Comedian Jon Stewart is returning to “The Daily Show” as weekly host and executive producer during the 2024 U.S. election cycle.
Comedy Central said Wednesday that Stewart will host the topical TV show, which he ruled for 16 years starting in 1999, every Monday starting Feb. 12. A rotating lineup of show regulars will be available the rest of the week.
“Jon Stewart is the voice of our generation, and we are honored to have him return to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show to help us all understand the madness and division sweeping the country as we enter election season, ” Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios said in a statement. “In our age of shocking hypocrisy and performative politics, John is the perfect person to debunk empty rhetoric and provide much-needed clarity with his brilliant wit.”
Over the years, “The Daily Show” — hosted first by Craig Kilborn, then by Stewart and Trevor Noah — has rocked the media left and right by creating a character and playing it straight, no matter how ridiculous. Skewed to the right.
The show, which won an Emmy for best talk series this month, has not had a permanent host since Noah’s departure last year. Current correspondents include Desi Lydic, Michael Costa, Ronny Chieng, and Jordan Klepper.
Stewart didn’t leave the show in anger in 2015 and has spoken fondly about it over the years.
“When you lose that structure, you lose the very thing that prevents bad minds from doing their corrupt work,” he said on the Strike Force Five podcast during the Hollywood Strike last year. “It goes south and gets dark very fast.”
“It’s not that I thought the show wasn’t going to work anymore, or that I didn’t know how to do it. It was more, ‘Yeah, it’s working. But I’m not getting the same satisfaction,” he told the Guardian newspaper in 2015.
The show’s long-term legacy as a talent incubator is brilliant, becoming a launching pad for the likes of John Oliver, Larry Wilmore, Olivia Munn, Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr. and Aasif Mandvi. Stewart was awarded the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2022.
Two former correspondents in particular received massive promotions – Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert. Carell went on to have an Oscar- and Emmy-nominated acting career on TV such as “The Office” and in films such as “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Foxcatcher.” Colbert led the spinoff Comedy Central show “The Colbert Report” from 2005 to 2014 and is now the host of CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Recently, Stewart’s “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” which was set to debut in 2021, was canceled on the Apple TV streaming service. It tackled polarizing topics like racism, climate change, mass incarceration and gun control, but its harshness rubbed some critics the wrong way.
The Los Angeles Times said in a review, “The host spends some time exploring his old rhythm, the soft-fast-soft approach, in which he goes from cool to scary when he asks for ‘help’ to the person sitting in a corner.” “
The show’s sudden end was reportedly due to a clash between Stewart and Apple over coverage of China and artificial intelligence stories.
The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question about who will host “The Daily Show” after the November election.