Jon Stewart has hosted The Daily Show for more than 16 years. Photo / Supplied
Jon Stewart has hosted The Daily Show for more than 16 years. Photo / Supplied
Political savvy comedian a master of poignancy as well as comedy.
America's leading comedian commentator Jon Stewart is delivering his last Daily Show today (New Zealand time) after more than 16 years and nearly 2600 broadcasts. Here's a look back at some of his most memorable moments ...
1. Reporting on George W. Bush's remarks as he clinched the presidency in December 2000, Stewart replayed Bush declaring, "I was not elected to serve one party," to which he retorted, "You were not ELECTED." Then back to Bush saying, "I ask for you to pray for this great nation." To which Stewart added sombrely, "We're waaaaay ahead of you."
2. On his first show after the 9/11 attacks, Stewart, with his emotions barely in check, delivered a soul-baring statement of grief "so that we can drain whatever abscess is in our hearts and move on to the business of making you laugh, which we haven't been able to do very effectively lately". He went on: "Our show has changed. I don't doubt that. What it's become, I don't know."
3. Stewart appeared as a guest on CNN's quarrelsome Crossfire in 2004 where he startled its hosts by criticising them for their "partisan hackery" and "doing theatre when you should be doing debate". "You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably," he said. When Carlson and Begala shot back that The Daily Show could use work, too, Stewart uttered his now-famous zinger: "You're on CNN! The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you?"
4. Stewart reached peak anger level when former New York Times reporter Judy Smith came on the show to talk about her new book, and he took her to task for reporting on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. "I believe that you helped the Administration take us to the most devastating mistake in foreign policy that we've made in 100 years," Stewart said, though he added that she seemed like a "lovely" person.
5. Stewart hosted the Oscars twice - in 2008 and two years before, when in his monologue he noted that two of the nominated films, Good Night and Good Luck and Capote, were about "determined journalists defying obstacles in a relentless pursuit of the truth. Needless to say," he added pointedly, "both are period pieces."
'Mad Money' host Jim Cramer with Stewart. Photo / Supplied
6. Stewart took on CNBC after the GFC, unreeling video of the financial news network's personalities making howlingly wrong forecasts for market behaviour. Then, after Mad Money host Jim Cramer booked appearances on CNBC sister networks NBC and MSNBC to rail against Stewart, the Daily Show host "responded" with make-believe appearances on other Viacom series, inserting himself into MTV's The Hills and Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer. ("Why is everyone being such a pendejo?" Dora asks Stewart as he joins her in the frame, then tells the audience, "Pendejo: it means 'jackass' in Spanish.")
7. Aired live on Comedy Central and staged at Washington's National Mall in October 2010, The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was staged by Stewart and Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert as a goofy, star-studded three-hour variety show with a serious social message: Americans aren't as divided and at odds as the politicians who represent them or as the media portray them. "The image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false," Stewart declared. "It is us, through a fun house mirror."
Stewart at 'The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear'. Photo / Supplied
8. Having let loose during an earlier comic tirade against Fox News with a simple bleeped proposal that the channel (bleep) itself, Stewart returned to the subject a few nights later leading a hallelujah chorus in a rousing musical reiteration that Fox News, for preaching "Fair and Balanced" but seldom delivering, should indeed (bleep) itself.
9. After Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared, CNN, with so much time to fill but scant information, decided to "go nuts," as Stewart summed up in a segment lampooning the dubious news judgment of wall-to-wall coverage with nothing new to say yet ample use of "big fake airplanes, little fake airplanes, holographic airplanes!" Then he ran a clip of a CNN anchor, in a flight of fancy, suggesting that a psychic be retained to find the missing airliner.
10. In recent months Stewart made the most of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy, treating it as comic gold. And it was for him, night after night. On one show in July, he recalled Trump having said he "assumes" that not everyone illegally entering the US from Mexico is a rapist. "By the law of averages," Stewart explained, deadpan, a few of those immigrants are "unable to rape for medical reasons", or maybe are "all raped out".
