Have you heard about those fake news anchors on Comedy Central? Not only are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert great for pushing books, but they're great for pushing the political dialogue further. Two important people think that way, so it's nearly almost certainly true. CONTINUED »
TV Week's annual popularity contest, the "10 Most Powerful," puts the industry's paycheck writers in handy listicle format, which makes it easier to know where to direct your The Man anger. Taking the No. 1 spot is NBC News president Steve Capus, whose most recent accomplishment was afflicting morning people with Kathie Lee Gifford. Obvious choices follow: Fox News chief Roger Ailes, ABC News prez David Westin, NBC's D.C. bureau chief Tim Russert, CNN Worldwide/U.S. president Jim Walton/Jon Klein, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, CBS News prez Sean McManus, and, at No. 9, television rep powerhouse N.S. Bienstock.
And taking the No. 10 spot are a trio of comedians: Amy Poehler, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart. These folks made the cut for getting the other members on the list to … START DOING THEIR JOBS.
Tina Fey was likely just kidding around during a Reader's Digest interview when she supposedly slammed Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. Whereas she makes people laugh, Stewart makes them uncomfortable. And all that cheering and clapping when he delivers a one-liner about politics? That's "clapter," the Seth Meyers term for queuing up feigned audience excitement.
All that hating, even after Tina kicked Jon's ass in Celebrity Deathmatch.
Jim Cramer might have given questionable financial advice to his Mad Money viewers when it came to their investments in Bear Stearns. Some might say his suggestion – to keep your cash money in the bank, which went from $60 per share to $2 in a week – was not a smart move.
Since Eliot Spitzer's scandal broke Tuesday afternoon, The Daily Show's team didn't have much time to piece together a script for their host, or, more accurately, put together a news coverage video montage. But they did yesterday!
It's hard to tell who was less excited about Hillary Clinton appearing on The Daily Show last night: Jon Stewart, or the audience behind her.
Live via satellite, Clinton maneuvers her way around answering whether she would call for Obama to drop out if she had won 11 primary states in a row. Part II after the jump.
Comedian Brian Williams, who also hosts a newscast most weeknights, last night hit up the Daily Show, where host Jon Stewart created a must! blog! video clip by asking whether Williams was biased against Hillary, or Obama. The question didn't receive an answer.
Making fun of Barack Obama's name is not funny! (Even unintentionally.) So not funny, mixing up Obama with "Osama" is off limits even for Jon Stewart. That's how Keith Olbermann feels about the Comedy Central host's Oscar monologue, which the Counterdowner claims was a page pulled from Ann Coulter's comedic playbook.
Except that it wasn't. Much like Saturday Night Live's opening skit, Stewart's script was a nudge-nudge at the media, who are too busy playing a game of inside baseball to notice.
Olbermann's rant follows. CONTINUED »
Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. What an exciting night. These past 3 and a half months have been very tough. The town was torn apart by a bitter writer’s strike but I’m happy to say that the fight is over, so tonight welcome to the make-up sex. Of course there is still obviously some collateral damage left over from the strike. Emotionally. Economically. Perhaps worst of all the canceling of the legendary Vanity Fair Oscar party. They said they did it out of quote respect for the writers and oh, you know another way they could show respect for the writers? Maybe one day invite some of them to the Vanity Fair Oscar party. They would enjoy it. Don’t worry, they won’t mingle, don’t worry.
They actually say that having the Oscars helped to end the strike. That the idea that getting the town back to work and having an Oscars was one of the impetus to get things done. Which I think is wonderful. So if we could, before spending the next 4 to 5 hours giving each other golden statues, let’s take a moment to congratulate ourselves.
-Jon Stewart, in his opening monologue for the Oscars last night.
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Conan O'Brien has been "quarreling" with Stephen Colbert over who made Mike Huckabee's campaign. Conan claims he brought Huckabee insides Americans' homes. Colbert refutes the assertion; it was he who gets credit. And then there's Jon Stewart, who claims he made Conan O'Brien, so it's he who, ipso facto, should get the superlative.
