Jump to content

The Daily Show

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Brookshawn (talk | contribs) at 05:30, 30 April 2006 (→‎Spin-off: time zone). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Daily Show
File:Dailyshow logo.jpg
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Created byMadeline Smithberg
Lizz Winstead
StarringJon Stewart (1999 to present)
Craig Kilborn (1996–99)
Correspondents
Country of originUSA
Production
Running time22 minutes
Original release
NetworkComedy Central
ReleaseJuly 22, 1996 –
Present
ReleaseLop
ReleaseLop
ReleaseLop
ReleaseLop
ReleaseLop
ReleaseLop

The Daily Show (currently The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, also known as TDS) is a half-hour satirical news program produced by and run on the Comedy Central cable television network in the United States. The show premiered on Monday, July 22, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn, who acted as news anchor. In 1999, Kilborn left the show and was replaced by Jon Stewart. Providing news-related comedy in the tradition of Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" segment, Michael Moore's TV Nation, HBO's Not Necessarily the News, and the long-running Canadian series This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Daily Show reports on the foibles and hypocrisy of the real world with a satirical edge. The show has also developed a reputation as one of the sharpest political commentary shows on American TV.

In addition to news stories, The Daily Show includes interviews with celebrities, semi-celebrities, authors, and political figures. The political interviews have featured guests such as former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie, Senator Bob Dole, pollster John Zogby, 2004 Democratic Presidential Candidate Senator John Kerry, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator John McCain, Senator Rick Santorum and former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Studio

The program originates "from Comedy Central's world news headquarters in New York" (as is announced in the opening of each show), where Stewart is joined on-screen by a group of correspondents who provide humorous reports and commentary. On July 11, 2005, the show moved its "World News Headquarters" to another studio in New York City. The set changed along with the move, gaining a sleeker, more formal look, including a backdrop of three large television panels, which has not been well-received by many fans of the show. The set change immediately spawned a backlash among fans and served as impetus for a campaign to "Bring Back the Couch" — which was not a part of the new set. The campaign was subsequently mentioned on the show by Stewart and supported by Daily Show contributor Bob Wiltfong. The couch has since been the reward for a Daily Show sweepstakes in which the winner gets the couch, round-trip to New York, tickets to the show and a small sum of money. Their old studio is now used for The Colbert Report, which stars former correspondent Stephen Colbert.

Production

According to an October 7, 2003, USA Today article, the show is pulled together by researchers scanning major newspapers, the Associated Press, and cable news channels. They then give possible topics to the ten writers. They meet to discuss headline material for the lead news segment. By 11:15 AM they meet with Jon Stewart, and by 12:30 PM they have come up with jokes for the day's show.

The Daily Show tapes four new episodes a week, Monday through Thursday, in studios located in New York City. Taping of the program begins in front of the audience at 6:30 PM; the show is then broadcast at 11 PM Eastern/10 PM Central, a time when local television stations show their real news reports, and about half an hour before most other late-night comedy programs begin to go on the air.

Craig Kilborn Years: 1996-1999

File:Kilborn1996.jpg
Original Daily Show host, Craig Kilborn, pausing the show for a personal monologue with the audience called "A Moment for Us"

The Daily Show was created by Lizz Winstead and Madeleine Smithberg. Searching for a weeknight staple to replace Politically Incorrect (a Comedy Central program that moved to ABC), Comedy Central premiered The Daily Show in the summer of 1996. A fake news program originally hosted by Craig Kilborn, the show featured a humorous take on contemporary news events. Aimed to parody newscasts as much as skew(er) the actual news, the show featured a comedic monologue of the day's headlines, mockumentary styled on-location reports, in-studio segments, guest commentary, and debates. The show also took advantage of its visual medium, littering episodes with small touches like in-screen images labeled with their own gags, and presenting absurd bits of trivia coming back and going into commercials. Such segments included: "This Day in Hasselhoff History", "Last Weekend's Top-Grossing Films, Converted into Lira", and "Trivial Compromise" in which Winstead's mother, Ginny, would ask and answer various triva questions. Originally the show was done without a studio audience, and would just prompt the laughs of its own off-camera staff members. A studio audience was incorporated into the show for its second season, and has remained since.

