No one can replace Jon Stewart.
Trevor Noah is really, really good though. His delivery from home is fantastic. I am really enjoying his show lately. I was concerned about him replacing Jon, but no longer. Trevor is really good.
Thank you Trevor.
Reported for forum change
Moved.
I agree. His style is different from Jon’s, but it works. And the accent adds a little something.
Comparing Trevor to Jon is comparing apples to oranges.
They are both great in their own way.
I feel for Trevor lately though. He really needs a hair cut. I’m sure he hates not being able to get one.
Never watched the TV show pre-lockdown, but the show now is one of the bright spots of my day. Love all their current correspondents. It is supposed to be very hard for beautiful women to be funny (at least that’s the conventional wisdom), but Desi Lydic is fantastic. Her Foxsplaining bits are great.
I always thought they hired Noah because he was the person on earth least likely to be comparable to Jon.
I’ve been having troubles getting through his shows. Most nights I give up part way through. I’m glad some of you are having better experiences with him, but not great for me.
Now John Oliver has been on fire. Took a few weeks into the crisis, but as funny and as informative as ever.
Trevor can afford to hire a barber to make a house call. Now ME, I’m stuck with a beard that has attained Cossack proportions.
How many hoodies does he own? I don’t think he’s worn the same one twice.
Trevor Noah & Seth Meyers have been awesome. John Oliver has been about the same tone and quality as it ever was, so that’s been great. Colbert has not adapted well to filming at home.
I agree with this. We’ve been watching Seth, Trevor, John along with Jimmy Kimmel. Colbert…not as much - and we used to fairly regularly. We watch mainly their monologues on Youtube (with John it’s the whole show).
Yeah, I’m actually worried for Colbert, he seems to be going through a rough patch, it’s a drag to watch him.
When he took over The Daily Show I hated it and thought he had little chance of succeeding.
However, he (and his writers) rapidly found his voice, and subtly altered the show to suit him. They were correct to trust that his natural talent for comedy would shine through once they got into the swing of things.
I’m sorry, what?
I saw Noah before TDS and told people he was going to be a star, so I was with him from the first. (Catch his stand-up next time he goes on tour; it’s very good.) He’s more comfortable now and the show is better. His writers have a good handle on how to attack Trump.
He’s done better in figuring out how to deliver a monologue with an audience and laugh lines. Over the weeks I’ve noticed a technique of responding to himself through asides and voices; he’s an incredible mimic of accents. Starting with “a ray of sunshine” was a good idea, too. Sneakily, the shows now run 45 minutes instead of a half hour so they have time to play with ideas before the guest.
The home monologue works better with long-form material than one-liners, which I think is why people are praising John Oliver and Seth Meyers. Jimmy Kimmel tries to get around this with lots of funny clips which don’t need a pause for laughter, but he keeps his monologue really short and his show has been cut to a half-hour. Colbert sorta does this with his Quarantinewhile bit, which creates its own pauses. Conan depends on audience interaction and his shows haven’t recovered from the loss. Samantha Bee doesn’t do badly by relying on rage; the audience can cheer more than laugh. Jimmy Fallon and James Corden I rarely watch.
Bill Maher cuts in old-timey clips of audiences roaring with laughter. It’s remarkable how well that works, both to give the laugh cues that viewers are habituated to and to mock the form that requires them.
There is a line of thought that says “beautiful woman aren’t funny stand-ups”. It’s not valid and never has been, but it is an actual line of thought that is or was pervasive. It has come up a few times on this board and often elsewhere.
It was never that “beautiful woman aren’t funny” though.
Okay, thanks. I’ve never heard that before.
I agree that the laugh track helps, even if it’s completely fake and Maher’s show makes it obviously fake. The other shows seem almost hollow with no laughter or audience reaction.
One thing that’s a turnoff is that a lot of the shows look like my work conference calls these days. A guy talking while his dog wanders into the shot is amusing during a planning session with the budget team, but not as much for a tv show.
Trevor Noah, like Jon Stewart, has the ability to cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of an issue.