# How Jon Stewart Turned Lies into Comedy... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 16, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769 "2015-02-16T00:37:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/41 "2015-02-16T21:55:27Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Notice he said nothing about ratings? No. The opposite, actually. > [@](#): > > But as has been noted, the Fox News attempt at comedy has bombed. Comedy must be able to go where it goes no matter what. Conservatives seem to have a problem with this. Mallard Fillmore found nothing funny in 8 years of George Bush - except when Bush proposed some reasonable immigration policy, that is. > This is recent - when I read National Review in the '60s and '70s it was frequently funny. PJs first few books were funny also. So I can recognize conservative humor when I see it - I just don’t see any these days. I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove with this. FTR, I’m not much up on the humor scene these days, so I don’t know who is hot in the humor field let alone whether they are conservative or liberal. That said, it’s obvious that the overall entertainment industry is heavily liberal, and if the top comedians simply reflected the mileu in which they work that alone would account for an imbalance. Furthermore, the fact that people find humor funnier when it aligns with their beliefs seems pretty obvious too. These two factors alone would account for an imbalance, especially when this imbalance is being measured in the subjective judgment of liberals declaring that so-and-so is not funny (as is being done here). Do you actually disagree with these factors, or are you just saying that they don’t account for the entire phenomenon? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/42 "2015-02-16T21:56:01Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Some conservatives are funny, such as Dennis Miller. Some conservatives are shrill and funny, such as Ann Coulter. Some are charismatic and funny, such as Bill O’Reilly. :rolleyes: No, not them either. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/43 "2015-02-16T22:00:04Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > How do you think Conservative humor is tied to mocking the hungry, poor, sick and defeated? Because only liberals are hungry, poor, sick and defeated? Name a conservative humorist you find funny and I will find examples explaining it from their oeuvre. (That’s French for body of work.) ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/44 "2015-02-16T22:08:07Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Name a conservative humorist you find funny and I will find examples explaining it from their oeuvre. (That’s French for body of work.) I think Al Franken is hysterical. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/45 "2015-02-16T22:23:48Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I think Al Franken is hysterical. He’s about as liberal as they come… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/46 "2015-02-16T22:37:24Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > That said, it’s obvious that the overall entertainment industry is heavily liberal . . . [Not so much](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hollywood_values#Today) [as you might think](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Liberal_media), actually. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/47 "2015-02-16T22:56:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But why is there almost nobody **funny** on the right? _Mallard Fillmore_ is not funny . . . no RW editorial cartoonist I’ve ever seen is funny . . . Dennis Miller is not funny . . . the “Christian comedians” are not funny . . . not even the great P.J. O’Rourke has been **very** funny since his _National Lampoon_ days . . . there was _The Half Hour News Hour,_ a Fox effort at its own counterpart to _TDS_ but it didn’t last long . . . Why is that?! I did a search for Victoria Jackson, for some background info on her non-appearance at the 40th annivsary show. I found an article about her, that included this: _She also took the opportunity to highlight former SNL cast members who are allegedly conservatives — Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Adam Sandler, Norm Macdonald, Colin Quinn, and Jim Downey — and even noted that Lorne Michaels may be a “closet conservative.”_ There’s no accounting for tastes, but I was disturbed about Jon Lovitz, who I’ve found very funny at times. A little googling turned up that he voted for Obama, but thought taxes on the rich were high enough, dammit. So, a false alarm really. Norm McDonald seems borderline, in both politics and funniness. He claims he’s apolitical, and doesn’t really believe Clinton killed Vince Foster. Adam Sandler seems to be a real Republican, and appeared at a National Convention – I’m not a huge fan, but routines like Canteen Boy were better than average. In his heyday he was one of the biggest comedy draws in the movies. On the SDMB Shodan can often make me laugh. The above opinions and facts are presented as points on a graph. No conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/48 "2015-02-16T23:05:26Z")
> [@Syne](#): > > Stewart is likely moving on because he knows his shtick is getting a bit tired This is the second time I’ve heard someone rationalizing Jon Stewart leaving because he looked ‘tired’. i’ve never noticed him looking or acting tired & I still enjoy his show. Almost seems like I just tripped over some newsletter’s talking point. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/49 "2015-02-16T23:11:43Z")
Mallard Fillmore is hysterial, I don’t know what you guys are talking about. [Check out this strip, it’s an insightful and witty needling of itself!](http://feldmanthecat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/mallard-stewart.jpg) High humor. I mean, it does have its low points. [Check out what this hack wrote](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v677/jdonahue62/e165ae8e.gif). Jon Stewart always wrote better “Jon Stewart touches children” subtitle jokes than this. I mean, if you’re going to go lowbrow, at least make it FUNNY. Must have been a guest strip that week. From these two examples, the first one is clearly written by a guy who deserves to have years of employment writing comics, and the other one is written by a talentless humorless joyless hack who hasn’t written a joke in decades, and should probably go sit on a traffic cone. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/50 "2015-02-16T23:20:45Z")