Under Winstead and Kilborn the show had a much more relaxed atmosphere, with not all contributors wearing suits. Kilborn often made personal asides to the audience taking on the character of a "enlightened frat boy"[citation needed]. Kilborn would also often dance for the audience, especially on Thursdays as a celebration of the end of the week. In each show Kilborn would conduct very informal celebrity interviews that would end with a segment called "Five Questions" in which Kilborn would ask a sequence of five absurd questions that often had even more irrelevant answers. Actor Bill Murray gained notoriety for being the first and one of the few to answer all "correctly". Kathy Ireland had the dubious honor of only getting one, and that was with Kilborn's help.

Regular correspondents included Brian Unger, Beth Littleford, and A. Whitney Brown. Stephen Colbert joined the cast a year after it premiered and was referred to as "The New Guy" for the remainder of Kilborn's three year tenure. Lizz Winstead herself also acted as a contributor as well as a writer in a weekly spot called "He Said, Winstead" in which she and Kilborn would ad lib a point-counterpoint style argument.

Each show was capped off with a segment called "A Moment of Zen" that often showed random video clips of humorous and sometimes morbid interest such as a snake charmer pulling a snake out of his throat via his nostril. A controversy arose due to one clip in which Asian men and women were shown throwing live baby chicks at alligators as feed. Winstead reacted to complaints by creating similar video in which she threw fake chicks into a pond from a row boat.

Tensions often flared behind the scenes between Kilborn and female cast and crew leading Beth Littleford to comment later that Kilborn was as "dumb as a post". In a 1997 Esquire magazine interview, Kilborn would make sexually explicit comments about his female coworkers. This led to a two week suspension without pay. Co-creator Winstead quit one month later.

In 1998 Kilborn left The Daily Show in order to replace Tom Snyder on CBS's The Late Late Show. He was able to take the interview segment "Five Questions" with him to the new show, disallowing any new TDS hosts from using it in their interviews. Correspondents Brian Unger and A. Whitney Brown left the show shortly before him. Unger returned for a single show in which he was supposedly killed on assignment by an incoming cruise missile.

A book released by Comedy Central titled The Daily Show: Five Questions (ISBN 0836253256) was released in 1998, and highlights many of the best interview moments from Craig Kilborn's stint as host.

Jon Stewart Years: 1999-Present

File:Jon Stewart in 2000 and 2005.jpg
Stewart on The Daily Show, in bewilderment at the difference between himself in 2000 and in 2005.

Jon Stewart joined the show in 1999, and, unlike Kilborn, whose dialog and character were written entirely by others, served not only as host but also as a writer and co-executive producer of the series. His influence is noted for heading a significant shift in the way the show handled news. Stewart had a markedly different style than Kilborn, bringing a sharper political focus to the humor than the show previously exhibited. This satirical edge combined with the show's 2000 Election coverage helped to catapult Stewart and The Daily Show to new levels of popularity and critical respect. With Stewart on board, the show has seen a sizable ratings increase and has won seven Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards.

Many of the show's features and pieces remained the same. Retaining much of the same staff and on-air talent during the change of hosts, many pieces carried over without much trouble, while other features like "Godstuff", with Jon Bloom presenting an assortment of actual clips from various televangelists, and "Backfire", an in-studio debate between Brian Unger and A. Whitney Brown evolved into the similar pieces of Stephen Colbert's "This Week in God" and Colbert and Steve Carell's "Even Stephven". Since the change, a number of new features have been, and continue to be, developed as well. The ending segment "A Moment of Zen" changed from a random selection of humorous videos to often being recaps or extended versions of news clips shown earlier in the show (though sometimes are completely unrelated to any previous segment). The show's theme music, "Dog on Fire" by Bob Mould, was remixed by They Might Be Giants in a more Ska-like style than the original hard guitar version.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has been perceived to have a liberal slant. Many note Stewart's own liberalism [1] and the show's constant lampooning of issues related to the Iraqi War and the Bush administration in general. Stewart has responded that the show attacks those in power and those in power now happen to be the Republicans.[citation needed]

