Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
‘The Daily Show’ at 25
Its creators look back at its launch and evolution
And now for your moment of Zen: “The Daily Show” turned 25 years old Thursday. The scrappy news spoof that debuted on a second-tier cable network has since become a staple of latenight television, a nearly unmatched comedy launchpad and a satirical extension of the thing it was created to mock: the TV news media.
While most of the show’s huzzahs have been directed toward its hosts, like Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah, and alumni like Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell and Samantha Bee, it is worth remembering that “The Daily Show” was created by two women: Madeleine Smithberg and Lizz Winstead. The writers and producers, veterans of MTV’s “The Jon Stewart Show,” were brought in by Comedy Central in 1995 to put together a nightly news parody.
Originally hosted by former ESPN anchor Craig Kilborn, “The Daily Show” began as a rejoinder to the excesses of mid-1990s TV news, in a pre-Fox News era when the worst of those extremes was CNN’s increasingly stagecraft-over-substance approach, and NBC’s ubiquitous “Dateline” was the model for TV smarm.
“The Daily Show” didn’t begin to evolve into the institution it has become until Stewart took over as host in 1999. By then, Winstead had already left the show; she departed in 1998 after clashing with Kilborn. She went on to co-found Abortion Access Front, a comedy-driven reproductive health organization, and she is set to premiere a weekly talk show on YouTube called “Feminist Buzzkills Live” this fall. Smithberg left “The Daily Show” in 2003 and went on to executive produce National Geographic’s “Explorer,” among other series. She now hosts a cooking show, “Mad in the Kitchen,” on YouTube.
In separate phone interviews, Smithberg and Winstead discussed the early years of “The Daily Show,” how the show was inspired by a bad date and discovering Colbert on “Good Morning America.” These are edited excerpts from the conversations.
Lizz, I read that you first had the idea for what would become “The Daily Show” while on a blind date.
Winstead: The guy was simply the worst. He showed up decked in Yankees gear head to toe, and I’m very wary of people who wear more than one piece of sports memorabilia. We go to a sports bar, and instead of sports being on, it was the night of the first Gulf War. There were all these hot young journalists on roofs in Baghdad, and there were graphics and a theme song. I said to myself, “Are they reporting on a war or trying to sell me a war?” It felt so orchestrated.
I kept watching, and five minutes later, the date was like, “This is really awesome.” I started watching the war coverage, and I became increasingly annoyed at what I felt was this party line that was being broadcast.
How did “The Daily Show” eventually come together?
Smithberg: It was all Doug Herzog. He was a big fan of “SportsCenter.” And when Doug moved from MTV to be president of Comedy Central, he had his own personal mandate that Comedy Central needed its “SportsCenter,” in that anytime anything happened in the world, he wanted people to need to watch Comedy Central. The first thing Doug offered me was to do this daily thing he wanted to make. I said absolutely not.
Lizz Winstead was my upstairs neighbor in Chelsea, on 20th Street. I had hired her to be a segment producer on “The Jon Stewart Show,” and she loved it. After the show went down, we were all kind of shellshocked.
One night we were hanging out, and we came up with an idea for a TV show. The idea was called “The Network.” It was like “Larry Sanders,” but instead of being about a show, it was about the worst cable network on planet Earth. We pitched the idea and got set up in a development deal.
Around seven months later, Herzog corners me: “Madeleine, what are you doing? You’re in there developing a show that I cannot afford to make. I need you to produce ‘The Daily Show.’ I am going to give it 85% of my production budget. You do not have to do a pilot.” And I walked into the office, and I go, “OK, girls, we’re going to take the cards down.”
Winstead: I started rifling off ideas about how something no one had ever done before was to do a show that looks exactly like the news but is satirizing the news. They said, “This is the kind of show that needs to develop on its own, so we’re going to give you guys a year to let it grow and really develop it.”
Smithberg: I always say that Stone Phillips should have gotten a created-by credit with me and Lizz because we studied that guy on “Dateline.” We studied the brow furrow; we studied the superserious reaction shot. We studied the walk-andtalk, the camera turn.
We’re watching clips of “Dateline,” and all of a sudden, a hush fell over the room. It was like we all said it at the same time. We said, “What if we pretend we’re them? If we pretend we’re them and adopt this really mock-serious, self-important attitude, then we can be as silly as we want, as long as we always bring it home.” That was the moment “The Daily Show” was born.
How was Kilborn brought in from “SportsCenter” to host?
Winstead: Herzog was a giant fan of Kilborn’s. He was somebody the network loved. A lot of people were like, “Is he playing dumb, or is he dumb?” He was a straight anchor, and people were always asking the question, “Is he a character, or is that who he really is?”
