Please stop laughing at your own jokes!!! This kills the funny!!!
I’ve been thinking that The Daily Show hasn’t been as good lately, but realized that it’s because Stewart is just really annoying me. He apparently thinks he is the most clever person on earth…more so now than usual.
Some video will be shown, and he will say something funny (I laugh)–they cut back to him and he starts making faces or doing stupid voices (I abruptly stop laughing), just to play to the audience. AND THEY EAT THAT SHIT UP!!! So he keeps doing it.
I really wish the entire show was done in a more deadpan sort of way (I think Colbert is much better at this, and thus his show is more enjoyable). I wish there wasn’t a studio audience at all…and it was done just like a real newscast.
Sigh. I used to think that the reason I stopped liking things once they became popular was because I was an anti-popularity snob. No, it’s because the more popular/ubiquitous a show gets, the more half-assed it becomes. I guess they figure they don’t have to fight for an audience anymore, so they don’t need to try as hard.
Am I the only one who is annoyed by this?
(I nearly put this in the pit, but I can’t muster up enough vitriol for a television show.)
Talk Soup on E! was like that. It used to be amusing when Greg Kinnear (and I still can’t believe Kinnear used to do that show) and John Henson did it. Henson was followed up by the lovely Aisha Tyler. By the time Aisha Tyler got to it most of the “crew laughter” was forced or canned. Now that it’s The Soup with Joel McHale it’s the utterly insipid crap that it probably should have been from the beginning. Alas.
You know, I shouldn’t have read this because now I’m going to notice him doing it. Speaking of which, it’s on now.
And I think the Colbert Report is funnier mainly because Steven is not as much a slave to his audience as Jon Stewart.
Right. But, it isn’t a constant thing. Maybe I just think Colbert is funnier, so I can forgive him. He doesn’t have the tendency to run things into the ground as Stewart does.
Case in point: When they were covering the Queen’s visit, Stewart would do his Python-esque high pitched screechy imitation of her. It was funny for the first few seconds but he dragged it on for several minutes…and kept going until it was no longer funny at all.
I get the feeling of “God, I’m brilliant” when he starts with the imitations, or starts reacting to the crowd’s reaction to whatever pun is showing on the backdrop (? what do you call that?).
Other times…when he screws up or something like that…it is a lot like watching the awkward nerdy kid from school, who would continuously ram his head into the side of the building because it made the cool kids laugh. Maybe I can smell the desperation.
TDS and TCR are totally different styles of shows. TDS has the advantage of supporting correspondents (which by the way I think are just as funny as ever.) so a lot less of the material revolves around John Stewart. John Stewart is more the glue that holds the band together. His sillyness just reminds me that the show is still at heart pretty silly. I usually go do something else for JS guest interviews because its just not as silly. Sometimes the guest interviews are great though. I love John Stewart.
TCR on the othrhand revolves around Steven entirely. I don’t think anyone else could do it the way he does. That guy is always on. The only guest that ever “got” Stephen was Jane Fonda and he deserved it from what he did to her on her first appearance. I think his funniest segments are the “Better Know a District” segments. Too bad nobody has the balls to go through with these interviews. I blame Nancy Pelosi for this.
I enjoy JS’s observation of himself and the audience reaction. I disagree that the QE bit was too drawn out. I cannot imagine anyone else brining to the show what JS does.
TCR is a completely different animal–sometimes I can’t keep up with Stephen, talk about wheels within wheels.
I am glad that they have decreased the number of hand-offs between the shows. That bit was always irritating to me.
Yes! I was trying to figure out whether it was new or I just hadn’t noticed before, but it seems really frequent (and irritating) for me to have missed till the last few weeks. Tell me when he stops and I’ll go back to watching the show again.
OH MY GOD. I was watching the replay today, and it seems like he was doing it constantly (just to piss me off, I am sure).
I think that’s exactly it. That laugh is really fucking annoying. I am so bothered by it, that it is like a magnifying glass for all the other annoying things he does (which I guess I ignored before).
The correspondants today are inferior to Colbert, Helms, Carrell, and Corddry. This puts more of the spotlight on Jon. Jon is still grreat at what he does…it’s the rest of the show that is lacking. John Oliver, Sam Bee, and Hodgman are good but not great. The rest of the correspondents aren’t right for the part.
