The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

He was very understated. He let himself be the straight-man to the interviewee's clown.

He got a subject to take off her mike and refuse to speak to him after only a few minutes. Which was hilarious.

He's kind of the opposite of Jordan. Jordan's more overtly funny, but there's nothing really special about his location segments.

The Daily Show has become a bit of a launching ground for careers (both successful and otherwise), but I wonder how they're going to get by if they keep hemorrhaging talent like this!

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/luewka/moment-of-zen---a-statement-from-the-queen

This is funny, but I have this irrational conviction that the actual reason why its happened might be more interesting. Anyone have an idea?

I liked Michael Che.I thought he was even better than some of the correspondents they've had for a while (I'm looking at you, Kristen Schaal). Hopefully he does well on SNL and gets good material, since they seem to be making an effort to hire something other than an indistinguishable white male.

He's going to SNL just to do Weekend Update. So he'll get the best stuff every week, but he won't be appearing in sketches.

I just wish he was anchoring with Cecily Strong instead of Colin Jost. I'm not sure why she isn't at the desk anymore, unless she wanted to do more sketches instead.

Just watched last night's episode, and I have to ask: Is it just my imagination, or is Jessica Williams starting to drift away from humorous snark and into just plain preachy ranting? Between the way she perpetuated the "angry black woman" stereotype in a couple previous segments and cherry-picking what was probably the worst examples of sexism she could find and acting like all men behave like that^note admittedly, I'm neither female nor a resident of NYC, so I don't know if the sexism is actually that bad in the area, I found her segment to be a cringeworthy example of Don't Shoot the Message. It's the sort of thing I'd expect from MSNBC or Tumblr, not TDS. And thinking back, I can remember two other instances in recent memory where I've had that reaction to a Daily Show segment, and both also involved Williams going into rant mode.

I wish they'd go back to giving the sexism pieces to Kristen Schaal. She was consistently witty and snarky AND thoroughly demolished sexist arguments at the same time. I still fondly remember her mocking of Hugh Hefner and Playboy.

edited 3rd Oct '14 8:31:29 PM by PoochyEXE

Extra 1: Poochy Ain't Stupid

Is Schaal still working at TDS? Didn't she get married or had a kid or something?

I don't think she's ever been more than an occasional guest correspondent on the level of Lewis Black, Larry Wilmore, or John Hodgman.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

The fun (not really) thing about Jessica Williams is that she's both black and female, which gets her a double dose of discrimination, both subtle and overt. And the #NotAllMen thing doesn't fly; it's trumped by #YesAllWomen. Every single woman experiences sex discrimination and harassment in her life.

If you don't understand that, then you won't ever understand why Jessica did that piece. TDS isn't just about comedy; it's about really serious topics with a humorous approach. What she said needed to be said.

edited 3rd Oct '14 8:43:14 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I don't really follow social media, could you please explain what the #NotAllMen and #YesAllWomen hashtags are and why the latter trumps the former? Or at least link me to a reliable source? [Edit: Never mind, just found out they actually have Wikipedia articles that seem faily neutral.]

And yes, I understand Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped. I just think Kristen Schaal has already demonstrated that there are much more effective ways to get the point across.

edited 3rd Oct '14 8:57:51 PM by PoochyEXE

Extra 1: Poochy Ain't Stupid

In short

1. Not All Men are rapists.

2. Yes All Women worry about the ones that ARE.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

So from what I can tell, #NotAllMen started out as a response to people making sweeping generalizations about men, and #YesAllWomen is a hashtag to point out sexism faced by women, but the former derailed when people started using it to get defensive about the latter. Is that about right?

Extra 1: Poochy Ain't Stupid

#NotAllMen was taken up by some of the more unsavory elements, the ones that insist that male privilege is a sham made up by people with an agenda to radically feminize our society and strip men of their rights.

That said, I am a white male. I would never knowingly discriminate against or harass a woman or someone from another race, but that doesn't mean that I can ignore the fact that they do suffer harassment and discrimination, something that I will never have to face by virtue of my gender and skin color. My privilege exists whether or not I exploit it.

edited 3rd Oct '14 9:15:44 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

As interesting as this all is (or isn't...it's not really that interesting), I think the point is more "Jessica Williams isn't really being funny". TDS isn't just about the jokes, sure, but the complaint is that she isn't really making any.

