How Jon Stewart killed comedy

[Geee]

American Spectator

Somewhere along the way, Jon Stewart discovered he could make stupid people laugh by smirking at Fox News clips — and the world has never been the same since. Stewart, who anchored The Daily Show until 2015, is often remembered as the progenitor of a long line of left-wing topical comedians, from Stephen Colbert to John Oliver to Samantha Bee. Yet before that he was something else: the most gloriously subversive personality on television.

The Daily Show’s heyday came at the turn of the century, just after Stewart had taken it over from Craig Kilborn. His approach back then wasn’t so much activist as satirical, aping the corporate news and thereby exposing its stupidities and hypocrisies. The Daily Show was comedy done the hard way, not partisan dunks but biting caricature and points made through mimicry. To tune in back then was to feel like you were at the back of a 1990s classroom, hanging out with a cool pack of slackers dressed ironically in suits to mock the teacher.

So what happened? Stewart, like so many entertainers of his day, was driven around the bend by the Bush administration. The show had always tilted left, but as the 2000s wore on, it became less about mocking the news than shouting at it. Stewart’s solo segments were expanded; he became obsessed with Fox News whose clips he often aired out of context. A brain-dead in-studio audience cackled and myoclonically jerked along to everything he said. Democrats hailed the show as brilliant; in reality, it had grown predictable and stale.