The idea of Stephen Colbert as David Letterman’s successor
on The Late Show is intriguing. I’ve
heard that he will break his Colbert
Report character to take on the new job and I wonder how he will handle
that departure on the show and whether they will make that some kind of
storyline.
The new show might be the first time we’re seeing the “real”
Stephen Colbert since he’s otherwise been a conservative spoof on his most high
profile show. I wonder if he will translate his humor to the traditional
late-night interview model or if he will bend the format to fit him. This might
actually make me watch a late-night show. I would usually only watch Letterman
once in awhile when Madonna was on. These days, “late night” for me on weeknights
is anytime after 9 when I’m struggling to stay awake as Jarvis has me pinned to
the couch.
I’ll miss Colbert on The
Colbert Report as I’ve found his commitment to character fascinating. In
contrast, and I know I’m going to get raked over the coals, but I am really
getting sick of John Stewart.
I don’t know what inside me snapped but I can barely
tolerate a lot of The Daily Show anymore.
The interviews are OK but the monologue grates on me. The sound of the audience
cackling and shrieking like howler monkeys cuts through me like a dentist’s
drill. It just fills my entire consciousness in an unpleasant way. It’s like
Stewart’s always screaming. I can’t stand
when Stewart does his stupid little voices and imitations, especially his
execrable New Jersey gangster accent (or whatever you’d call it). It’s not
so-bad-it’s-good; it’s just bad and he should feel bad and stop doing it.
The “discomfort humor” of the interviews just bothers me.
Some of the politicians deserve to be called out but I just feel bad for some
of them because not all of them seem to warrant the treatment. The one white
guy correspondent annoyed me a few months ago when he went into a local
government meeting and did some Music Man
routine (the one they parodied on The
Simpsons with the monorail) and even if the people at the meeting were in
on it, he just came off like a complete asshole while they were just trying to
go about their business. Samantha Bee can be very funny but twice now she has
done some bizarre one-woman avant garde show making fun of whatever Fox News
show is on. I just didn’t find it funny at all either time and they lasted
longer than the usual segments, which made it worse, since the producers seemed
inordinately pleased with themselves, enough to bring back the idea a second
time.
And please, John Stewart, have Bill O’Reilly on for the 94th
time so the two of you can vamp on the same points over and over again like an
old Vaudeville act. If there’s one thing I need, it’s another coat of glaze on
my eyeballs. Haha! They’re opposites!
I won’t refuse to watch The
Daily Show or anything but just don’t enjoy it like I used to. I don’t care
about getting Stewart’s take on the events of the day. This is not the fault of
the show but it’s the most overanalyzed and overexposed thing in the media.
There is more than one website that has an update every morning analyzing what The Daily Show did last night and how
John Stewart totally dismantled whatever is going on. I don’t read any of these
recaps but I have to wonder why does this show still get this kind of analysis
every day after all these years? Dramas and comedies get recaps online but a
recap of a show that runs four nights a week seems excessive.
Jessica Williams is still a riot, though.
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