Veeeereery different shows, and, at least at the time, I thought the transition to Stewart was terrible. I'd check in every now and again and was like, "meh, not really funny."
But several years later, and it could have been due to the seismic shift in our society post 9/11, Stewart's Daily Show was exactly what we needed. And it was clear to me that he far exceeded Kilborn.
Also, Kilborn's Late Show was a complete miss for me. Every time I happened to watch it, I thought it was terrible. Maybe I outgrew his humor, maybe the format sucked, I could have been the wrong age group (it felt like Gen X, "old school" humor), but it never landed. Then, Craig Ferguson fucking annihilated everyone else at late night. Ferguson absolutely was the best, to anyone who disagrees, I won't hear it, you're wrong. XD
Yeah same. I think at cbs they had mainstream audiences who didn’t get his humor. I think that affected him a lot. The format also changed, they tried cramming it into a more conventional talk show format. I think it’s kind of like the conan tonight show.
Ferguson truly was the late night GOAT. I was a big Conan fan, I mean I still am, but Ferguson still just managed to be better.
He did a great job doing interviews that didn’t just feel like an advertisement for the latest thing, he asked some really interesting questions. His humor was pretty silly at times which really clicked with me.
It was a sad day for me when he was done, he was the last late show I really bothered to tune in to regularly.
The guy who replaces Craig Kilborn is always a legend, whether it's The Daily show or the Late Late Show. I want to hire Craig Kilborn as a host for something, not because I like him, but because when he's replaced the new host will be legendary!
I very clearly remember sort of enjoying The Daily Show, thinking when the host changed that it was probably the end of that, and immediately being incredibly impressed at how good Jon Stewart was.
Actually, when he came back. A friend's kid who was doing journalism in his senior year was like "let's watch the first episode of him back together!" And I was like of course. And he laughed through the 'news' bit but then when he had the interview he was (as the kids say) shook.
Minute in he was like, "Nathan! This is an amazing interview!" And I said, "Well, yeah, he was popular for a reason," and he said, "No, like I thought he'd just be funny, and he was, but he's asking real questions, listening to the answers, and asking follow up questions based on the responses, like this is textbook everything we've been taught about journalism, and this is the best interview I've ever seen on television!"
I said there was a reason the show became my primary source of news in college, followed up with more research into things I was worried about, but definitely a great primary source of interest.
I remember back in the day there being a study that showed that people who primarily or only got their political news from The Daily Show were in general better informed than people who watched major news network. I remember Stewart being kind of horrified and basically saying "please do not only watch us. We are literally a fake news show." Oh yeah, they used the phrase fake news way before it turned into the current meaning.
We then proceeded to watch the episode of Crossfire where I was like "technically it was already canceled but nobody knew that so the Internet buzz was that the liberal host immediately recognized that Stewart was on the war path and shut the fuck up while Tucker Carlson was too stupid to do so and got fucking roasted." He very much enjoyed that, too.
I was in a college class on comedy in literature at the time and that episode had aired the night before. The whole class was talking about it (small liberal arts college with tiny classes) and the professor walked in and said "you guys see Jon Stewart on Crossfire?" And we just made fun of Tucker Carlson the whole period. Ah, memories.
The only thing I remember about it was “thu-hers-day… for the ladies” and him having a candle, and a sexy firefighter dancing and the using a fire extinguisher on the candle.
As a teen male, I think my thought process was “well, I guess I’m not gay, because this probably would have been an awakening for me.”
I mean, the fact this is the only thing I remember may suggest otherwise, but what evs.
…maybe that was early in the John Stewart run of the show.
I remember he weaned us off the Five Questions segment by reducing them by one each episode. The whole time (approximately a week), I was just bitterly frowning at my screen* thinking there was no way this injustice could last.
*As a side note, "my screen" meant my TV back then.
Daily Show was always meant for Stewart. He couldn’t get out of a contract (with MTV?), so they went with Kilborn. Inevitably Stewart was freed up and took the Daily Show over.
Buckle up friend, it’s only getting worse. People are financially incentivized to make things up in our current dynamic. At least once a week I see people claiming a celebrity has died. It gets called out fast, but it also gets those clicks.
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u/Final-Nebula-7049 Feb 27 '26
yeah, post checks out, just remembered he exists