» The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Options

[MuppetCoat]

ETA: Here's the The Baltimore Sun's take on both shows' returns.

nice... glad the TV writer so clearly understands the strike that he thought Jon & stephen *chose* to return. *rolls eyes*

shamskygirl I have to respectfully disagree with your analysis of giving Jon a waiver w/o holding CC to the agreement for other shows.

[Miss Alli]

It's not a waiver. I think terminology is important, and as I understand it, it's not a waiver that he was trying to get. He was trying to get an agreement in which the WGA would get the terms it wanted that were applicable to the show. According to what he suggested at the end of the show during the interview, Viacom had agreed.

He got his digs in at both sides, which is what I expect from him. Nobody's immune. If something were in the news and he pretended that only one side was capable of pretentious crap, he'd immediately lose all credibility.

[Bourgeois Nerd]

Again, I don't understand the difference between getting an interim deal with WWP and its two shows that doesn't affect any other show on CBS and giving one to Busboy and its two shows that doesn't affect any other show on CC. WWP may own its shows in a way that Busboy doesn't, but if Jon had gotten CC to agree to do a deal, I don't see the practical difference.

[MFD]

The difference is that CBS doesn't own those two shows. Comedy Central/Viacom owns TDS and TCR.

EDIT: I think the problem is that Comedy Central would have agreed, but the WGA predicted that Viacom would have renegged.

This post has been edited by MFD: Jan 8, 2008 @ 8:54 am.

[MuppetCoat]

Sorry Miss Alli - I do know the difference between a waiver & an interim deal, it's just too early to doublecheck my fingers.

Still, Bourgeois Nerd while it's subtle, I do see a difference between the two options.

In one case, you're saying to WWP: "All of the shows you own, even though it's a small number, must be under our deal."
With CC, they'd have been saying: "You can cherry pick the shows that you own which are important to you, and only *they* need to be included in the deal." It's like saying only popular TV shows are important to the union.

[nm317]

So, here's the thing I can't stop thinking about. Jon is very smart and very good at coming up with things off the top of his head. We see that in his interviews and when he ad-libs something in response to the audience. And I thought while last night's episode was, obviously, subpar, I actually thought a lot of it was funny (or I am just that desperate for Jon that I would laugh at anything - could really go either way).

However, there is a difference in the way Jon speaks when he's reading off the prompter or when he's speaking off the cuff (like in his interviews). When he's making it up as he goes along, there's a lot of stammering and he starts and restarts a sentence 3 or 4 times before he finishes it. And there wasn't any (or there was little) of that last night. What does that mean?

We have seen times when he's managed not to do the starting/stopping thing (that interview with that guy whose name I can't think of right now who had the interpreter. I suck, but...anyway). So I guess it is possible.

I guess I was just surprised because I was expecting more of Jon's trademark speaking style going into the show considering it wasn't supposed to have been written.

This post has been edited by nm317: Jan 8, 2008 @ 9:16 am.

[Wacoshade]

He was completely supportive of the writers, but called bullshit on things that quite frankly need to be called on their bullshit. And isn't that why we love him? Fawning and obsequience are the territory of other late nighters, not him.

Amen! I was heartily annoyed by Letterman's return in all its WGA asskissing glory. And even though TDS last night was essentially all about the strike, it had his great perspective and willingness to come at it from a couple of different angles that kept it from being pretentious or skewed.

I loved how he acted when he was so happy to do the Chuck Norris standing behind Huckabee joke. And then we get the Seagal behind Dodd joke. It was a funny little joke, which you know a full writing staff would have just done wonders with, but Jon was just so happy to have made his own little joke about it, he was like the ignored middle child on the high-dive board going "Dad! Look at me! Look at me! Dad! Dad!"

I guess I was just surprised because I was expecting more of Jon's trademark speaking style going into the show considering it wasn't supposed to have been written.

I've always thought that little affectation was an act on Jon's part. Not a total put-on or anything (ala Colbert's style), just sort of a disarming way to self-deprecate and at the same time slide in a zinger or two in the context of the show where he is a faux-news anchorman; sometimes it's irony, sometimes it's to make fun of himself, sometimes it's to appear doofish right before he throws out a sharp comment and gets you off base... I would even suggest that when he appears to be making it up as he goes along, he probably already knows exactly what he's doing.

I thought a lot of when he was talking last night fit very well into his non TDS and non talk show kind of style, very stream of conciousness, peppered with random tangents.

This post has been edited by Wacoshade: Jan 8, 2008 @ 9:44 am.

[OptimisticCynic]

Amen! I was heartily annoyed by Letterman's return in all its WGA asskissing glory. And even though TDS last night was essentially all about the strike, it had his great perspective and willingness to come at it from a couple of different angles that kept it from being pretentious or skewed.

