The South African accent annoys me in general, which is unfortunate. The first two shows were only so-so, but then The Colbert Report took awhile to get off the ground. I hope it improves and Noah finds his own rhythm.
I can’t stand Jordan. I am meh on the new guy, but I think he’ll grow into it. I liked the new woman the other night, the one who was pregnant. I thought Al Madrigal left, so he was a nice surprise, even though he’s not my favorite. So having better correspondents would definitely lift the show. It doesn’t help that Jason and Samantha left at the same time as Jon.
I’m on the other side. I believe it’s a huge gain for the show.
I’m not a fan of Klepper, though he has improved. Are there no white guys with personalities other than overgrown frat boy? Wood had better material than in his debut, but still hasn’t done anything interesting with it. I don’t know who the new woman is or how good she’ll be, although debuting a pregnant correspondent is gutsy. Means nothing as long as only two women writers work there.
TDS lives or dies by its host, not its correspondents. Even so, they need a really solid crowd to go into the election year with. Best to get the experimenting out of the way now.
The Daily Show should not have someone who is so accented, and is not a native as host. Whenever the joke isn’t that funny it’s going to really be painful. Every reference to his home continent is going to sound forced. He could pull it out of the fire but he has got to be really good. What was the reason they thought he was that good?
Totally disagree. John Oliver was both and kicked ass in his role (much to my surprise.) Trevor isn’t on Oliver’s level (and I thought today’s show was especially weak), but from watching his first two shows, I’m reasonably confident he’ll do fine. (Is Noah’s accent really that strong? I have no difficulty understanding him whatsoever.)
I don’t mind the accent (John Oliver ), and it’s nice to finally get someone who is better at doing voices.
I love the accent. It is different enough to be interesting, not too intrusive, and not one we hear a lot.
And I loved the opening segment comparing Trump to various African dictators. That’s Trevor can bring his background into play to satirize American issues. And it went on just long enough. Any shorter and you could think it was stretching a joke, but there were so many examples.
While the correspondent segments need work (the best are when they interact with people) I’m glad for them. There were too many shows these past few years with two Stewart segments. Maybe it was because most of the correspondents were off making movies. But their segments need better writing.
It was an interesting watch.
I knew a bit about Trevor Noah already; I tend to marathon UK TV on YouTube when I’m working from home, and he’s been on QI, where he charmed Stephen Fry by explaining the various clicky noises in Xhosa. There’s a bit in one of his standup specials where he rattles off the languages he speaks – five or six, IIRC – and then about three he’s in the process of teaching himself, and that’s not even the joke. It’s just setup for a bunch of other stuff. Stewart has a knack for not just picking the other genius kids out of a lineup, but zeroing in on the ones who have his kind of genius, and Trevor Noah does seem to be it.
So, in the sense that he’s not out of place in the ranks of people who are less comedians than opinionated public intellectuals who happen to also be screamingly funny, he’d kind of have to try to screw it up.
Tone-wise, it’s probably going to be a bit different. Noah is very dry in his delivery a lot of the time, and as host he seems to be more… I don’t know, idealistic? Than Stewart was. The head anchor is still the putative Voice of Reason on the show, but his default reaction to the insanity of the correspondents seems to be, “What? NO! YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” rather than sputtering until a point near the end of the sketch where the madness breaks him, and he throws up his hands and goes, “You are terrible, self-centered, insane people. But apparently, I don’t have the ability to stop you. Our Correspondent, ladies and gentlemen.” It’s a younger tone, unsurprisingly. And much less Zen.
It seems to be a lot harder to get Noah to crack up in the middle of sketches. I can’t decide if that’s disappointing or not. A lot of the appeal of The Daily Show for me was that Stewart couldn’t make eye contact with half the correspondents or he’d die. The news was horrible, and he corpsed through the headlines anyway. We’ll see how Noah does when he’s less nervous.
I didn’t find the subject or the segment to be that funny. It was about people getting killed, after all. It was one of those “good segments” instead of “funny segments.”
You didn’t laugh when he called “black people” and “black Twitter” tho?
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You didn’t laugh when he called “black people” and “black Twitter” tho?
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I didn’t. Pretty tired “all black people know each other” joke. That whole bit was so weak comedicly and really didn’t have enough meat to be interesting as a “good segment” either.
For what it’s worth, I thought Oliver was awful in his fill-in time as host.
Really? I actually thought he was better than Stewart, believe it or not. Perhaps it’s because I had no expectations for anybody to be able to fill those shoes, but fill them well indeed he did.
British accent = comedy. Not a good example.
Noah sounds like someone owed someone a favor to put him on even once.
I’ve seen him three times and I can’t see anything especially funny about him, and a lot of uncomfortable moments.
It’s the big league of comedy here. You should know he’s funny and why the first minute.
You need to calm down a bit, guy. You come over as “everyone else is totally wrong and I am right!” in both threads I’ve seen you participate in.
Do you think Mallard Fillmore is funny? Just askin’.
Nuts. I saw him at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival a couple of years ago and I came here and tried to tell everyone he was going to be a big, big star. That’s as big leagues as you can get.
He’s as comfortable this first week as John Oliver and Oliver was fine from the beginning. The funny and why the first minute rule would strike out every talk show host currently on and would have killed Jon Stewart. It’s nonsense.
Nah. I thought he was absolutely hilarious on his debut episode. Again, much better than I had expected. It’s been a bit uneven since–I really wasn’t feeling it last night with the Trump/African dictators bit, but I’m not particularly worried about him hitting his stride. He’s not like John Oliver – to me – who seemed to be consistent from day one, but better than I remember Stephen Colbert being his first few episodes of the Colbert Report. It took me a little to warm up to that one.
Not my intention at all. I’m not shouting or anything. Do you mind hearing other viewpoints?
I’m voting for Bernie. What does it have to do with TDS?
Meh. I don’t remember Jon’s first few weeks, but I do remember Colbert’s, and he wasn’t what he would become. John Oliver has always seemed pretty funny to me, but he’s blossomed quite a bit since he got his own show.
But Jon was good enough that he could drop a line, let the audience laugh… and then get a bigger laugh afterward by raising an eyebrow or changing his facial expression. Trevor Noah is nowhere near that point yet.
Still, let’s give him a month or so, and see what develops.
MALLARD FILLMORE? YAAAAAAAGH! DESERVES TO BE DRAGGED OFF IN CHAINS AND BURNED LIKE A TRASH MOUND FULL OF DEAD HOOKERS WITH RABIES AND EBOLA! YAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
(And there’s someone what needs to calm down)