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What a bummer. When Roy Wooden Jr. stood behind Trevor Noah two weeks in the past whereas Noah was accepting an Emmy for The Each day Present—the present that Noah not hosted, the present that hasn’t had a everlasting host since he left on the finish of 2022—and silently mouthed, for all of the world to see, “Please … rent … a … host,” Jon Stewart was in all probability not … who … he … meant.
Sure, Comedy Central introduced at this time that, after a near-decade hiatus from its flagship program, Stewart will return to host the present on Monday nights by way of November’s presidential election, after which he’ll produce the present by way of 2025. The selection is each a punt and a give up, in addition to a poetically becoming selection for an election yr that already looks like a miserable rerun. It’s the late-night equal of renominating Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
The community has been searching for a number for nearly two years now—Noah introduced that he was leaving in September 2022. Since then a carousel of gifted younger performers have been taking turns holding the seat heat, hoping they is likely to be the one whose butt acquired the nod to completely occupy it. And in Comedy Central’s protection, it appeared they’d lastly made up their thoughts late final summer season to rent Hasan Minhaj, an eminently certified, refreshingly fashionable selection. Then The New Yorker published an article suggesting that Minhaj had taken artistic liberties with a number of the tales he’d informed onstage up to now, and the deal blew up. Now it was again to chair—sorry, sq.—one.
Fairly than taking a danger on a recent expertise and selecting from the big range of younger, various, and really humorous candidates the producers had cultivated over the previous two years—somebody like Ronnie Chieng, Michelle Wolf, or Wood Jr.—they pulled a Bob Iger.
Stewart’s restricted engagement again on TV isn’t the problem right here. By itself I would even be enthusiastic about it. Jon Stewart is a nationwide treasure. As somebody who spent his 20s and 30s watching Stewart on a near-nightly foundation, I’m very a lot trying ahead to his Monday-night cameos—I’ll watch them on Instagram, the identical means I’ve been watching Each day Present segments just about since Noah took over. That is Stewart’s pure aspect, the very best job he’s ever had, the very best work he’s ever accomplished. On this respect, Stewart coming again is each bit as welcome as Kate McKinnon periodically returning to visitor host Saturday Evening Stay.
The half that looks like such a bummer is Stewart reclaiming the reins of the entire present. All of it however ensures that The Each day Present received’t have a everlasting host till after 2025, as a result of nobody genuinely worthy would take that job with Stewart as a shadow boss. It makes the present look determined, which is weird, as a result of The Each day Present shouldn’t be, isn’t, determined. It simply received an Emmy! It’s customized constructed for the social-media age and as related as ever! Chieng (or Wolf, or Wooden) would’ve been improbable. As an alternative, Comedy Central comes off trying prefer it’s paralyzed, afraid of selecting somebody too area of interest, or too progressive, or too controversial, and terrified of one other Hasan Minhaj situation.
If this looks like a considerably ignominious retreat for Stewart, a tail-between-the-legs second after years within the wilderness, sure, that’s precisely what it’s. He was solely accessible for the job, in fact, as a result of Apple TV+ decided last autumn not to renew The Downside With Jon Stewart, his deeper-diving, extra civic-minded follow-up. The issues with The Downside With Jon Stewart have been legion, however the two deadly ones have been that it wasn’t humorous and no one watched it.
And Stewart solely took that job after a profitable multiyear take care of HBO got here and went with not a single piece of content material to indicate for it, and after writing and directing a political satire known as Irresistible, starring his longtime Each day Present accomplice Steve Carell, that moviegoers resisted fairly simply.
There’s no disgrace in making a nasty film, or a flop—on the time, the movie appeared like a pure development for Stewart, and it’s straightforward to think about a world during which the outgoing host of The Each day Present delivered a pointy, well timed political satire, a Wag the Canine or Within the Loop for Trump’s America. However essentially the most disappointing factor about Irresistible was how flat and toothless it was, and the way few insights it supplied about our election system. Stewart had whole artistic freedom, all of the assets he wanted, and no artistic juice.
When Stewart departed The Each day Present 9 years in the past, he appeared to grasp that it wanted a more energizing sensibility. Occasions had modified. The selection of Noah to interchange him steered that Comedy Central understood that, too. Noah was an astonishingly daring selection on the time—not only a whole unknown, a complete unknown from South Africa—and Noah rewarded the community by sustaining the present’s excellence when everybody assumed it may by no means survive with out the host who’d constructed it into an American-comedy establishment. Then he left to renew his stand-up profession and bat away rumors that he’s courting Dua Lipa. Already his submit–Each day Present profession goes higher than his predecessor’s.
For therefore lengthy it was assumed that The Each day Present wanted Jon Stewart greater than Jon Stewart wanted The Each day Present. Noah ought to have taught everybody in any other case. So what occurred?
The entire motive Stewart left within the first place, in any case, was as a result of he had exhausted his powers of persuasion, his act was susceptible to turning into a shtick, and his writing employees too intently resembled the patriarchal institution {that a} program like The Each day Present exists to dismantle. Possibly he’ll declare that he’s coming again as a result of this second in historical past is simply too consequential to withstand, that the menace posed by Trump is just too nice, and that that is his means of becoming a member of the battle. His most dear position now, although, is identical as that of a determine like Barack Obama—the senior statesman who makes use of all that banked goodwill to hype up the subsequent technology’s standard-bearer. The kingmaker, not the king.
The entire level of bringing Stewart again now’s that he’s the secure selection. The model of Jon Stewart we watched all through his first run as host was a trailblazer—the right union of a comic book voice with a political period. This one is only a man who wants a job.
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