I liked last night's show and agreed with many of Jon's points. I think what Jon was doing was making a distinction between supporting all the writers (not just his own) - which he wholeheartedly does, and supporting the WGA's policies and strategies as an organization at the moment which seem to be going nowhere. It's like being able to differentiate a people from it's government.

WGA has handled it badly IMO - and shows no sympathy for the crews and lower totem pole workers on these shows that lost their jobs, didn't have pay checks, etc. That's not to say the writers themselves don't care, but the WGA has done a terrible job. The fact that their own workers are threatening to strike says something.

I'm sick of hearing the WGA organization talk about Jon and I want to hear from his own band of writers that he's worked with - they know his integrity. And in any acceptance speech for any award he's been given for the show, I seem to recall the writers are the first people he thanks.

As for AMPTA - he freakin called them Nambla which was hilarious - I also loved his side joke that it was "grandfathered in." But just because you disagree with how the WGA has handled this situation (as I do) does not mean you support the AMPTA.

[Miss Kean]

Interesting comments everybody. I can see that the show has sparked a lot of strong feelings.

Anyone else just feel sick at the thought of Jon becoming the new "villain" in this whole strike business?

Yes, yes and yes.

Here's my input as an audience member. Because of a busy day yesterday I didn't get to the show until 3:30. Usually I get there earlier but that is always a safe time to arrive. But yikes! The line in front of the theatre was full and it continued down the side street. I was anxious until the end about getting in, which I almost didn't. The two people behind us in line were the last two to get blue tickets. There were probably a hundred hopefuls behind us; in the end about six of them (with pink-standby tickets) got in. What mayhem. My friend and I considered ourselves very lucky. The woman who comes around with her clipboard to hand out tickets knows us and said "I can't believe you two were nervous." Were we ever. The picketers, about fifteen or twenty of them, arrived around four o'clock, but I didn't get to see them much as I was around the corner. A member of the union passed out neon pink flyers at one point but pushed no guilt about whether or not we should support the show by watching it taped. There were a bunch of people with cameras filming the protest and line. At about five o'clock John Oliver rushed by on his way into the studio. A few people yelled hello and he smiled and waved. He was wearing a lively green shirt.

People were allowed into the studio in small groups, which was new, at least for me. I'm guessing security was particularly tight. They looked into my friend's wallet. We did the usual waiting with music. I got a seat in the front row (apart from my friend.) We were then offered two seats back to back on the side by our clipboard lady buddy which my friend wanted us to move to, but I wasn't giving up my first row seat. There was a warm-up guy I hadn't seen before named Quentin ("Q") whom I liked quite a bit, a relief from the usual Paul Mercurio, but I won't linger on him. He said that it was his privilege to introduce Jon, and we all went bonkers. What a sight! He looked good, like he'd slimmed down during the hiatus.

When he came out he stood behind the desk for a moment and touched it rather lovingly. Then he walked around to stand in front of it. Usually he leans on the desk with his feet crossed to answer questions, in a casual manner, as though he were leaning on a fence with a piece of grass in his mouth. There was none of that body language. He spoke for a bit in a pretty rambling but pensive fashion. He did bring up that the Guild had turned down the same offer they gave Letterman and said that he was a "confused little puppy." I wish I had a better memory and could provide more exact quotes. What I can say is that he seemed thoughtful and really quite sad. There was no bounce in his step and he seemed a tad disoriented. He even remarked that he was out of practice before he got to asking the audience for questions, like he had forgotten how they do things around there.

The questions were all pretty good and he seemed willing to linger on them and his answers. A woman asked whether there had been any moments during the last two months when he had wished for the show as a forum. He said that without the show he realized that he is like an old man in pajamas yelling at the TV, and added that the show saves his family from so much aggravation. Another person asked him where his beard was and he said, "Oh, it's in there." He was asked what he did during the break, and he described it as being "in limbo," which he said was a strange state of affairs. He was very articulate about what it felt like, and, again, I wish I could quote him directly, but I do remember him saying that when you're in limbo you don't say, "I think I'll take this time to learn Portuguese." Someone asked how he had liked seeing himself on The Simpsons, and he said, "I talked to Krusty!" He really was talking a great deal in comparison to his usual answers.

The first segment was very long and was heavily edited. The unibrow bit was much longer and included photoshopped images of celebrities with strike supporting unibrows. Martin Scorsese was among them (a unibrow suits him.) I agree with Raging Apathy that that TV, computer, iPod, cheese at the mall bit wandered too much and its point became lost. What I love about TDS is its ability to cut to the chase and clarify things so perfectly, and in my opinion that bit seemed uncharacteristically unfocused and so was not a success. Personally I didn't like the 9/11 joke. After a time Jon stopped and said, "How long has this gone? I have no idea." They said that he had been talking for fifteen and a half minutes. The idea, I guess was to let him talk and then edit later. For those who have speculated that it appeared scripted, I disagree. I think there was a basic framework of ideas and some graphics they had put together, but he really was just talking off the cuff.

