This was much worse under Kilborn. I actually liked him as host (sure his schtick got old, but it was funny for a while), but couldn’t watch the correspondant bits where they’d go out and find some wacked-out religious quack and make fun of them. It just seemed diliberetly cruel, like making fun of the crazy bag lady that lives under the overpass.
They still do some of this, but now they usually find someone that at least sort of has their stuff togeather (or at least should have thier stuff togeather) like city officals, congress critters and what not. Even if it is “unfairly” edited (which I don’t think is the case) it has much less the feeling of shooting ducks in a barrel that the old bits had.
To each his own I guess. I think TDS and Colbert are two of the very very few consistently funny shows on TV. They’re the main reason I still have cable.
While I don’t doubt it, it can also be very clear that there is editing going on to create a punchline where there is none.
Specifically: Correspondant says something like “So you’re saying it’s a bad thing to put babies on spikes?” Cut to interviewee looking blankly at correspondant as if to say “WTF?” Everyone laughs. But if you look closely at the shot of the interviewee, you’ll probably be able to see the correspondant’s mouth moving, meaning that the interviewee was not been struck speechless by the outrageousness of the reporter, but was in fact just listening politely.
I disagree generally, but I admire your testicular fortitude in posting this, and I also think the jokes on the Daily Show fall flat far more often than most people would like to believe. It’s just that, for most of us, the ones that don’t are so funny they block out the rest.
I actually think the Colbert Report is now tighter and sharper in some ways. But I still love Jon, and as for Craig? On my list of things for him to do, host another talk show appears not at all.
I’m another viewer who likes the first few minutes of the show best. The correspondents are more likely to lampoon weird people or resort to really childish stuff, although sometimes they do that really well. Jon’s part of the show is funny even when the jokes aren’t great.
Kilborn was more like a newsman; he’s got a deep reserve of smugness. It was funny sometimes, but yeah- it was a really snide piece of television. (Of course, Kilborn came over from SportsCenter, which is also pretty arch.) I wonder how the show’s correspondents felt about what they were doing. When I spoke to Stephen Colbert last year, he said those bits were “like shooting fish in a barrel” and that the Kilborn-era reports were “mean.”
If anything, I’d say the show was much more smug back then. These days, Daily Show targets know what they’re in for. As far as their attitude goes- you know, the targets they’re taking on are pretty damn deserving.
I just had to chime in and say that I love TDS and I love the Onion. Not every article or feature, and not all the time. But I consider both to be the epitome of pointed observational humor.
And I know that having these opinions says more about me than it says about the inherent worth of TDS and Onion.
“There’s no arguing about taste” —an ancient type of some sort.
“Don’t be silly. Taste is the only thing worth arguing about” —Robert Anson Heinlein, et. al.
The only parts I like are the ones with Jon Stewart. I find the rest to be lame. I think Jon is often funny and I enjoy his interviews. Even with people with whom he has a strong disagreement in their politics, he seems to be always respectful.
I don’t enjoy the show enough to watch regularly, however.
This is the best job I can do of summarising why I can’t stand the show:
Taking things out of context never makes me laugh - I’m still painfully aware of the big picture. The endless George Bush misquotes that circle the internet are a prime example. None of them have even made me smile. Many jokes in the show fall into the same category.
The way he mugs and twists his voice drives me insane. It reminds me of people who pick up on something somebody says, repeat it in a funny voice and get others laughing at it. I have always loathed these people. I don’t know what effect he’s aiming for, but it’s hard to focus on his words when I’m constantly reminded of every jerk I’ve ever known.
IMO, if you’re mocking something you should show why whatever you’re mocking is ridiculous. I felt a lot of things on the show cut straight to the mocking part.
I think really good satire should have very few things that can be satirised (IMO, this is what makes, or used to make, the Simpsons so good). The Daily Show has way too many things you can pick at.
That’s really sort of meta-humour, though. All single camera interviews (ie; most interviews you’ll see on actual news programs) are so heavily edited as to be distracting.
They totally lampoon that – especially the “noddies,” reaction shots of the interviewer listening to the interviewee, nodding sagely, laughing at a joke, looking concerned, or sympathetic, or whatever. When you realize that these shots are done after the interview, usually after the interviewee has actually left, the artifice of it itself becomes comical.
It’s funny on the six o’clock news, but it’s funnier when TDS does it in such a blatant way. Like so much of The Daily Show, it’s making fun of the conventions of television news as much as it is the individual subjects.
This is the thing I dislike most about the show. I knew SO many people in high school who based their humor on this kind of attitude (the sly, smug, sarcastic delivery) - doing things like pausing for a moment, narrowing the eyes, and saying “riiiiiiiiiiight.”
I enjoy the Daily Show, though since Colbert left, I’ve gotten to the point where if I miss the Daily Show, I’m not terribly upset. The first 10 minutes is usally the best and then it goes downhill from there(I rarely pay attention to the interview).
Well see, I knew that’s what you were thinking of. (Frankly I’m a tad insulted that you’d think I’d have posted the above if I was that easily fooled, and that you had to explain the concept to me. ) And I assumed the same thing going in too; if there’s a cut, it’s to disguise the non sequitur; the cut is PROOF that it’s a non sequitur. But since I’ve been paying attention, I’ve seen enough non-edited examples of the ACTUAL reaction to an ACTUAL outrageous question, that I’m probably closer to giving each cut the benefit of the doubt than assuming it’s dishonest.
The trick you describe is old hat. It’s what you expect to be happening in such an interview, played for laughs. But I’m telling you that if you watch some of those interviews without that presumption, you’ll find that some of those questions-reactions are indisputably actual.
The Cheney shooting incident is a good case of what makes TDS better than the others. There were obvious jokes all over the place, but they did three things that were great.
First. Stewart meta-commenting on how wonderful this was for comedians - “Thank you Jesus.”
Second, whoever was supposedly in Washington just repeating that “the Vice President shot someone in the face.”
Third, and best, Corddry making the analogy to Iraq and the War on Terror. That was awesome.
I agree the correspondents aren’t as good as they were, both from the best moving on, and also because too many people are in on the gag. The success rate isn’t as high as it used to be.
You almost made me sad. Very, very sad.
See’ I’m one of those weak people that hears something critisizing something I adore, and I begin to doubt my taste. So I watch something I used to blithely delight in with a sharper eye, looking for the flaws I had not seen before. I have been let down in this manner before.
So with great trepidation I watched TDS more intensly, watching for something that would ruin it for me.
Didn’t happen. Still love it. Jon is my idol, and brings rare glee into my life four nights a week. I still keep many episodes on the DVR for weeks to rewatch and enjoy.
But I do pride myself on at least giving your opinion a try, in spite of my outrage. To each his own.
We just got our DVR from Comcast Monday. I figured out how to program it and I programed TDS & Colbert to record every night. I could grow to really like DVR.