Last night on Conan's show, they settled the matter. With a brawl, y'all!
(Confused? The on-air explanation after the jump. But the above video has the fight. So it's clear which one you're gonna watch.) CONTINUED »
Jon Stewart will do a lot of things for his career, like star as the third leading male in Death To Smoochy. But crossing the picket line, that is too much.
In a turn that would make the Oscars even more unwatchable, Stewart has told insiders that he won't host the event if the producers and the WGA don't work this whole strike thing out.
Ugh, we're as tired about writing on the strike as Americans are tired of watching American Gladiators. Please producers and writers, just end this story now and we'll never make fun of Desperate Housewives again.
STEWART/COLBERT '08 Joining Conan, Leno, Letterman, Ferguson and trail blazer, Carson Daly, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert will return with new shows, produced without writers, starting January 7. [NYT]
Like you, we’re sick of considering the poor Midwesterns who are forced to watch repeats of Dave Letterman because of the writers strike. Let’s be honest, Dave Letterman is not that funny, even with writers. Those Midwesterns should have better late night plans anyway.
But pothead college students, we care about those kids, if only because we’re just like them except with degrees. We also care about the 2008 election; we’re suckers for democracy.
So after many weeks, there’s finally a new angle to the writers’ strike: What are the stoned college kids missing out on now that fake news is in reruns? CONTINUED »
• Aw, fake news anchor and all-around nice guy Jon Stewart has pledged to continue paying his writers' salaries for up to two weeks! At which point, they'll all be fired.
• Is creating a website to find a random girl on the 4 train creepy or endearing? And, more importantly, will it get you laid?
• When you're standing next to a drag queen, it's hard not to look manly. And yet, Carson Kressley pulls it off masterfully.
Sometimes I just have to say, “what the fuck?” and the royal we doesn’t work as well. These are my thoughts—raronauer
About two minutes after John Kerry lost in 2004, Democrats and Republicans began plotting for 2008.
At this time last year, pundits could criticize politicians for starting their campaigns too early. But now, 13 months away from the general election, there’s no way to complain about fatigue. Now is the time candidates should be making stump speeches; it’s just too bad we’ve been hearing them for the past year.
So at this point, no one’s really interested in reading about demographic breakdowns of primary states. That is until Stephen Colbert entered the picture.
CONTINUED »
Viacom and Comedy Central announced they'll be launching a new site exclusively geared towards placating avid watchers of The Daily Show. The upcoming website will boast over 13,000 all-access video clips, representing roughly "every minute of the show since its 1999 inception."
Die-hard Jon Stewart fans plan to immediately voice their approval by smoking copious amounts of pot, bitching about the deplorable state of affairs in this country, and watching 125 straight hours of the the online footage* instead of writing their NYU term papers.
*Or up until the point where they get "sufficiently creeped out" by the size of Stewart's bulbous head.
Think you nerdy writer types can be as (cough) funny as the intrepid comedy writers over at SNL? Well, Slate V. is giving you a chance to prove it.
About three years ago, Jon Stewart appeared on Crossfire for what was expected to be a light, fluffy interview and instead went on to become the most awkward interview ever when Stewart launched into a crazy—but not unfounded—tirade about the deplorable state of broadcast news and mercilessly mocked anchorperson Tucker Carlson for his losery (but strangely endearing) bowtie.
Last night, Stewart pulled a somewhat similar shtick, ambushing Hardball host Chris Matthews with a slew of insults when the MSNBC host stopped by to promote his new book.
Asked what he would ask O.J. Simpson if he could land the first interview from his Las Vegas jail cell, The Daily Show host Jon Stewart replied: "So this is what it’s like to be Capone? You kill two people and they get you for kicking down a door in Vegas.” [Variety]
Between an insulting Chris Rock and a boring Ellen DeGeneres is Jon Stewart. He will return to host the Oscars this year. [NYT]
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