Despite the changes, the show's format has remained relatively stable throughout the years. Each episode opens with the introduction, "From Comedy Central's World News Headquarters in New York, this is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart". This used to be followed by the statement "The most important news show, ever", but this was discreetly eliminated from the introduction following the September 11, 2001 attacks when the show resumed on Monday, September 17 from a week off. The show's format generally begins with the host's monologue of news headlines. The Daily Show runs this portion for the first segment, and may include "on location" reports. However, the correspondents are usually just standing in the studio with an obviously greenscreened backdrop. While generally no note is made of this fact, it is occasionally the subject of jokes, such as having a correspondent report from a press base on Mars (this joke was used when the first Mars Exploration Rover landed). Introductions and on-screen graphics always label the same four reporters as "senior" specialists in the subject at hand, sometimes with absurdly specific expertise. A given reporter may be "Senior Palestinian Analyst" one day, "Senior Agricultural Reporter" a few days later, "Senior Papal Vacancy Expert" the next week, and for the 2005 trial of Michael Jackson, "Senior Jackologist" then "Senior Child Molestation Expert". The show formerly split the news into segments known as "Headlines", "Other News", and "This Just In", though these titles were dropped sometime around 2003. Stewart and company have fine-tuned the technique of intercutting commentary with footage, in which the host or correspondent can stop the action at a telling moment, and register skeptical reserve or excruciated dismay, as political clichés, dud imagery, or self-contradictory statements hang in the air.

Following the regular news portion are correspondent pieces and interviews, the order of which varies from episode to episode. Correspondent pieces involve the show's members actually traveling to a different location to make a report or interview people important to the story. Topics vary widely. Often when a Daily Show correspondent has come through a town to report on some issue, the event is noted by the local media.[1]

Some segments occur periodically, such as "Mark Your Calendar," "Ed Helms's Digital Watch," "Back in Black" with Lewis Black, "This Week In God", "Come on" with Rob Corddry (Corddry asking questions regarding "fads") and "Great Moments in Punditry As Read By Children" (small children reading transcripts of contentious moments from programs like Crossfire and Hannity and Colmes). Since the early days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a common part of the show has been "Mess O'Potamia," focusing on the troubles in that region.

Through Kilborn's run and the early years of Stewart's the celebrity interviews would most often take place midway through the program. In recent years this has changed to the interviews being placed near the end of the show. Recent years have also seen the show's guest list tend away from celebrities and more towards non-fiction book authors and various political pundits, as well as many prominent elected officials.

On December 1, 2005, the White Stripes became the first musical guests to perform on a regular episode of the show (They Might Be Giants's appearance on the December 15, 1999 special "The Greatest Millenium" where they performed the theme, incidental music, and their song "I Can Hear You" is not counted as the producers do not consider it to be a part of the regular series). After a brief interview with Stewart, the duo performed their songs "The Denial Twist" and later, "My Doorbell." In a press release, Stewart said, "We've never had a musical performance on the show before — not because we haven't wanted one — but because we were holding out for a reunited Spandau Ballet. This will have to suffice."

When Stephen Colbert started his own show, The Colbert Report, which airs directly after The Daily Show, Stewart began ending his show "checking in" with Stephen Colbert, usually exchanging notes on each other's shows, which is then followed by the Moment of Zen.

A book by Jon Stewart and by Daily Show writers titled America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (ISBN 0446532681) was released on September 20, 2004.

The Daily Show as a "news source"

Television ratings show that the program generally has 1.5 million viewers nightly, a high figure for cable television. In demographic terms, the viewership is skewed to a relatively young audience compared to "real" news shows. A 2004 Nielsen Media Research study commissioned by Comedy Central put the median age at 35.

