YMMV / The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

• Awesome Music:
  • Done for comedy in the "Tiger Woods Newzak" segment on 12/2/09 certainly qualifies for setting the questions to an elevator-music version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen.
  • All of Jon's West Side Story-inspired oil slick songs. All of them.
• Broken Base:
  • Jon's increasing bias towards liberals and against conservatives, with some saying he was willing to look the other way for most major liberal mis-steps in direct contrast to jumping onto anything that could make Conservatives look bad.
  • On the other hand, Stewart's frequent lampooning of both sides has become much more controversial than it used to be. While some feel this approach is a good thing because it shows his willingness to call out his own side, many others now call it out as encouraging apathy by portraying both sides as equally bad. His first show upon his return in 2024 was especially criticized as he indicated that both Trump and Biden were acceptable choices, calling both "vibrant" and "capable" and treating the race like an ordinary election rather than one that could have serious consequences for the country. This drew significant criticism, such as this piece by Mary Trump which accused him of turning young people off from politics with similar rhetoric in the past.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • On February 24, 2014, Larry Wilmore retorted Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano's assertion that if Abraham Lincoln left the southern slave-holding states alone, then slavery would have died from natural causes and The American Civil War would have been averted, by saying "The South was so committed to slavery Lincoln didn't die from natural causes!"
  • Basically every one of Lewis Black's appearances has a rant that edges on this trope. Of course that's to be expected from Black.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Stephen Colbert, who was so popular with fans that he was given his own spinoff show, The Colbert Report by Comedy Central and was selected as David Letterman's successor on The Late Show.
  • John Oliver became one after his great job of guest-hosting the show in Summer 2013, to the point where (like Colbert) he was given his own show by HBO.
  • Aasif Mandvi is popular for his ability to ask Armor Piercing Questions to interviewees.
  • Larry Wilmore was such a popular guest correspondent that he eventually received his own Daily Show spinoff, The Nightly Show.
• Fan Community Nicknames: Stoned slackers, appropriated from Bill O'Reilly.
• Genius Bonus:
  • When covering Dov Hikind's Purim blackface scandal, correspondent Jessica Williams goes into a long tirade about the "War on Purim" and references obscure Jewish traditions. Throughout the segment, Jon actually struggles to keep a straight face.
    Jon: Somewhere, there is a rabbinical college laughing their asses off at this. Meanwhile, we got an audience of Lutherans going, "I don't know, I thought he was gonna talk about the sequester."
  • At the start of the "Go Fuck Yourself, Bernie Goldberg" segment, a man named Toppington Von Monocle protests Goldberg's assertion that Jon's audience is unsophisticated by quoting Catullus 16. The line he uses (I will sodomize and face-fuck you) sounds so over-the-top that one assumes that Jon and his writers made it up, but no, that's what it actually means.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Jon Stewart's run is generally credited with turning the show from a light parody of local news to a deep and incisive political satire.
  • Within Stewart's run in itself, it's a tossup between the show's coverage of the 2000 presidential election fiasco and Jon's speech on the show's first episode after 9/11 for the moment the show evolved from being a carbon copy of Kilborn's run into the political satire it became known for.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Calling their coverage of the 2000 Presidential election "Indecision 2000", which included this prelude. Jon's opening monologue the day after the election, with the final count still not decided, flat-out calls it this.
    Jon Stewart: Calling this whole thing "Indecision 2000" was at first a bit of a lighthearted jab, perhaps an attempt at humor. We had no idea that people were gonna run with that. We, uh... thought we were kidding, quite frankly, but indecision is exactly where we are right now.
  • Back when Jon was still young and innocent, on the first day after a break, Stewart ran a story about financial troubles, and when he saw Bush's... Bush-like commentary on the subject, his response was a cheerful "we're doomed!" The date? September 10, 2001. The show's break would be extended a bit. This also extends to how the segment was followed by a story about oil dependency and alternative energy, as the wars in the Middle East following 9/11 were widely accused of being done solely for the region's oil.^note Right down to the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was manufactured by the U.S. government specifically for that.
  • Saying that Bob Novak contains "the cure for the cure for cancer", and than rather than having a mid-life crisis Novak is having an "end of life crisis", only for it to be revealed a week later that the man had brain cancer, and that he died a year later from it, could not have been what Jon Stewart intended.
  • Sending Jason Jones to Iran just before the 2009 elections for interviews that would air the week after led to some last-minute editing workarounds when they couldn't not air the material, but the prominent opposition supporters they had interviewed in typical Daily Show style had since been rounded up by the government. And Maziyar Bahari actually had the footage used against him while he was in prison.
  • When defending South Park during the fallout of the "201" special, Stewart attempts to throw a bone to Fox News and similar right-wing extremists, stating that while he often criticizes them he doesn't consider them the enemy and draws a distinction between them and the group who threatened Parker and Stone. Given how much more polarized American politics has become, many feel this sentiment doesn't hold up and looks naive in retrospect.
