Tag Archives: Comedy Central

The Post-Stewart Apocalypse

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Our planet continues to orbit its home star. The cosmos has yet to collapse into a galactic-sized blackhole. But, don’t be fooled. The apocalypse is here. It has indeed arrived. Today is August 7, 2015 or 1 PS.

We are now one day into the PS era, that’s PS for Post-Stewart — Jon Stewart, that is. So, as we enter this uncharted period — a contemporary Dark Ages — I will mourn Jon Stewart’s passing and yet curse him for leaving The Daily Show before his projected death of natural causes in 2065.

However, I am reminded that his arch-enemy Faux News will continue to amaze and entertain those of us who search for truth in the dumbed-down, fear-mongering drivel that it pumps through our nation’s cables. The channel’s puppet-master, and chief propagandist, Roger Ailes had this to say of Stewart,

“He’s feeling unrewarded because Fox News beats him on the amount of money we make, on ratings and on popularity. I’m sure it’s very depressing when he sits home at night and worries about it. We never did.”

This is so wonderfully hilarious, for Mr. Ailes fails to notice that he’s comparing his vast “news” media empire to a mere comedy show. I suppose I can take solace from this quote — who needs Jon Stewart when the target of his ire can do such a preeminent job of skewering itself.

Bye Jon, I hope you find several suitable Moments of Zen! But, you’re still a bastard.

Image courtesy of Google Search / The Daily Show.

Where Will I Get My News (and Satire)

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Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart, you dastardly, villainous so-and-so. How could you? How could you decide to leave the most important show in media history — The Daily Show — after a mere 16 years? Where will I get my news? Where will I find another hypocrisy-meter? Where will I find another truth-seeking David to fend us from the fear-mongering neocon Goliaths led by Rogers Ailes over at the Foxion News Channel? Where will I find such a thoroughly delicious merging of news, fact and satire. Jon Stewart how could you?!

From the Guardian?

“Where will I get my news each night,” lamented Bill Clinton this week. This might have been a reaction to the fall from grace of Brian Williams, America’s top-rated news anchor, who was suspended for embellishing details of his adventures in Iraq. In fact the former US president was anticipating withdrawal symptoms for the impending departure of the comedian Jon Stewart, who – on the same day as Williams’s disgrace – announced that he will step down as the Daily Show host.

Stewart, who began his stint 16 years ago, has achieved something extraordinary from behind a studio desk on a comedy cable channel. Merging the intense desire for factual information with humour, irreverence, scepticism and usually appropriate cynicism, Stewart’s show proved a magnet for opinion formers, top politicians – who clamoured to appear – and most significantly the young, for whom the mix proved irresistible. His ridiculing of neocons became a nightly staple. His rejection from the outset of the Iraq war was prescient. And always he was funny, not least this week in using Williams’s fall to castigate the media for failing to properly scrutinise the Iraq war. Bill Clinton does not mourn alone.

Read the entire story here.

Image courtesy of Google Search.