The show's writers often repeat the fact that The Daily Show is a comedy program and not a reliable news source by itself. The show does not follow normal rules of journalistic integrity, but much of the schtick of the program involves questioning whether or not establishment television news sources in the United States, notably the cable news channels CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel, are holding themselves to high journalistic standards. Likewise the show is far more likely to point out acts of government ineptitude (such as a Congressman doing a crossword puzzle during a relatively important hearing rather than paying attention), hypocrisy, and contradictory statements than most sources in the legitimate media since typically such actions are not considered news unless they are of major import.

The Washington Post ran an article on August 24, 2004 in which it quoted a "whining" Nightline anchor Ted Koppel, who said to his viewers in a telecast from the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston: "A lot of television viewers — more, quite frankly, than I'm comfortable with — get their news from the Comedy Channel on a program called The Daily Show." Stewart took issue with Koppel's comment, saying Daily Show fans watch "for comedic interpretation" of the news. "[They watch] to be informed," Koppel replied, refusing to budge from his position: "They actually think they're coming closer to the truth with your show." Stewart shot back: "Now that's a different thing, that's credibility, that's a different animal." Appearing on each other's shows a few weeks later, Koppel and Stewart downplayed the idea that the two had any mutual animosity.

The National Annenberg Election Survey at the University of Pennsylvania ran a study of American television viewers around the same time and found that fans of The Daily Show had a more accurate idea of the facts behind the 2004 presidential election than most others.[2] The study primarily focused on comparing the audiences of TDS with that of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman, but Daily Show viewers also beat out people who primarily got their news through the national evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC and those who mostly read newspapers, while roughly matching the knowledge level of viewers who watched a considerable amount of cable TV news. The study attempted to compensate for the fact that many viewers of TDS get information from many sources including the Internet.

Stewart was half-facetiously floated as a possible successor to Dan Rather of CBS Evening News[citation needed] (this is partly due to the fact that, at the time, Comedy Central and CBS were both owned by media conglomerate Viacom).

The Daily Show writers authored a best-selling text, America (The Book), published in September 2004. It remained a best seller even after the election, despite a decision by Wal-Mart to cancel its order because Chapter 5, on the Judicial Branch, includes obviously doctored photographs of the current Supreme Court justices, with their heads superimposed on appropriately aged naked bodies. On the page opposite the photographs, the reader is invited to "Restore their dignity" by covering each justice with a cutout of his or her robe. A Wal-Mart spokeswoman was quoted in USA Today as saying, "We felt a majority of our customers would not be comfortable with the image." The book was also banned from some Mississippi public libraries for its ribald "centerfold". (The ban was lifted within 24 hours of its announcement after the library board received complaints.) Stewart responded to this on air by saying, "of course the go-to joke here would be, 'they have libraries in Mississippi?' But we're not going there." The following year, after the nomination of Samuel Alito, The Daily Show featured a segment that dressed and undressed Alito based on whether or not certain factors would help him be nominated to the Supreme Court.

"Indecision" coverage

From the nomination process through the party conventions, the campaign trail, the debates (one headlined as "Squabble in Coral Gables") and finally to Election Night (headlined as "Prelude to a Recount", a knock at the events of the 2000 presidential election), The Daily Show satirized both the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential election. An uncensored version of Indecision 2004 was released on a three-disc DVD box set on June 28, 2005. It includes original material from Jon Stewart and "The Daily Show's News Team," all episodes from the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, "The Bush-Kerry Debate: The Squabble in Coral Gables," "Election Night 2004: Prelude to a Recount," and highlights from throughout the 2004 Presidential Campaign.

On August 9, 2005, Stewart officially kicked off the show's "Indecision 2008" coverage of the upcoming 2008 presidential election.

The Daily Show's coverage of Canadian federal elections also uses the "Indecision" label, but with a bilingual flair: the 2006 federal election was covered under the title of "Indecision/Indécision 2006", playing on the Canadian practice of labelling in both French and English to the point of redundancy. The Daily Show's brief coverage of the UK elections was titled "A Spot of Indecision".

When covering the 2006 election in Israel, the show switched to the Jewish calendar and covered the event as "Indecision 5766". When covering the two Iraqi elections in 2005, the show used the Islamic calendar, with the title "Indecision 1425".

