He nodded veiled to the latter on Monday, stating that he would be making jokes about China and AI, topics that supposedly made Apple uncomfortable before cancelling the show.

source – (AP)