What a bummer. When Roy Wooden Jr. stood behind Trevor Noah two weeks in the past whereas Noah was accepting an Emmy for The Day by day Present—the present that Noah now not hosted, the present that hasn’t had a everlasting host since he left on the finish of 2022—and silently mouthed, for all of the world to see, “Please … rent … a … host,” Jon Stewart was in all probability not … who … he … meant.
Sure, Comedy Central introduced right this moment that, after a near-decade hiatus from its flagship program, Stewart will return to host the present on Monday nights via November’s presidential election, after which he’ll produce the present via 2025. The selection is each a punt and a give up, in addition to a poetically becoming selection for an election 12 months that already looks like a miserable rerun. It’s the late-night equal of renominating Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
The community has been on the lookout for a bunch for nearly two years now—Noah introduced that he was leaving in September 2022. Since then a carousel of gifted younger performers have been taking turns maintaining the seat heat, hoping they could be the one whose butt bought the nod to completely occupy it. And in Comedy Central’s protection, it appeared they’d lastly made up their thoughts late final summer season to rent Hasan Minhaj, an eminently certified, refreshingly fashionable selection. Then The New Yorker revealed an article suggesting that Minhaj had taken artistic liberties with among the tales he’d instructed onstage prior to now, and the deal blew up. Now it was again to chair—sorry, sq.—one.
Somewhat than taking a threat on a contemporary expertise and selecting from the big range of younger, various, and really humorous candidates the producers had cultivated over the previous two years—somebody like Ronnie Chieng, Michelle Wolf, or Wooden Jr.—they pulled a Bob Iger.
Stewart’s restricted engagement again on TV isn’t the problem right here. By itself I’d even be enthusiastic about it. Jon Stewart is a nationwide treasure. As somebody who spent his 20s and 30s watching Stewart on a near-nightly foundation, I’m very a lot wanting ahead to his Monday-night cameos—I’ll watch them on Instagram, the identical manner I’ve been watching Day by day Present segments just about since Noah took over. That is Stewart’s pure component, the most effective job he’s ever had, the most effective work he’s ever performed. On this respect, Stewart coming again is each bit as welcome as Kate McKinnon periodically returning to visitor host Saturday Night time Stay.
The half that looks like such a bummer is Stewart reclaiming the reins of the entire present. All of it however ensures that The Day by day Present gained’t have a everlasting host till after 2025, as a result of nobody genuinely worthy would take that job with Stewart as a shadow boss. It makes the present look determined, which is weird, as a result of The Day by day Present shouldn’t be, will not be, determined. It simply gained an Emmy! It’s customized constructed for the social-media age and as related as ever! Chieng (or Wolf, or Wooden) would’ve been incredible. As a substitute, Comedy Central comes off wanting prefer it’s paralyzed, afraid of selecting somebody too area of interest, or too progressive, or too controversial, and terrified of one other Hasan Minhaj state of affairs.
If this looks like a considerably ignominious retreat for Stewart, a tail-between-the-legs second after years within the wilderness, sure, that’s precisely what it’s. He was solely accessible for the job, after all, as a result of Apple TV+ determined final autumn to not renew The Drawback With Jon Stewart, his deeper-diving, extra civic-minded follow-up. The issues with The Drawback With Jon Stewart had been legion, however the two deadly ones had been that it wasn’t humorous and nobody watched it.
And Stewart solely took that job after a profitable multiyear take care of HBO got here and went with not a single piece of content material to indicate for it, and after writing and directing a political satire referred to as Irresistible, starring his longtime Day by day Present accomplice Steve Carell, that moviegoers resisted fairly simply.
There’s no disgrace in making a foul film, or a flop—on the time, the movie appeared like a pure development for Stewart, and it’s simple to think about a world during which the outgoing host of The Day by day Present delivered a pointy, well timed political satire, a Wag the Canine or Within the Loop for Trump’s America. However essentially the most disappointing factor about Irresistible was how flat and toothless it was, and the way few insights it provided about our election system. Stewart had whole artistic freedom, all of the assets he wanted, and no artistic juice.
When Stewart departed The Day by day Present 9 years in the past, he appeared to know that it wanted a more energizing sensibility. Instances had modified. The selection of Noah to interchange him instructed that Comedy Central understood that, too. Noah was an astonishingly daring selection on the time—not only a whole unknown, a complete unknown from South Africa—and Noah rewarded the community by sustaining the present’s excellence when everybody assumed it might by no means survive with out the host who’d constructed it into an American-comedy establishment. Then he left to renew his stand-up profession and bat away rumors that he’s courting Dua Lipa. Already his submit–Day by day Present profession goes higher than his predecessor’s.
For therefore lengthy it was assumed that The Day by day Present wanted Jon Stewart greater than Jon Stewart wanted The Day by day Present. Noah ought to have taught everybody in any other case. So what occurred?
The entire motive Stewart left within the first place, in spite of everything, was as a result of he had exhausted his powers of persuasion, his act was liable to changing into a shtick, and his writing workers too intently resembled the patriarchal institution {that a} program like The Day by day Present exists to dismantle. Perhaps he’ll declare that he’s coming again as a result of this second in historical past is simply too consequential to withstand, that the risk posed by Trump is just too nice, and that that is his manner of becoming a member of the combat. His most useful position now, although, is identical as that of a determine like Barack Obama—the senior statesman who makes use of all that banked goodwill to hype up the following era’s standard-bearer. The kingmaker, not the king.
The entire level of bringing Stewart again now could be that he’s the protected selection. The model of Jon Stewart we watched all through his first run as host was a trailblazer—the proper union of a comic book voice with a political period. This one is only a man who wants a job.
