“America, The Book,” nabbed this year’s Thurber Prize for American Humor, awarded last night at a ceremony at New York’s The Algonquin.
As nice as the award is, it seems that The Daily Show itself is gaining mainstream respect.
Good going.
Gaining? You’d think winning a Peabody meant they already have mainstream respect.
America: The Book is a surprisingly funny read.
“Mess with a motherfuckah’s tea, and the shit be on.”
Personally, I agree with the current political slant of JS and the Daily Show and that makes it all that much more funny to me. However, it’s my firm belief that they’re really just poking fun at the often absurd nature of our government and reigning politics. Thus, I believe/hope that were there primarily democrats in power they’d poke just as much fun at them since idiocy always abounds.
I think once the political pendulum shifts (2008?), and if this is realized, the Daily Show will really come alive.
It didn’t help O’Reilly 
I have a small gripe about The Daily Show: they tend to have interesting authors on. And I often find and read these books. I often watch the show late at night and it’s a pain to remember the exact name and author that I saw. I could, in theory, scribble down the guest’s name and the book. But how hard would it be to have a list of books from recent guests on a website somewhere? I’d think there’d be money to be made with a hotlink to Amazon or somesuch.
No book list on the Daily Show Web site, but you can watch the interviews again. Look under the video link (lefthand side) on the Web site.
They’ve also won multiple Emmy Awards. I’d say The Daily Show already has a lot of mainstream respect.
Well, a Democrat in the White House was likely what killed (or helped to kill) Murphy Brown, which had based much of its humour on ridiculing the Bush41 administration.
Then again, maybe Murphy Brown was just a sanctimonious suckfest. Either way.
They’ll manage. Stewart came to the show when a Democrat was in office, after all.
Murphy Brown ran from 1988-1998, or longer in the Clinton administration than it did in the Bush41 administration.
Jon Stewart was on the cover of Newsweek. America: The Book spent at least 15 weeks on top of the New York Times Best Sellers list. John Edwards declared for the presidency on the show. The show’s mainstream acceptance happened years ago.
OTOH, you can argue against any humor prize being a truly mainstream award, let alone the Thurber prize, which has had a checkered history. (It was every other year, then no prize for three years, now it’s an annual event. Last year they gave it to Christopher Buckley for his comic novel, No Way to Treat a First Lady, one of his least successful books. That mainstream bastion, The Onion’s Our Dumb Century won in 1999. Andy Borowitz was a judge for the 2004 award and surprise, this year he’s a finalist.) If they didn’t give a humor book that’s sold 1,500,000 copies the prize, it wouldn’t have any credibility at all.
Yeah, but weren’t the final years more about Murphy’s baby than politics?
I thought Stewart did a great job interviewing Martha Stewart last night.