Defamer: The Daily Show

Is Barbara Walters Macaulay Culkin's 'Constant'?

Mark Graham — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:05:00 PDT

· The answer is probably no, but that didn't stop Seth Green from stumping Barbara Walters with what will surely go down as one of the slyest Lost resets you'll ever see worked into a talk show appearance. Also? We sincerely hope that someone breaks out the webcam when Elisabeth Hasselbeck gets around to watching Party Monster. That would make for the mother of all YouTube reaction videos. [The View]
· Speaking of former child stars, looks like Family Ties replacement kid Brian Bonsall has fallen on some tough times. [People]
· The Daily Show, whose track record for promoting female talent makes Lorne Michaels look like Helen Gurley Brown, is about to lose what little amount of female talent they have on staff. Emmy winner Rachel Axler, the only female writer they had on staff, will be making her way to the greener pastures of network TV as a writer for that Office spin-off that isn't really a spin-off. [Videogum]
· Character actor extraordinaire Larry Miller walks through some of his most memorable "Hey, It's That Guy" roles with The Onion's A/V Club. [A/V Club]
· I guess we can cross Claire Danes off the list of potential guest stars for the next season of Entourage. After all, we all know how much Johnny Drama hates top talls. [Best Week Ever]

Tina Fey Blames Crafty Editing For Anti-Jon Stewart Comments

Seth — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:23:02 PDT

We're thrilled to report the extending of an olive branch in the East Coast-East Coast comedy wars that have devastated the industry since a Tina Fey quote in Reader's Digest appeared to openly question Jon Stewart's ability to earn sincere laughs, vs. politically aligned "clapter." Fey told cinemablend.com that the quote was taken out of context:

Fey: That thing was edited kind of weird.

I was really talking about audiences and how audiences respond weirdly to things. When I was talking I said, 'Like you know, on Weekend Update or anything' and that kind of went away so it seemed like I was saying something bad about those guys. I think they know that I think their show is great and would actually never be disparaging on their show."

While that should be satisfactory for most, we'd still like to see some sort of symbolic gesture to finally put this ugly chapter behind us: Perhaps Fey can appear as a guest on The Daily Show, at one point shedding her brightly patterned sun-tunic and climbing onto a circular bed for a gauzy-lensed, multi-position lovemaking session with the mistakenly maligned host, to the rapturous clapter of the studio audience.

30 Rock's Tina Fey Clarifies Her Remark About The Daily Show [cinemablend.com]

Bad News: Oscars In Peril; Good News: 'The Two Coreys' Are Back!

Seth — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:15:05 PST

· With the 65th Golden Globes Awards having succumbed to the strike plague, all eyes turn to its far wealthier and more powerful cousin Oscar, whose coughing up of blood into a lace handkerchief doesn't strike us as a good omen. [Variety]
· The loss of the Globes was the first real sting felt by the film industry since the start of the strike, resulting in studio executives demanding of a supposedly merciful God how He could have allowed them to go about all that For You Consideration campaigning in vain. [Variety]

· The Daily Show host and noted sympathetic unibrowist Jon Stewart would like to reach a deal with his staff the way David Letterman did, but because the WGA will only negotiate with show owners (like Dave), they'll only deal with Comedy Central. [Variety]
· The 11th annual Online Film Critics Society Awards blows their internet-based-reviewer wads all over the old men of No Country. [Variety]
· Finally, some good news: The Two Coreys, A&E's bold foray into the loosely scripted cohabitating has-been reality TV format, has gotten a second season pickup. [THR]

Stewart, Colbert Go Back To Work Unibrowed, Biblically Bearded, And Without Writers

Mark — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:10:03 PST

With somewhat less fanfare than accompanied The Return of Late Night on January 2nd, in which network talk shows made a mass return to the airwaves in various writer-having/writer-free and hirsute/clean-shaven configurations, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert reported for duty Monday night—initially sporting a Strike Unibrow and Strike Moses-Beard, respectively, to show their solidarity with their still-missing scribes.