Criticism

While The Daily Show is considered by its creators to be a "fake news program", some critics have complained that current host Jon Stewart regularly has as guests the very politicians and newspeople he often lampoons, but rarely takes them to task face-to-face; instead, politicians on all sides of the spectrum use the show as a platform to reach younger demographics. Show co-creator and ex-producer Lizz Winstead said of interviews with controversial figures:

Jon's tremendous. I feel, though, when you are interviewing a Richard Perle or a Kissinger, if you give them a pass, then you become what you are satirizing. You have a war criminal sitting on your couch -- to just let him be a war criminal sitting on your couch means you are having to respect some kind of boundary.

Winstead later said at least making a joke about "2 million dead Cambodians" was better than saying nothing at all.[3]

During Jon Stewart's famous appearance on CNN's Crossfire, pundit and co-host Tucker Carlson complained to Stewart that he let John Kerry go without asking any substantial questions. Stewart replied that Carlson had no right to criticize him for not doing what isn't his job: that is, giving hard hitting interviews. That, Stewart said, was the job of real reporters. Stewart rebutted that it was in fact Crossfire, and not the Daily Show, that was doing a disservice to the public through spin and fake controversy. He also made the comment: "You guys are on CNN, the show before mine is about puppets making prank phone calls."

Editions for various markets

The Daily Show in Canada

In Canada, a simulcast of the Comedy Central show airs at 11ET on The Comedy Network, but also on CTV, a regular broadcast network, at 12:05am local time.

Overseas editions

File:Dailyshowwarning.png
Disclaimer at the beginning of the Global Edition

An edited version of the show, called The Daily Show—Global Edition, is run outside of the U.S. on CNN International once a week. This edition is always prefaced by the following disclaimer run in all-caps against a Daily Show background: "The show you are about to watch is a news parody. Its stories are not fact checked. Its reporters are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through." For the Global Edition, Stewart provides an exclusive introductory monologue, usually about the week's prevalent international news story, and closing comments. The segments for the Global Edition are usually culled from Monday and Tuesday's episodes.

Since October 10, 2005, both the Global Edition and the weeknight program have been shown in the UK and the Republic of Ireland at 8:30pm on the digital channel, More4. The Global Edition (without the preface shown on CNN International) is shown on Monday, with the regular Monday to Thursday editions shown on a one day delay Tuesday to Friday.

Australian network SBS also briefly ran the edited version once a week as The Weekly Daily Show. Westwood One broadcasts small portions of the show to many radio stations across America.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is also available in the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland & Denmark) at 19:00 (20:00 in Finland) on the CANAL+ (Nordic) channel.

In the Philippines, cable channel Jack TV airs The Daily Show at a half-day delay every Tuesday-Friday (given the time difference), alongside other Comedy Central shows.

The show has just recently begun screening in New Zealand at 22:00 Tuesdays on music channel C4.

Spin-off

Main article: The Colbert Report

A spin-off, The Colbert Report, was announced in early May 2005. The show stars Stephen Colbert, and serves as Comedy Central's answer to the programs of media pundits such as Bill O'Reilly. The word "Report" in the show's title is pronounced with a silent "t" in the manner of the word rapport and Colbert's last name. The concept of the spin-off emerged out of fake promos on The Daily Show for an O'Reilly-like program hosted by Stephen Colbert, playing an antagonistic blow-hard. The Colbert Report first aired on October 17, 2005, and takes up the 11:30 UTC-5 slot following The Daily Show. Not long after its initial ratings proved to Comedy Central's satisfaction, the show, which had an initial order for eight weeks of episodes, was renewed for a year.