  • February 17, 2011: Aasif Mandvi makes up the fake "Qu'osby Show" to help people adjust to Muslims like The Cosby Show supposedly did for African Americans, and his "test audience" (who thought they were watching a real show) insisted that the family was too normal and needed "a terrorist uncle in the basement" or were "secretly very jihad" to seem like they were really Muslims to viewers. Cut to December 13 and the show All-American Muslim is getting flak for showing Muslims as "normal people" and not focusing on the more extremist parts of the religion.
    • Pretty much the entire concept of The Cosby Show being held in high regard or a Cosby Show-like show holding a secret was blown to smithereens in 2015, when the show's star Bill Cosby was accused by multiple women of being a serial rapist, as if this segment wasn't awkward in hindsight enough.
  • During the summer of 2013, political pundits were already speculating about the 2016 presidential election, leading guest host John Oliver to do a segment called "Can't You At Least Wait Until Jon Stewart Gets Back?". However, in August 2015, Jon Stewart stepped down as host of the Daily Show, so he didn't get to skewer the 2016 election.
    • That same segment ended with John Oliver urging Donald Trump to run for president and offering to write him a campaign check ("on behalf of this country, which doesn't want you to be president, but which badly wants you to run!"). Fast forward to November 6th, 2016, and Oliver concedes in his own show that he has no defence for that and notes that it's hard to believe that there was a time when people thought Trump's candidacy would be funny.
    • There are many segments throughout 2011 (when Trump was promoting the "birther" movement) where Stewart urges him to run, even begging him to reconsider when Trump announced that he wouldn't run in 2012.
    • Similarly, in March 2011, Lewis Black had joked that Trump should be elected president, saying "What this country needs is a crazy third world dictator!".
  • During the 2004 presidential election, Jon jokingly asked, "If Bush loses, will he leave or will he just say, 'I don't read the papers'?". At that time, it was inconceivable that a President would not concede if he lost the election. When Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020, he refused to concede, the first time the tradition was broken since it was established in 1896.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, talks about the coming of a left-wing protest group at 06:50 in this clip. A month or two later after that video, the Occupy movement happened.
  • Many were surprised that Three 6 Mafia's "It's Hard Out There for a Pimp" from Hustle & Flow beat Dolly Parton's "Travelin' Through" from Transamerica as Best Original Song at the 2006 Academy Awards. This led Jon to note that Three 6 Mafia had won an award Martin Scorsese had not won. A year later, Scorsese would finally receive an Academy Award as Best Director for The Departed.
  • In a 2000 show intro, Stewart jokes that marathons are a lot like elections in that they're always won by a Kenyan or a Moroccan. Fast forward to 2008 when half-Kenyan Barack Obama joined office.
  • The day after Anthony Wiener resigned, Jon Stewart made a joke saying he was also and leaving the show for John Oliver to host. Cut to Oliver sitting at Stewart's desk, before Jon runs up saying he's not actually leaving, and that he would not let Oliver host because something bad would happen. Years later, not only does Oliver guest host the show while Stewart is out of the country making a documentary (during which time Weiner's goings-on come right back into the spotlight), but, as he predicted, the studio had a black-out during the run.
  • Vladimir Putin first came to The Daily Show's attention in 1999 when he became Boris Yeltsin's new prime minister, a position which had a High Turnover Rate. Jon joked that Putin's political career was already over.
  • One 2000 episode has Steve Carell covering Dick Cheney being selected as George W. Bush's running mate (the funny part being that Cheney was initially the chair of the comittee charged with selecting Bush's VP candidate). Carell would appear in the Cheney Biopic Vice (2018), as Donald Rumsfeld.
  • During the 2008 Democratic national convention, The Daily Show played a satirical biographical film about then-nominee Barack Obama called "Barack Obama: He Completes Us", which parodied The Lion King (1994). In the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner, now-President Obama trolled Fox News and the birthers, particularly Donald Trump, by playing footage of what he claimed was from his birth, before revealing it was really the opening of The Lion King.
  • When original host Craig Kilborn interviewed Jon Stewart (back when he was just a guest), Jon makes a comment halfway through about The Daily Show discussing political issues. Craig seems amused by the idea...
  • The night Obama was elected the show did a bit where Larry Wilmore announced that, because of the election of America's first black president, he'd be replacing Jon Stewart as host and Wyatt Cenac would be replacing Stephen Colbert. In 2015 Wilmore replaced Colbert and the half-black Trevor Noah became host of The Daily Show.
  • Jon's interview with Paula Broadwell, when she was promoting her David Petraeus biography, is hilariously cringey in retrospect now that it's come out she was having an affair with Petraeus. Jon, who at the time of the interview obviously had no idea, later himself acknowledged the absurdity.
    Jon Stewart: I'm the worst journalist in the world. For God’s sake, the title of her book was ‘All In.’
  • In the November 6th, 2016 episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Oliver, in addition to the clip listed under Harsher in Hindsight, also shows The Daily Show clip from 2008 where both he and Jon Stewart proclaim that Chicago Cubs will never, ever win the World Series. They were proven wrong in 2016, which Oliver acknowledges.