While Stewart lamented his program's inability to get the kind of side-deal the WGA made with Worldwide Pants (the Guild, it seems, isn't really embracing the idea of giving corporate monolith Viacom a break), he still dedicated most of the show to the strike; in the above segment—one probably not as improvised as the WGA would like, but given the pro-cause subject matter, the union probably won't be sending anyone over to Stewart's office to have a testy sit-down about strike rules—the host details the dispute over internet compensation, explaining how the $1.99 fees charged for iTunes downloads of his show are purely a shipping and handling charge, the proposed "Shut The Fuck Up" formula for new-media residuals, and how the viewing of written content on iPods clearly falls under the "Hickory Farms promotional cheese" principle.

Writers Strike [TheDailyShow.com]
Comedy Central Hosts Return to TV [NY Times]

Striking Writers Producing New Hit Series 'Not The Daily Show' In Curbside Studio

Mark — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:50:47 PST

Writers for The Daily Show—for us, at least, the single biggest hole that's been blown in the TV schedule thus far—are refusing to be slowed by their temporary lack of an indoor studio, regular host, and Comedy Central-financed production values, producing a strike-altered version of the program on the streets of NY.

Though the sidewalk shoot progressed smoothly enough at first, their hypervigiliant Viacom bosses eventually caught wind of the guerrilla production, and in a move designed to show how seriously the company takes the staff's unauthorized actions, dispatched CEO Philipppe Dauman (who, weirdly, decided to adopt a pseudonym for the raid but didn't bother to change out of his instantly recognizable Monopoly Man ensemble) to disrupt the segment and reclaim the scripted material that is rightfully theirs.

Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer [YouTube]

Jon Stewart Savors His Last Pre-Strike Moments Of Having 'Words' To Use

Mark — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:12:26 PDT

A commenter on our earlier post about David Letterman's writers strike segment on last night's episode of The Late Show recommended that we go back to check out Jon Stewart's comments on the same topic on The Daily Show (the program we're going to miss most of all), in which he let viewers know that they could watch reruns during any strike-related hiatus for free on their fancy new website, a gift made possible by the generosity of advertisers unafraid to throw their money away on a medium likely never to generate enough profits to share with the employees who come up with all those "words" he's fond of reading. We followed the reader's helpful advice and found the clip. Enjoy.

The Daily Show [thedailyshow.com]
Previously: Letterman Prepares His Viewers For The Writers Strike [Defamer]

'Daily Show' Bringing Fake News To Real War Zone

Mark — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:14:25 PDT

· The Daily Show is going to Iraq, eschewing the safety of the green screen to try its chances in the Green Zone.
· Now this is the way to quit your job. It looks like Ed Limato has one fewer qualified candidate for his blowfish-guarding detail.
· Mark Burnett has sold another show to NBC; think of this one as Are You Smarter Than the Friends and Family Members Paid A Nominal Fee to Humiliate You With Stories You Can Hardly Remember?
·You'd think by now that each time K-Fed gets a temp job, we wouldn't get so excited. But each new gig remains a fresh little thrill, and we can't wait to see what he's got in store for us on One Tree Hill.
· RIP, Leona Helmsley, the Queen of Mean.

'Daily Show' Enjoys Sweet Rewards Of Jon Stewart's Mediocre Oscars Performance

Seth — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:04:46 PST

Regardless of where you stood on the "love-tolerate -hate-Jon Stewart-Oscar-hosting-assessment-continuum," the numbers don't lie: 100,000 additional viewers not-hated his performance enough to tune into The Daily Show in the days following the telecast for an extra helping of his pointed political satire and overcooked double takes:

Viewership for "The Daily Show" averaged 1.6 million for the six episodes after Stewart's Oscar gig. The show had been averaging 1.5 million viewers each night before the Academy Awards, according to Nielsen Media Research.
"He's sort of elevated," said Doug Herzog, Comedy Central president, "and by association we are as well. So we couldn't be happier." [...]

"I knew the visibility would be high," Herzog said. "The only thing that would have surprised me is if the ratings had gone down. We couldn't have been more proud that he was up there."

Studies have shown that a majority of parents, regardless of what they say, do tend to favor one child over the others. It's an apt analogy when you consider Herzog's cooing and fawning over Stewart, who with one neutered performance and a modest gain in viewership ascends to untouchable Comedy Central Golden Boy status, while Trey Parker and Matt Stone suffer the indignities of scheduling runarounds and doublespeak you'd extend to that one problem kid who just can't seem to learn to play by the corporate-synergistic rules.

Stewart at Oscars Helps Comedy Central [AP]
Previously: Night Of A Thousand Sweatpants: Anatomy Of A Bomb [Defamer]