Awards

2005

2004

  • Emmy Awards (2): Best Variety Series; Best Writing for a Variety Series
  • Peabody Award: For their Indecision 2004 Coverage.
  • Publishers Weekly: Book of the Year (for America (The Book))
  • Televisions Critics Association: Outstanding Achievement in News and Information (first Comedy Series to Win Award)

2003

  • Emmy Awards (2): Best Variety Series; Best Writing for a Variety Series
  • Television Critics Association (2): Outstanding Achievement in Comedy; Individual Achievement in Comedy-Jon Stewart

2001

  • Emmy Awards: Best Writing for a Variety Series

2000

  • Peabody Award: For their Indecision 2000 coverage

Correspondents, Contributors, and Staff

File:Dailyshow cast.jpg
Stephen Colbert, Ed Helms, Jon Stewart, Rob Corddry, and Samantha Bee

There are five main correspondents, all of whom are given rather specific titles and almost always with the word "senior" tacked on. (See List of The Daily Show correspondent titles for an incomplete list.)

Senior correspondents

Correspondents

  • Nate Corddry (2005 to present) — Rob Corddry's younger brother.
  • Dave Gorman (2006 to present) — first British Correspondant

The above are those who aren't part of the regular cast yet, but have done several segments for the show.

Contributors

Please see: List of Contributor Appearances on "The Daily Show"

Alumni Former correspondents and contributors include the following:

  • Steve Carell (1999 to 2004, occasional pieces in 2005) — "Even Stephven", "Produce Pete", "Dollars and 'Cents'", "Slimmin' Down With Steve", "Ad Nauseum". In 2005, Steve Carell became the first Daily Show "correspondent" to star in a major Hollywood studio film. The 40-Year-Old Virgin opened in first place at the box office in late August 2005. Carell is also set to star as Agent Maxwell Smart in the big-screen remake of the classic TV series Get Smart. Steve is the star of the successful NBC comedy The Office, for which he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy Series in 2006. Carell was also the first, and to date only, former show correspondent to be the show's featured guest when he promoted The 40-Year-Old Virgin on August 15, 2005.
  • Stephen Colbert (1997 to 2005) — "Even Stephven", "This Week In God", "The Jobbing of America". Although no longer a cast member of The Daily Show, Colbert currently appears at the end of every show in a brief discussion with Jon Stewart about a usually extremely random and irrelevant subject as a bridge between The Daily Show and The Colbert Report which airs immediately following. In addition, on February 8, 2006, a segment called "Klassic Kolbert" debuted on The Daily Show, consisting of a previously aired segment featuring Colbert.

Other staff

  • Bill Clarey (1982 - December 10, 2005) was a 23-year-old staff member who worked as an intern for The Daily Show and receptionist for Comedy Central. Bill committed suicide on December 10, 2005, prompting the network to suspend production of its show (scroll to date; includes photograph) the following Monday night. That Monday's episode was to have Howard Stern as a guest, but after Bill's death, Comedy Central aired a repeat. On Tuesday, December 14th, Stern guested, and the Moment of Zen was dedicated to Bill, with a short clip from his favorite show, Dynasty.

See also

References

  1. ^ National Annenberg Election Survey, Daily Show viewers knowledgeable about presidential campaign, National Annenberg Election Survey shows, press release, September 21, 2004.
  2. ^ Rotten.com, The Daily Show.
  3. ^ Guardian Unlimited, Such a tease, interview, October 1, 2005.
  • (July 11, 2003). Transcript: Bill Moyers Interviews Jon Stewart. NOW with Bill Moyers.
  • (September 20, 2004) Transcript: The Jon Stewart and Undecided Voter Connection The O'Reilly Factor.
  • (October 15, 2004). Transcript: Jon Stewart's America. Crossfire.
  • Lisa de Moraes (August 24, 2004). The TV Column: Seriously: Kerry on Comedy Central. The Washington Post, Page C01.
  • (September 21, 2004). No Joke: Daily Show Viewers Follow Presidential Race. The Business Journal.
  • (Jan. 18, 2005). Dan Rather's Chair May Get Crowded. Associated Press (CBSNews.com).
  • "The Official Bring Back the Couch Campaign". BringBackTheCouch.com. Retrieved April 9. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Daily Show.


  1. ^ Cendrowski, Scott. "'Daily Show' visits local senator". Retrieved 2006-03-31.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Daily_Show&oldid=50849258"