  • When Peter Dinklage came on the show to promote The Station Agent, he joked that instead of assuming that people looking and pointing at him on the street are doing so because of his size, he now assumes that people are recognizing him from this extremely niche indie film. Given how Dinklage's career has massively took off with Game of Thrones, far more people would recognize him and point at him for reasons besides his size.
  • There's a segment where Samantha Bee tries to take over the show so a woman could host it for a change. Eventually she would leave the show to host Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, which has a similar format to The Daily Show (and some of the same producers).

• Ho Yay:
  • Played for humor many times, especially between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Jon and Stephen seem to actively encourage it.
  • Not to mention Jon and Steve Carrell
    Steve: I missed you!
    Jon: I missed you!
    Audience: Aww
    Jon: Talk about a third wheel.
  • Jon and Brian Williams in any of their interviews.
  • Jon talking to his latest Emmy
    Emmy: I should have slept with Colbert when I had the chance.
    Jon: I beat you to that too, huh?
  • And so, so much between Jon and Brian Williams. Williams and Chatroulette. That is all.
  • And between Jon and Ricky Gervais.
  • There was also the moment in the introduction to the 2006 Oscars ceremony where Jon wakes up in bed next to George Clooney and does a happy dance when George tells him it's not a dream.
  • "If I believed everything you said when you were drunk I'd be Mrs. Denis Leary by now!"
  • Early on, there was that bit with Mike Myers.
  • On August 17, 2011, there was Ho Yay between John Oliver and Wyatt Cenac.
• I Am Not Shazam: The host of the show is Jon Stewart, not Jon Daily. Jon has on occasion referred to himself as that, though—once when he made a "mistake" and chastised himself verbally, referring to himself as Jon Daly as he did so, and they had some fun with this on the back of Earth (The Book)
  Wikipedia: Earth (The Book) is a 2010 humor parody satire book written by the authors of the popular television program The John Daly Show
• It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars: Several reviewers have criticized Stewart for his reliance on a double standard: he can satirize political and religious figures, but when they attack his arguments, he counters that his show is supposed to be a joke.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Roll 212!"
  • This bit, thanks to the 2011 State of the Union address:
    [shows clip of Kathy Proctor looking to the side and pointing to herself proudly]
    Jon: What the—no! No! Kathy Proctor, you are not [insert relevant activity here]!
  • Willie Geist's disapproving glare is well on the way to this.
  • A bit of a Forced Meme since Jon asked the audience to make it one, but quickly after showing the joys of putting unfitting music to Mitch McConnel's campaign commercial, McConneling became a meme.
• My Real Daddy: Jon Stewart's run is generally credited with turning the show from a light parody of local news to a deep and incisive political satire. Trevor Noah is very aware of this fact. If you mention the name "Craig Kilborn" to a sizable portion of the show's fans, they will respond with "Who?"
• Nausea Fuel:
  • In one episode, Aasif Mandvi covered the Iowa Straw Poll, where they were serving battered and deep-fried sticks of butter. Aasif one-upped them by eating an uncooked stick of butter dipped in mayonnaise.
  • In another, Jon had a blueberry pancake and sausage (on a stick) dipped in bacon-flavoured mayo.
    Jon: I think my tongue just took a shit.
• Nightmare Fuel/Paranoia Fuel: During his interview with Jon Ronson, author of The Psychopath Test, Ronson revealed that one psycho (and psychos in general) really want people to like them because, "you can manipulate them to do whatever you want them to". He also showed that psychologists believe 1 in 100 people are psychopathic.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Many viewers might not know that the recurring Even Stephven (debates between Colbert and Carrell) and This Week in God (discussing religion) segments share a lot of similarities with the Craig Kilborn era Backfire and God Stuff segments.
  • Older viewers may remember Stewart's use of the titles Headlines, This Just In and Other News to differentiate parts of the show. They could easily be unaware that Kilborn was the originator of that.
  • Back in Black was a segment in Kilborn's era, but it's entirely possible, given the lack of footage from Kilborn's show, to think it originated with Stewart.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • The chroma key backgrounds constantly fail. The correspondents hang lampshades on them at every possible opportunity. Stephen Colbert is the best at this.
  • During one particular Chroma Key segment, Michael Steele, seen here telling a waiter there is a fly in his soup, leaves his night time barbecue to answer the door. It then shows an actual Michael Steele clip, happening at day. When Steele returns, Jon asks why it took him an entire day to answer the door.
  • The Gitmo segments had Jon holding a hand puppet in front of one camera (with the Guantanomo background) while he spoke into the other. Except for the one time he accidentally moved his puppet arm into the same frame as his own face.
• Squick: During the fake press conference after the Anthony Weiner resignation, Jon cuts himself while making a frozen daiquiri. He tries to turn off the blender by pounding the buttons with the side of his hand... while still holding the glass in that hand. For a brief moment when he lifts his injured hand, you can see the glass sticking out of the fresh gash in his hand.
  Jon: [examining bleeding hand] That's not good...