I find Jessica's location work is much better than her studio work. Schaal only ever does studio work so it's hard to compare them, but she's pretty consistently funny and scathing.

And now I'm realizing I've said this about both of the African-American contributors, so to even things out a bit, it's also my opinion of Jason. Jordan and Sam are generally better in the studio. And Oliver, Aasif, and Wyatt were stellar no matter what they were doing.

I never cared for Al.

You're correct; this isn't the place for that topic. I thought the segment was humorous enough for what it was trying to accomplish.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

OK, I think I have a better idea of where everyone's coming from now. In which case allow me to clarify, I simply think Williams' recent segments are the sort of thing that adds more fuel to the fire for the aforementioned unsavory elements that took over #NotAllMen. It's the same reason why I cringe on the occasion that Jon Stewart goes on a ranty tangent that ends in the studio audience cheering as opposed to laughing — while he generally makes a good point, he often says it in a manner that makes for more Fox News fuel.

Extra 1: Poochy Ain't Stupid

I haven't even seen it yet. Just noticed that the core point wasn't the thing being addressed.

'S why I made a general statement about my thoughts on the various contributors. :P

Did I miss anyone who's been around recently? I mentioned Schaal, but only because she was brought up earlier. Lewis and Larry are always good, although I'm not a fan of Hodgman's TDS persona.

The only other person I can think of since I started watching is Rob Riggle, and the only work of his I really remember is his coverage of the Beijing Olympics, and being part of Indecision 2008, but I might be forgetting some.

Those folks will be offended and energized no matter what people say about them. Their opinions don't matter; they've forfeited the right to be taken seriously other than as enemies.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Personally, I find segments that just get preachy annoying because we're the choir. The people watching are likely to already believe these things. Hearing them parroted back without the jokes to back it up isn't really necessary.

The "How a bill becomes an ad" bit was one of my favourites in months because it had a point of view, but was also a goldmine of humour.

They can get more serious during the interview segment, because there's more room to be effective there. I'm thinking specifically of when Jon spoke to the 9/11 first responders because their healthcare bill was being neutered in congress. But the top two acts of the show should be more about the comedy.

I'm not concerned about winning them over, I'm concerned that they'll use this sort of thing and distort it to trick previously neutral people into believing their side. Which Fox News has tried to pull many, many times, and which Jon Stewart constantly mocks them for.

In my opinion, the best response to those kinds of unsavory people is to present hard evidence as to why they're wrong. For example, point out that women make less money than men for doing the same job. This was something I felt Kristen Schaal and John Oliver were both great at doing while simultaneously snarking. It's significantly harder to argue with or distort facts and empirical evidence.

edited 3rd Oct '14 9:51:34 PM by PoochyEXE

Extra 1: Poochy Ain't Stupid

Eh? I figure there's probably folks watching who are huge feminists who see the ISIS stuff who're like "oh hey, never thought of it like that before", and vice versa. Liberals don't all think the exact same way.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

I just skipped over her last segment because it sounded like it was going to be another rant and not funny.

Never trust anyone who uses "degenerate" as an insult.

I don't necessarily think it's preaching to the choir, because, as someone said earlier, we don't really think that these types of comments are said to women, but they probably are. And I think it's kind of hard to get a view from the other side because the worst offenders aren't going to be likely to talk, unlike the Redskins fans that added a little humor to the Redskins segment.

Finally saw it. Yeah, it wasn't a good piece. It wasn't funny, and all it was really saying was "this is a thing that happens". Kind of a waste of time.

I thought the piece was pretty funny. Especially when she was putting tacks on a map to show where women get harassed. "Actually, I've been harassed on one of those harbour cruises." That was great.

I laughed during the piece, and I enjoyed it. And it's always good to get a reminder of the shit that women have to put up with every day.

I like Jessica Williams in general.

I've also been liking Jason Jones a lot more than usual lately, because he seems to have just gotten tired of putting up with bullshit. He used to do the whole "agree with the stupid shit being said" persona. He's stopped doing that, for the most part, and is a lot more willing to tell people their opinions are stupid.

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