“This show isn’t ending, we’re merely taking a small pause”, Stewart said just before Bruce Springsteen closed out the broadcast.
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Over the 16 years that The Daily Show was on the air, there have been a handful of correspondents for the show who have gone on to have massive careers in movies.
“They’re the best in the business”, Stewart said of his team. Stewart couldn’t even look up, saying comically but emotionally, “Please don’t do this”, as Colbert began. God forbid. Thank you, Jon Stewart. At its height, in the 2008-09 season, The Daily Show drew 1.6 million viewers a night, many of them young and left-leaning.
Next Josh Gad, Rob Corddry and Darth Vader returned: “It has come to my attention you’ve been comparing me to Dick Cheney“, Vader said, cautioning he might be evil, but he is no Cheney.
We’re watching Stewart’s “Daily Show” swan song live as it happens, and we’ll be updating all of the action as it happens on the screen. After getting The Daily Show treatment, rancorous, hypocritical political bile may still be outrageous and offensive, but at least you can dip your toes in it.
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But it was Stephen Colbert’s appearance behind Stewart at the news desk that elicited the biggest laughs and the biggest threat of tears. Colbert basically was chasing him in his own rolling chair. “And we are better people for having known you”. It’s going to be a long time before we get a newsman of any variety as genuine as Jon Stewart. You are a great artist and a good man. “I know you are not asking for this, but on behalf of so many people whose lives you changed over the last 16 years, thank you”. Noah walked on and took some measurements of the set, since it’s soon to be his. One by one the past and present “Daily Show” correspondents showed up – Steve Carrell, Kristin Schaal, Mo Rocca, John Hodgman, Larry Wilmore, Craig Kilborn and more joined the group pretending to report from Cleveland.
Well, actually not: He couldn’t mock the Republican debate, much as he no doubt wanted to, because the show taped before it ended. Also weighing in were CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer and Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, a frequent Stewart nemesis.
Prior to a recent taping of “The Daily Show”, Jon took time to answer audience questions.
“I’m sure you’ll be missed by somebody”, Sen.
Jon Stewart, on his final show, didn’t just follow the showbiz adage, leave ’em laughing. “The best defense against bulls- is vigilance. So if you smell somethin’, say somethin'”.
“We never took it seriously”, he asserted, “and he never made a dent in us“. “So rather than say goodbye or good night, I’m going to say I’m going to go get a drink”.
“So here it is…”
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In the 1960s, people asked one another if they had watched Walter Cronkite and the “CBS Evening News” the night before. And then he was gone. In the bit, Stewart illustrated a legitimately secret meeting he once had with Ailes using a clip from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal in which a character confronts the Grim Reaper. In a odd, sweet way, it felt nearly like an older relative addressing a kid, telling him or her what to look out for when he’s no longer around to run interference.
