Jon Stewart changed late-night comedy once. Can he have a second act in 2024?
NEW YORK >> As host of “The Daily Show” from 1999 to 2015, Jon Stewart changed comedy — and arguably journalism, too — with sharp, satirical takes on politics and current events. He became an essential part of the nation’s conversation.
Now let’s see if he can turn back time. Stewart, who walked away from “The Daily Show” to much fanfare, returns to his old perch Monday night. He’s agreed to host each Monday through the election, and to executive produce the weeknight show for Comedy Central into next year to help it through another transition.
Comebacks are hard enough in an industry that doesn’t always reward second acts. Catching lightning again will be difficult — particularly at a time when late-night television is greatly diminished as a cultural force and others, some from Stewart’s family tree, are now competitors.
It can be even tougher when, as Salon critic Melanie McFarland put it, the current Jon Stewart is forced to compete with memories of the old Jon Stewart.
“The world has changed,” says veteran television executive Doug Herzog, who hired Stewart and his successor, Trevor Noah, for Comedy Central. “The media environment has changed. The business has changed. It’s just so different. I’ll never speak for Jon, but he’s always been about going forward, he’s not about moving backwards. And that’s what I would expect him to do.”
What he left behind
He ended his previous hosting stint on Aug. 6, 2015, precisely as Trump emerged as a force in presidential politics. Some of Stewart’s fans were sorely disappointed that he was not there to offer his nightly take on the Trump presidency. Perhaps the chance to offer his voice during another Trump campaign proved irresistible.
Tough political humor didn’t leave with Stewart and has even thrived. Colbert makes Donald Trump a nightly punching bag on CBS. John Oliver, an alumni of “The Daily Show,” has an award-winning, issue-oriented show on HBO. Another “Daily” vet, Samantha Bee, held forth on TBS from 2016 to 2022. Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers are tartly topical, and Greg Gutfeld seeks laughs from a conservative perspective on Fox News Channel.
So Stewart will return to a crowded field of comics looking to mine much of the same material.
His appearances on Mondays — the same nights that Rachel Maddow does her once-aweek show on MSNBC — offer liberals a television murderer’s row.
It’s a more serious Stewart that fans have gotten to know since he left, both through his activism on behalf of rescue workers from Sept. 11, 2001, and his short-lived show on the Apple TV+ streaming service, “The Problem with Jon Stewart.” It’s legitimate to ask whether his comedy will be able to get rolling again after a nine-year absence, on the air just once a week, and if he can assemble a staff of writers as good as he once had.
In short, can this dedicated Mets fan still throw the fastball?
Coming back can be hard to do
Popular culture is littered with stars who tried to come back but could never recapture the magic — Arsenio Hall, Lucille Ball and Roseanne Barr are examples just from comedy. Name a musical act that reformed and substantially added to its legacy.
Often it had little to do with talent. The moment had simply passed, and Thompson worries that the same might be true now.
“There’s something so 2010 about Jon Stewart now,” he says.
Late-night comedy has far less of an imprint on the culture now than it did when Americans turned off the bedroom light after hearing Johnny Carson’s monologue, or even when Stewart went away.
Rather than stay up late, many Americans now log on to the Internet the next morning to catch late-night highlights, the best jokes. People who do stay up, young people in particular, are as apt to get lost on TikTok, play a video game or choose a show to stream.
“People don’t talk about late-night anymore,” Herzog said. “Night in and night out, it doesn’t play the same cultural role. We don’t stay up to watch Johnny Carson anymore, Cher on David Letterman, whatever it was. I don’t feel like it’s there anymore. It’s fragmented and gotten smaller, just like everything else.”