NEW YORK — As host of “The Daily Show” from 1999 to 2015, Jon Stewart changed comedy — and perhaps journalism — 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 spot Monday night. He has agreed to host every Monday during the election and produce the weeknight show for Comedy Central next year to help the company through another transition.
Comebacks are hard enough in an industry that doesn’t always reward second acts. Catching lightning again will be difficult — especially at a time when late-night television as a cultural force has greatly diminished and others, some from Stewart’s family tree, are now competitors.
Things could get even trickier if, as Salon critic Melanie McFarland put it, today’s Jon Stewart is forced to compete with the memories of the old Jon Stewart.
“The world has changed,” says longtime television executive Doug Herzog, who hired Stewart and his successor, Trevor Noah, for Comedy Central. “The media environment has changed. The company has changed. It’s just so different. I’ll never speak for Jon, but he was always about moving forward, not going backward. And that’s what I expect from him.”
Let’s pay tribute to what Stewart accomplished when he found massive success in the early 2000s.
The political humor consisted largely of tame one-liners before Stewart and his team of fake correspondents – people you’ve come to know well, like Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert – dove into the day’s news. He exposed double talk, pointed out hypocrisy and could laugh with a wide-eyed look of disbelief or fear.
Research has shown that ‘The Daily Show’ was an important source of news for many young Americans. Stewart’s comedy was also aimed at journalists. CNN canceled its political debate show “Crossfire” after Stewart skewered a then-Tucker Carlson bowtie. “The Daily Show” may not have pioneered the use of past video to prove a point, but it certainly reminded journalists of its effectiveness.
“Jon Stewart completely changed the face of late night,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. And the television executive who lured Stewart back, Chris McCarthy, called him “the voice of our generation.”
Stewart hasn’t spoken about it publicly, although he did joke — what else? – on social media. “After much consideration, I have decided to enter the transfer portal for my final year of eligibility,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.
He ended his previous hosting stint on August 6, 2015, just as Trump was emerging as a force in presidential politics. Some of Stewart’s fans were very disappointed that he wasn’t there to give his late-night take on the Trump presidency. Perhaps the opportunity to make his voice heard during a new Trump campaign proved irresistible.
The harsh political humor has not disappeared in Stewart and has even flourished. Colbert turns Donald Trump into a late-night 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, appeared on TBS from 2016 to 2022. Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers are sharply topical, and Greg Gutfeld looks for laughs from a conservative perspective on Fox News Channel.
So Stewart returns to a crowded field of comics, seeking out much of the same material.
His Monday appearances — the same nights Rachel Maddow does her weekly show on MSNBC — offer liberals an argument about television killers.
It’s a more serious Stewart that fans have come to know since he left, both through his activism on behalf of rescuers starting on September 11, 2001, and through his short-lived show on the Apple TV+ streaming service, “The Problem with Jon Stewart.” .” It’s legitimate to wonder whether his comedy will pick up again after a nine-year hiatus, airing only once a week, and whether he can assemble as good a staff of writers as he once had.
Basically, can this devoted Mets fan still throw the fastball?
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 from comedy. Name a musical act that reshaped and added substance to its legacy.
It often had little to do with talent. The moment simply passed, and Thompson worries the same could be the case now.
“There’s something very 2010 about Jon Stewart now,” he says.
Late-night comedy has far less influence on culture today than it did when Americans turned off the bedroom lights after hearing Johnny Carson’s monologue, or even when Stewart left.
Instead of staying up late, many Americans now log on to the Internet the next morning to watch the late night highlights, the best jokes. People who do stay up, especially young people, tend to get lost on TikTok, play a video game or choose a show to stream.
“People don’t talk about late nights anymore,” Herzog said. “It doesn’t play the same cultural role night in and night out. We don’t stay up anymore to watch Johnny Carson, Cher to David Letterman, whatever it was. I don’t feel like it’s there anymore. It has become fragmented and smaller, just like everything else.”
During the 2014-2015 season, “The Daily Show,” Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight,” Kimmel and Letterman combined to average 10.5 million viewers in his final year at CBS, according to the Nielsen company. The same four shows – Colbert now replacing Letterman – now have 4.8 million viewers. The shows generated $859 million in advertising revenue in 2015. Through November last year, the total was $259 million in 2023, advertising intelligence provider Vivvix said.
If you take out “The Daily Show,” the decline is much sharper. Stewart had more than 1.3 million viewers in his final season; Trevor Noah was down to 372,000 by 2022 and those numbers certainly dropped last year due to the failed attempt to find a successor. During Stewart’s last full year in 2014, “The Daily Show” earned an estimated $129 million in advertising revenue. Last year, it fell to $19 million through November, per Vivvix.
The format was dominated by white men for years and is outdated, says Salon’s McFarland.
“I don’t think the night scene will disappear completely,” she says. “But it has to remake itself.”
Older viewers (at least those who can stick around) will certainly be curious to see if Stewart still has it. The same may not be true for younger people who know Stewart only by reputation. And is the 61-year-old the right person to appoint a new generation of talent?
“Jon has a way of seizing the moment,” Herzog says. “Everything has changed. We’re not going back in time, but I have faith that Jon will find a way forward. Jon is good that way.
We will see. No pressure.
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David Bauder covers media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder