The Last Daily Show with Jon Stewart

A lot of people are going to hate me for this, but I'm not a regular viewer of "The Daily Show," not since Jon Stewart came on board sixteen years ago actually. His arrival marked a change in the show. Before, with Craig Kilborn, I kinda dug it, but when it became a news show with comedic elements as opposed to a comedy show about the news - I checked out.

The main thing that has always bothered me about this incarnation of "The Daily Show" is that there are people who think it is news. There are folks who hang on Jon Stewart's every word as if he's this generation's Walter Cronkite, and I think that's sad. Just as I think that more than half of the programming on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and others should have a big sign on the screen that says OPINION when they are doing that instead of reporting the news, I think "The Daily Show" should have one that says SATIRE.

The more Jon Stewart got political, and the more he took himself seriously, the less I liked what I saw. This wasn't what I was tuning in to Comedy Central for, ya know? And if I wanted to see one-sided fake news by people who think they're clever, let's face it, I'd watch Fox News. So yeah, I am neither a regular viewer nor a fan, but I did watch the final episode with Jon Stewart last night.

I enjoyed the SNL40 vibe of the returning correspondents, good to see many of them again, as those reports were something I did dig about "The Daily Show," and I am a fan of the official and unofficial spin-offs with John Oliver, Larry Wilmore, and even Stephen Colbert. And opposed to SNL40, it did not go on too long. As a fast food aficionado I have to say I loved the Arby's commercial, that was a touch of class.

So despite not liking the show, not being a fan of either Stewart or his concept of the show, I have enjoyed it from time to time, and enjoyed the final episode of his run. Even Springsteen was pretty awesome. It wasn't bad, even with the preaching about 'bullshit.' I think would have rather had them actually talk about the Republican debate, but as it stands, we all know the debate was much funnier. I look forward to a new take by incoming host Trevor Noah.

Half Baked

When "The Dave Chappelle Show" debuted on Comedy Central, I loved it, and I laughed and laughed. I became an instant fan. I had never known however where he came from. He couldn't have just appeared as a full-blown superstar overnight, right?

His claim to fame was a movie called Half Baked, one that as a stoner comedy was never on my radar. Shrugs. You win some, you lose some. When I found out about it, and saw it also starred another actor I like a lot, Guillermo Diaz, I decided it was probably time to see it. The next time it came around in rotation on IFC, I DVRed it.

Also in the cast are Jim Breuer and Harland Williams, and along with Diaz, and Chappelle, who also co-wrote it, and whose character narrates it - these are our four main stoners, I mean characters. You can plainly see the genius already in Chappelle, and the others follow suit. Stoned since ninth grade, these four grow up to be not just stoners but slackers too. When Williams go to jail, the other three come up with a pot-selling scheme to raise bail.

While the flick can easily be dismissed as a stoner comedy, it's also interesting to watch the early evolution of Chapelle. Diaz is very different from his current "Scandal" incarnation. He certainly made a transformation over the years. Williams has always been goofy, and Breuer has made a career of looking at least perpetually stoned. Steven Wright is also fun in his minor role.

Half Baked is also directed by Tamra Davis who previously worked in music video and now works in television, but along the way has done some really innovative stuff like Guncrazy. Her cred puts the movie in a higher bracket than the average stoner comedy.

There are some cool cameos by Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, Jon Stewart, Janeane Garofolo, Tracy Morgan, Bob Saget, Stephen Baldwin, and Tommy Chong. Co-writer Neal Brennan also shows up. He would later co-create and co-write Dave Chapelle's Comedy Central show.

For the most part, it's a fun flick, only slowed down by an actual plot and subplots. It's much better with just the stoner humor without trying to be a real movie. And of course I bet it's a lot funnier if you watch it while high.

The Show that Wouldn't Die

Since its debut on Fox in March of 1999, "Futurama" has had a rocky existence on television. The animated series, revolving around an inept pizza delivery guy frozen and released on the unsuspecting 31st century, has been canceled and un-canceled more times that I want to count. The warmness toward the program is probably due to its creators, David X. Cohen and Matt Groening, the latter being the creator of "The Simpsons." Fox wouldn't do anything to tick off the creator of their continuous cash cow, not if they were smart, but eventually dwindling ratings held sway.

After being syndicated on both Cartoon Network and significantly Comedy Central after (and during) its cancellation(s), "Futurama" proved successful enough to have four direct-to-DVD movies made, essentially a 'fifth season.' Ironically enough, these movies separated by months in between was really no more erratic that the schedule Fox was airing the series anyway when it was officially a Fox program. These DVDs were equally successful to merit the return of "Futurama" as a regular series on Comedy Central with twenty-six new episodes for mid-2010. I wonder how hard Fox is kicking themselves now?


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Only News When They Wanna Be

While I have personally berated folks who only seem to get their news from “The Daily Show,” broadcast on Comedy Central, in recent years that program has proved to actually have some journalistic merit. In their election coverage and more recently when host Jon Stewart clashed with Jim Cramer regarding some misleading financial advice, it appeared that “The Daily Show” was much more serious than its comedy roots would suggest. But apparently they are only news when they wanna be.

Watching Jon Stewart softball interview Larry King last night I was struck by how Stewart seemed to at least have perused the new book King was pushing, he surely had not heard (or possibly was just ignoring) the big entertainment news regarding King and his book yesterday. When a man is your guest, how can you not know the biggest story of the day regarding that person? Unless your job is simply to push the book?

Yesterday, it was revealed that Larry in fact had a son, Larry King Jr., one he didn’t know about until years later. It’s in the book, it’s on Larry’s CNN show, it’s all over the morning news. How do you miss it, and worse yet, how does a ‘journalist’ not even mention it?

Well, maybe I was mistaken and “The Daily Show” is only a comedy show. Make the Bush and Obama jokes. Push the book. Don’t make waves. Unless of course maybe someone lost money through bad financial advice? Maybe... but then maybe Jim Kramer just didn’t have a book to push at that time...


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The Future Will Be Televised

The Matt Groening and David X. Cohen series "Futurama" will be airing on Comedy Central starting this week. It's rumored to be one of the network's most expensive syndication purchases.

I'm a big fan of the show and despite it running in syndication for quite a while I still haven't seen all of them, and I look forward to catching up. The animated series, revolving around a slacker from the 20th century unfrozen in the 30th, has a slightly more subversive sense of humor than "The Simpsons." Its humor, characters and references more nerdy and more evil - making it right up my alley.

What has really caught my attention is the advertising campaign Comedy Central has been using for "Futurama." It's a play on the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by equally revolutionary jazz artist Gil Scott-Heron whose work I love as much as a poor white boy from the 'burbs can love such stuff. Somebody at Comedy Central knows the true meaning of cool, and the future will be televised.