(Kilborn responded in an email, “Every place I’ve worked in television,
I’ve mocked the format. At ‘The Daily Show,’ for the headlines I would play the thoughtful, virile news anchor. Then during the guest interview and ‘5 Questions’ I would be myself — affable, charming Craig.”)
Smithberg: What we felt about Craig was that he was malleable. He had really good timing. He would read anything that was on the prompter, and he delivered the jokes really well. We thought of him as our Ted Baxter. The voice of “The Daily Show” was not Craig’s voice. He called stories about war and politics the front page. He said, “Can we get off the front page?”
(Kilborn: “I had an absolute blast hosting ‘The Daily Show,’ but there were major disconnects because the show was innocently set up in a flawed way — the host wasn’t hired first — so we inherited each other. I liked Madeleine a lot but she didn’t get me. Of course, there’s really no human being who could fully understand me, except for maybe the late Margaret Thatcher. And TNT’s Ernie Johnson.”)
How much did the show change in its planning and early stages?
Smithberg: I had the set built, and Kilborn wouldn’t even look at the designs or setup. We’re launching the following Monday, so I’m like, “Come on, Craig, let’s get you down and sit you in your chair.” And he sits in his chair and says, “The set’s backward.” “What do you mean, it’s backward?” He goes, “This is my good side.” We had to flip the set over the weekend so that his good side could be to camera when he was talking to the guests.
(Kilborn: “I don’t have a better side — I have two equally stunning sides. The set was backward, and I wanted to be ‘screen right’ for the guests just like Johnny Carson and Dave Letterman.”)
How did Colbert and Carell join the show as correspondents?
Winstead: I saw Colbert doing pieces on “Good Morning America” as a correspondent, and I was like, “He is saying some things that nobody is catching that are really funny, and it feels like he is playing a correspondent. He should be on ‘The Daily Show.’” I went to Madeleine, and I said, “I don’t know that ‘GMA’ understands how funny he is, and we should steal him.”
Smithberg: After four or five months, I called back Mike August at William Morris, and I go, “Do you have another one like Stephen Colbert?” And he goes, “As a matter of fact, I do: It’s his best friend and writing partner Steve Carell.” So I go, “OK, when can he start?”
Lizz, how did you decide to leave “The Daily Show” in 1998?
Winstead: I don’t really talk about how I left the show, but let’s just say that Craig and I didn’t get along that well, in the end, and it was not an ideal work environment. I decided to opt out and leave.
In what ways did Stewart change “The Daily Show” when he became its host in 1999?
Winstead: The thing that’s different between Jon and Craig is that Jon is a comic with a point of view, and Craig was a character. It would have been a waste for Jon Stewart to go into a character when he can write such brilliant commentary. That elevated the show into this other place.
Smithberg: The show got better. It’s an empirical fact.
How important was the disputed 2000 presidential election to the show’s evolution?
Smithberg: During that time, the legitimate media, what could they do? They couldn’t go, “This is absurd.” Everyone was having vicarious fun through us because we were allowed to shed a light on the absurdity of this situation. It was during those 34 days that “The Daily Show” became something far beyond what it had ever been, in terms of cultural relevance.
Has television become a more hospitable place for women since “The Daily Show” premiered?
Smithberg: I get really upset with myself because I feel like I was in a position where I could have done something to make a difference, but I didn’t know there was a problem because it was me and Lizz. It was such a girlie show! But I wish we had a little more diversity on that staff. I look at all the staff photos of all the late-night shows, and I’m like, “Where are the other people?” It’s a very creepy thing. I had a shot at actually doing something, but I didn’t know there was a problem. I was still wiping the shards of glass off my own shoulders from the glass ceiling.
Are you surprised to see “The Daily Show” carrying on 25 years later, now with Noah as the show’s third host?
Winstead: I’m more surprised that the television media continues to create spaces that have allowed “The Daily Show” to exist this long. The point is not that our funny graphics are killing over here. The point is that people understand that you aren’t doing your job.
Smithberg: It’s really hard for me to watch because I see things that I wrote, but I wasn’t in the Writers Guild at the time. I wrote, “When a news story falls through the cracks, Lewis Black catches it for a segment we call ‘Back in Black.’ ” And the Moment of Zen. If I had one-one-hundred-thousandth of the royalties I should have, my life would be very different. But my life is very good right now, so I’m less bitter than I have been at other points in my life.
How do you understand your legacy and the place of “The Daily Show” in the history of television?
Smithberg: “The Daily Show” has earned an “esque.” If you get to the point where something can be “blank-esque,” that thing is a thing. I feel really proud that I created a thing that has an “esque” at the end of it.