> [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](#): > > I think it’s because by and large, the conservative world view is the opposite of what most folks find funny. They tend to come down on the side of CEO’s, bankers, and other “makers” and are fine with all those “takers” being kept down. I never got the “makers” and “takers” schtick. The people who actually \*make \*things are poor people. Often in entry level positions or labor positions which get paid far less than the median. The ones who take all the profit from increased productivity and don’t share it with the workers who made it possible, those who steal employees’ wages, those who dodge paying their personal income taxes, those who accept government subsidies, while trying to relocate their company overseas and still operate in America so they can avoid paying corporate taxes, those people are the takers. The billions of dollars in profit each year end up mostly concentrated in the hands of the few in our society. To paint the poor as takers, and greedy, and lazy, is so far from the truth, it’s literally insane that anyone believes it. I also want to point out, it is (also literally) impossible for someone to get as wealthy as they do, without hiring a bunch of people to do 99.99% of the actual work. The only way you get that rich is to either invent/patent something and manufacture and sell it yourself, or to get an army of paid workers to generate sales and product to sell. You can’t do it on your own. The rich should be grateful there’s people willing to make them rich for a low wage, instead, they’re greedy fucks who shit on their workers at every opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/51 "2015-02-16T23:47:29Z")
They don’t do the actual shitting, they have people for that. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/52 "2015-02-16T23:50:52Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > Adam Sandler seems to be a real Republican, and appeared at a National Convention – I’m not a huge fan, but routines like Canteen Boy were better than average. Fuck **that** shit! **Opera Man!** But, that doesn’t count, it was never really political material even when it was. Sure, comics who happen to be politically conservative can do funny stuff – but not, apparently, if it’s political, like most of Stuart’s and Colbert’s stuff. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/53 "2015-02-16T23:56:24Z")
Imagine, like you’re a tree? And gonna get cut down so they can print _Mallard Fillmore_? Bummer, man,\* bummer\*! ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/54 "2015-02-16T23:59:05Z")
Yeah, there’s a difference between a comedian who votes conservative and one making “conservative humor”. Adam Sandler might be a card-carrying Republican but that doesn’t come through in Happy Gilmore unless you stretch into the credibility strained “But he’s an American who achieved his dreams!” territory that gives us arguments like “Ghostbusters has an EPA guy who’s a jerk! Brilliant conservative humor!” ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/55 "2015-02-17T00:04:59Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But why is there almost nobody **funny** on the right? _Mallard Fillmore_ is not funny . . . no RW editorial cartoonist I’ve ever seen is funny . . . Dennis Miller is not funny . . . the “Christian comedians” are not funny . . . not even the great P.J. O’Rourke has been **very** funny since his _National Lampoon_ days . . . there was _The Half Hour News Hour,_ a Fox effort at its own counterpart to _TDS_ but it didn’t last long . . . Why is that?! Has no one ever heard of [Greg Gutfeld](http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/red-eye/)? Man is gut-busting. ETA: j/k ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/56 "2015-02-17T00:36:28Z")
Fox and Friends is the best comedy show on television, or the biggest tragedy, depending on your interpretation of their intent. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/57 "2015-02-17T01:02:23Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > Fox and Friends is the best comedy show on television, or the biggest tragedy, depending on your interpretation of their intent. Perhaps I should restate the question: Why is there almost nobody **intentionally** funny on the right? ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/58 "2015-02-17T01:26:16Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Fuck **that** shit! **Opera Man!** > > But, that doesn’t count, it was never really political material even when it was. Sure, comics who happen to be politically conservative can do funny stuff – but not, apparently, if it’s political, like most of Stuart’s and Colbert’s stuff. I’m not sure the discussion was heretofore limited to political humor. And putting that limitation on it does make things tricky, because it’s hard to be amused by something that you philosophically disagree with. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/59 "2015-02-17T01:48:06Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > I’m not sure the discussion was heretofore limited to political humor. And putting that limitation on it does make things tricky, because it’s hard to be amused by something that you philosophically disagree with. Is it? I used to laugh my **ass** off at Sam Kinison! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2015, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769/60 "2015-02-17T01:57:02Z")
Libertarian humor, now, is a different thing . . . As Stone and Parker of \*South Park \* say, “We hate conservatives, but we really, really hate liberals.” There is one consistent political message – maybe true, maybe false, but at any rate consistent – running through a lot of their material: Too many people take politics too seriously. And they always manage to make it funny. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy/712769.md?page=4)