I think Olivia Munn’s bottom ranks very highly indeed. 
I have a huge ole crush on John Oliver, so in my mind all the others are scrambling for second place.
I’m going to put in a word here for Kristen Schaal. She only did a few pieces, but I thought she was great. And very cute.
Ug, I thought she was terrible. I was glad they didn’t give her a regular gig.
I used to be ho-hum about Wyatt Cenac but he’s growing on me. His work as the Michael Steele Puppet is hilarious.
Asif Mandvi is getting better too.
No love for Sam Bee. Meh. Meh. Meh.
I had to laugh when I read the “female controversy” stuff. You know who else couldn’t write for women? Monty Python. And Kids in the Hall for that matter. They just up and said they couldn’t do it and didn’t want to cast women in shitty roles so they did their own shitty female roles. Unless they needed someone hot, then Carol Cleveland came on (Python).
I think Oliver is great and all, probably one of the best on The Daily Show, but I’m sorry, if I were a woman, or gay, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to get past his teeth. What is it with Brits and their seeming aversion to braces?
I’ve seen Brits with braces. They help keep their trousers from falling down.
Well I ***AM ***gay, and his teeth don’t bother me at all.
So there.
What is it with Americans and their compulsive need to spend thousands of dollars, and to risk psychically scaring their children, in order to ensure their teeth are aligned with unnaturally perfect regularity? :rolleyes:
As for the funniest person on the Daily Show, apart from Stewart, my vote would go to Larry Wilmore. Back in the day, Colbert was the best, but now, on his own show, his schtick is getting distinctly tired.
In the category of contributors who haven’t been mentioned so far, I like(d) Demetri Martin. I absolutely loathe Lewis Black.
:rolleyes: back at you if you think going to the dentist has some sort of scarring effect. I still hate to this day that I did not get my teeth aligned properly, as it is the source of quite a few headaches.
As for the OP: probably Oliver, whose teeth I never noticed. He’s the only consistently funny correspondent since Colbert and Carell were on the show (and some of their contemporaries were funny, too, but I can’t remember their names.)
Are you under the impression that orthodonture involves nothing but “going to the dentist” a few times? I have seen my kids put through this. (I would not have done it to them, but there was no point in even trying to resist the pressure from their American mother, and aunts and uncles.) Maybe it is not very psychologically scarring in a culture where it is so common to have metal attached to your teeth (and sometimes around your head) through much of puberty, but cosmetic orthodonture (and 90% of it is purely cosmetic) it is still a weird, unnatural and (still, I hope) an almost exclusively American obsession, akin to the taboo on female armpit hair. The Mayans used to strap their babies to boards in order to make the backs of their skulls grow more flattened. It makes just about as much sense. If someone can’t stand John Oliver because his teeth are not perfectly straight (or if the back his skull is too curved, come to that), that is entirely their problem and not his.
Oh, right, mainstream men’s comedy has been sexist for ages, so nobody should ever point it out or say it’s not OK to keep doing it.
I love the Larry Wilmore segments. Usually in the midst of saying something funny he manages to slip in something profound (at least from my white-boy standpoint). Have you seen his book “I’d Rather We Got Casinos”? Good stuff.
I’m also a John Oliver fan, although in his Bugle guise he tends to play straight man to the unstoppable verbal onslaughts of Andy Salzman.
Conversely Jason Jones and Sam Bee annoy me. Also, the young sweaty fat guy - really grating. [After some searching - Josh Gad is the guy I mean]
I do miss Rob Riggle though.
That wasn’t the point. Monty Python wasn’t particularly sexist (especially for the time) but the female roles just didn’t have the funny lines. When the female roles did have funny lines it usually wouldn’t have worked if the part wasn’t being played by a man - Terry Jones playing an old women is naturally much funnier than an actual old woman for instance.
I’m not saying there isn’t any sexist comedy around, but it’s not institutional like the old days of mother-in-law jokes and Benny Hill.
IMO it is just the case that there aren’t as many women who can write great comedy as there are men, though this doesn’t necessarily apply to performance of comedy. This leads to more jokes about women from a male perspective than vice-versa, though there are quite a few female comedians who specialise in sexism going the other way.
And if Olivia Munn is who I think she is I thought the was pretty good.
I think she did a report a few weeks ago where she was playing the straight man to Stewart and using some slightly off-kilter timing to here responses. It was the first time I’d seen here and the appreciation for the timing really impressed me - I actually thought she must have been a fairly skilled actress or comedian. The hotness is a bonus.
That crazy women they have doing outside reports is the only one that I can’t stand. Her schtick is very unsubtle, obvious and not up to the cleverness of the rest of TDS.
Yeah, Martin was good. His “Important Things” show is a good watch. Black is a funny guy but I can’t help but feel he is held back on The Daily Show. As a stand up he is a riot.
This thread is really making me miss Rob Riggle though. I loved that guy.
My faves are Wilmore, Cenak, Oliver, Mandvi and Riggle.
Samantha Bee is by far my least fave.
Re: Munn, So far the only bits I have seen her in have had immigration themes, which kinda jars for me as she doesn’t appear “ethnic” IMO. Haven’t been impressed by what little I’ve seen of her so far.
I think the current stable of correspondents is pretty good. John Oliver is the top dog at the moment. He’s able to be the biggest asshole when in the field and is the best at elaborating on outlandish statements in-studio. His recent bit about England keeping the queen around for pomp and circumstance so that they can “treat our elected officials like the disposable bureaucrats that they are” was outstanding. Mandvi and Cenac are both pretty consistently good, too. Wilmore, Hodgman, and Black are good at their respective shticks, and they aren’t over-used. I’ll reserve judgment on Munn for a few more segments; she’s clearly a rookie, but hopefully she’ll hit her stride soon. Bee and Jones haven’t been very good lately, but the show seems to be using them less and less. I don’t care for Josh Gad, but I’ve only seen him a couple of times.
Overall, the show seems pretty good at giving screen time to its strongest performers, and giving them decent material to work with.
P.S. I think that Demetri Martin is indeed funny enough to carry his own show. I get the impression that if I knew him personally I’d think he’s a dick, but Important Things is a good show.
My favorites are John Oliver, Wyatt Cenac, Aasif Mandvi, Lewis Black, and Larry Wilmore.
Rob Riggle doesn’t make me laugh. And I think part of the problem might be that he doesn’t look like a funny guy. He’s a freaking tank.
I listen to The Bugle regularly just to get a dose of John Oliver, but, god, I hate Andy Salzman.