How Did Trevor Noah Do In His First Night Hosting The Daily Show? Two Biased People Discuss!
Another lion of late night passes the torch to a cub...of...mixed metaphors. Die-hard Daily Show viewers Tara Ariano and Nick Rheinwald-Jones give an early review.
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The Talk
Nick! Tonight was at least the second most important changing of the guard in late night TV this year, and we both bore witness.
Indeed. In the Steve Jobs trailer they talk about the Mac being almost as important as the Allied victory, and an event like this one has to be up there too.
Just as in the Steve Jobs ad, it's a perfect analogy. In a way, I feel a little bad for Trevor Noah, because it's very possible there's no one in America who's sufficiently beloved that he or she could take over The Daily Show from Jon Stewart and not be unfavourably compared, but on the other hand, he is NOT likable, in my opinion. And that's coming from someone who hadn't really liked Jon Stewart much for probably the last seven years of his tenure.
Yeah, I definitely didn't start from the same level of anti-Trevor-ness that I've picked up from you, but on the other hand it's not like he won my heart completely or even partially in this one half-hour. The Twitter unpleasantness that surfaced earlier this year has kind of faded enough by now that I was back to feeling the same level of cautious optimism that I was when they first announced him. And after watching the show, I guess I still feel that way. It's kind of hard to tell because I’m still feeling the loss of Stewart so much. I was totally in the tank for him right up to the end.
Did you have a wish list of people you would have liked to see take over for Stewart? Because I did and it's Jordan Klepper. But I would have also been thrilled with Jessica Williams or Hassan Minaj.
You know? Not really. I would have absolutely loved either Larry Wilmore or Jessica Williams, but Wilmore already had his own show by the time Stewart quit and Williams straight-up said she wasn't ready to do it. I guess in the absence of either of those, I would have liked to have been taken by surprise by someone I literally knew nothing about. I feel like we knew Noah just enough for him not to be a huge surprise, but not enough so that he could walk into the role already warmed up.
It's hilarious to think another Conan O'Brien could waltz into a job like that, though, even on Comedy Central. And if they talked to Amy Schumer about it, you have to wonder how many people said no to the offer before they got to Noah -- and I say that not to be a bitch (momentarily) but just because he was such a non-entity even on The Daily Show, I felt like. It also makes me yearn for the next Bill Carter book that's inevitably coming to chronicle the past couple of years in late night, because I bet there are STORIES about this handover.
I will await that book just as eagerly. Mostly I'm surprised that Comedy Central seemed to allow Stewart to choose his successor. I guess he negotiated for that perk several years back? But yeah, you're right that there can't really be surprises in big TV personalities like there used to be. And I don't think there's anyone today who has anything like the career Stewart had at the time he took on the role-- no, I take that back. Paul F. Tompkins. Who would have been amazing.
OH MY GOD
NICK
I literally gasped aloud when you wrote that. HE WOULD HAVE BEEN INCREDIBLE.
Right??? And he also could have taken a major role in the writing to shape the direction of the show, as Stewart did -- which is something I kind of doubt we're going to see from Noah any time soon. He's so young and his only background is standup. I think he's going to just let the seasoned TDS writers take the lead, which means the show will basically be a cover version of Stewart's show. That's how it felt in this episode, at least.
That's what our esteemed colleague Dave thought -- that Noah was trying to do a Stewart impression and that this was no different from any other episode. I did think a couple of the jokes were a bit rough hitting the ear -- the Pope penis joke, which I can't picture Stewart doing; the aides/AIDS joke, which ditto. The Whitney Houston joke I can maybe imagine Stewart doing, but it was a little gratuitously mean about...a lady who died of a drug overdose. It's not like she was Mitch McConnell. Did any of those strike you as off-key? I'm willing to grant I'm nuts.
The AIDS joke and the Whitney Houston joke -- yeah, you're right, Stewart would never have done either of those, and I took them as a small bit of evidence that Noah was trying to carve out an edgier space for himself. Which, if that's the only way he can think of to differentiate himself, is kind of weak.
I don't think those kind of corny jokes are what people have been conditioned during the Stewart years to expect from The Daily Show. Obviously, Stewart wasn't afraid to go puerile on occasion but usually it was in the service of a larger satirical idea, which I didn't really see with the AIDS gag. But then, maybe, as you say, it's a sign of where he might be planning to go. He didn't really seem very interested in the American politics jokes he was telling, given the way he acted like he didn't even get them. (I mean, I know he got them. But if he's not interested, he can cover other subjects, and should.)
Yeah, I do wonder how knowledgable he actually is on American politics. John Oliver spent a lot more time in America (and on TDS) before he started doing his own riffing on our political system. (In fact, as far as I can recall, in his TDS days they mostly used him to comment on British-centric stuff.)
Noah's lived in the U.S. and worked on The Daily Show: you have to imagine at least a little got in via osmosis. And also that he probably had some interest in politics or he wouldn't have pursued the job. So maybe his faking like it's all a mystery to him is a bit? If so, acting dumb at that desk is not a great bit.
No, it's not. I mean, I'm all for the idea of his taking a more international approach to the show, but again, that's going to require him to have a heavy hand in the writing and production, which he may not feel comfortable doing yet. (It's also an open question how much power the senior writers/producers will let him have, and/or how much his contract dictates he's allowed to have. The other guys have been doing the show for years and they've built up quite a well-oiled machine, so they may prefer to keep things status quo.
That's the kind of thing that makes me wish we could know more of what happened backstage, because The Daily Show With Amy Schumer is a very different kind of project than this -- like, really not the same show. Amy Schumer can't get in front of that audience and pretend to be Jon Stewart Jr.; she can't open by talking sincerely about how grateful she is to have gotten the job. Of course we can't judge Noah on the basis of one episode -- particularly if the first week is a four-part miniseries [eye-roll] -- but at this early stage the impression I get is that Comedy Central wanted the same kind of Daily Show it's had success and Emmy nominations with and not some crazy reinvention of the format that no one can predict. It could still turn into that, but I don't really see Noah having a big enough personality to make that work.
Yeah, and I think the more it feels like Stewart 2.0, the more acutely the loss of the actual Stewart is going to be felt. On the one hand, the writing and production on this show is solid enough that pretty much anyone who can speak passable English could step into that role and do a decent job. On the other hand, nobody's going to be able to do a great job without breaking that mold. But I can understand Comedy Central preferring to bet on a solid singles hitter than someone who could either strike out or hit a grand slam. (Sorry for the sports analogy.)
That's okay -- unlike Noah, I know what the Mets are. (The Nye Mets are my favourite squadron.) I'm going to keep watching at least to see what this miniseries business is, but this didn't wring a lot of laughs out of me, and might end up dropping off the DVR soon unless I hear Noah got a lot better. You?
Yeah, the same might be true for me. I have mixed feelings, because I've loved TDS not just for the humor itself but for the snappy way it presented news items of which I might otherwise have been ignorant, so for that reason I'm slightly more reluctant to give it up at the drop of a hat. That said, there are a lot more riffing-on-the-news outlets than there were when Stewart took the job, and there's Twitter, so maybe we don't actually need TDS in 2015 as much as we used to.
I can't lie: I'm still back up at The Daily Show With Paul F. Tompkins. Sigh.
By the way, Tompkins's latest Comedy Central special -- Crying And Driving, which I saw in person -- is airing next weekend, so check it out if you want to be even more wistful.
There's no way I wouldn't have watched, but now it will be with an overwhelming sense of...what might have been.
Maybe we'll get lucky and in a week or two, Jessica Williams will reconsider that whole "I'm not ready for the show" thing, and Comedy Central will agree with her.