As you might recall, Baratunde Thurston was tapped to be the show’s social media guru, and the “Daily Show” team also added some new correspondents under new host Trevor Noah, in Ronny Chieng, Desi Lydic and Roy Wood Jr. “I liked him – he always cried”. The joy of having a show on Comedy Central? Racial issues have figured into his comedy oeuvre quite heavily over the years.
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The 31-year-old South African comedian has been honing his stage presence since he was 18. His first bit, called “Spot the Africa”, brilliantly flipped Western stereotypes of a continent “full of AIDS huts and starving children” to comment on the contentious state of race relations in the USA “I never thought I’d be more afraid of police in America than in South Africa”, he joked.
Then there was Noah’s strictly limited pop-culture diet, which consisted of reruns of “Murder, She Wrote” and “Knight Rider” he watched with his mother.
“I’m neither left nor right”.
“Then the whirlwind started”, Noah laughs. “Traveling the world I’ve learned that progressives, regardless of their locations, think in a global space”. That’s how I feel about comedy.
Noah’s on-the-fly political humor chops got a little test this morning, when Saraiya broke the news mid Q&A that John Boehner was stepping down from his congressional seat, and asked Noah to share some of his failed Boehner jokes with the audience.
He said he and his team have been focusing on how to develop him as the host without compromising either the tradition of the show or his authentic self. You use your instincts and curiosity about the world to turn yourself into a good interviewer. “That would be smart of them, I guess“, he said. We would sit around and discuss and think about now to approach…
Amusing enough, the American politician Noah is most enamored with at the moment is Republican senator and presidential contender Rand Paul.
“He seemed very confident, which was the thing I wasn’t expecting”, Hartnett said. When it comes to Social Security reform, and looking at different ways to adjust benefits for people, there’s definitely a conversation to be had there.
Very well – I will. He’s telegenic.
“It’s not like it didn’t affect me, or hurt me”, he says now, a lean, baby-faced presence clad in jeans, T-shirt and running shoes. “He wasn’t gung ho, he did seem thoughtful….” I see a lot of progress here.
Which guest are you most interested in seeing?
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Noah’s appointment to the helm of “The Daily Show” reeks of corporate sorcery – or serious budget constraints, since several likely candidates, some of them of the fairer sex (Chelsea Handler, Amy Schumer, Jessica Williams), were overlooked. “The Daily Show” has made a living bringing in satirically brilliant comics to play “correspondents” and “contributors” on the show. “But at this point, the romance is real”.