I'll add more later and look forward to other posters remarks when I return.

This post has been edited by Miss Kean: Jan 8, 2008 @ 10:15 am.

[shamskygirl]

shamskygirl I have to respectfully disagree with your analysis of giving Jon a waiver w/o holding CC to the agreement for other shows.

I think it's fine for us to disagree, MuppetCoat. And you don't have to respect me. :-D
And I do understand that it would make more sense for the WGA to deal with Comedy Central as a larger entity. I'm sure Jon realizes that that would make more sense, too. But he's still apparently the one who approached the WGA in good faith and brought Comedy Central to the table. I'm also able to understand that Comedy Central's motives may not have been the purest. And that bringing just the TDS/TCR writers back into the fold would not be ideal.
But I still think, in the larger scheme of things, the WGA should have made the deal. Because they're been cherry-picking already. The two side deals they've made raise ethical issues and have hurt feelings, but they were allegedly pursuing it for a larger goal. And they keep changing the rules as they go along. So I say, either do that with abandon or don't do it at all.
As it stands now, it's looking like the only way anything will get settled in this strike is if the DGA settles it and the WGA has no choice but to accept those terms.

ETA: BTW, I think waivers are a mistake. I think the WGA is probably right not to grant exceptions to the Oscars and Globes. But they've been inconsistent about that, too.

And as usual, I'm loving your recap, Miss Kean.

This post has been edited by shamskygirl: Jan 8, 2008 @ 10:51 am.

[dubbel zout]

Wow. "Awkward circumstances," indeed.

I didn't like the 9/11 joke either. I understand the point Jon was making, but the comparison doesn't work. He might as well have used the example of children starving in Africa.

I did like the strike unibrow. The whole first segment was choppily edited, but after reading Miss Kean's account of the taping, now I know why.

[sunshine]

I didn't like the 9/11 joke either. I understand the point Jon was making, but the comparison doesn't work. He might as well have used the example of children starving in Africa.

It was a dark joke, but I saw it as akin to his joke about his "strike unibrow" hopefully becoming the new AIDS ribbon. A comparison of extreme problems that are very hard to solve or deal with(like AIDS and terrorism) vs. a writer's strike that's a problem, but seems much less extreme and it's a problem that can be solved fairly easily(might be going too far) if people would just talk to each other. 1 week off the air for 9/11, 9 weeks off the air for a writer's strike? The minute he started going there I knew what he was doing and it made an odd sort of Stewartesque sense. Again, another HUGE Jon bias for me--I really only buy those kind of jokes from him.

I guess I'm just a big fan of the 9/11 jokes as told by Jon Stewart. They're dark, cynical, and fucked-up, but the humor is so there, imo. The writers were there for that "9 fucking 11" joke a la Rudy which was also a fucked-up classic.

This post has been edited by sunshine: Jan 8, 2008 @ 11:12 am.

[Unraveled]

I actually liked the 9/11 joke. Mostly because I was recently reminiscing on "Shoot ya later. 9/11" from last year.

How many shows on CC have WGA writers? I remember that South Park wasn't a WGA originally (did it become one recently?). I'm clearly not a union theorist, but I'm not sure if the trickle up effect that Jon and guest were talking about was going to work. I'm clearly on the side of the writers, but I also agree that they haven't handled it well.

After watching Stephen's show, I wouldn't have minded another viewing of the "internet tubes" clip. Wouldn't the respective writers get a small residual from that?

[OptimisticCynic]

Matt Roush at TV Guide wrote about the show last night on their website and of course he just quotes Jon as saying "The writers' strike is 9 times worse than 9/11" without setting up the joke so the skewers are out for Jon already.

He then goes on to criticize him for talking about the strike the whole show. Jon can't win - if he doesn't talk about it - it's just business as usual for the scab and as if he doesn't care. But then again, he found Conan O'Brien spinning his wedding ring on the desk to be more amusing.

[Raging Apathy]

Something else to possibly illuminate the WGA's thought process in going after a larger deal for all of Comedy Central's shows instead of just Jon & Stephen, and why in general it makes sense that they're consistently going after the actual "owners" of the shows to make side deals with (even if it may on the surface appear inconsistent when different types of entities own different shows): just before the strike, a Best Of The Colbert Report DVD was released, and it was clearly a Comedy Central product. It's release had been announced a couple of months beforehand in a Comedy Central press release in which the TCR DVD was grouped in as part of a whole series of other Comedy Central DVDs of their other shows, including some like Li'l Bush that at that point had just premiered a week or two ago and so there was obviously not yet any real demand for. CC was clearly running the show with the Colbert Report DVD, and using it as the tentpole to promote a whole series of CC DVDs that they planed to throw out there in hopes that something else would also stick. Likewise, from reports here, when Jon had been asked in audiance Q&A sessions in the past few years about a TDS DVD release, he would just make some joke about the tapes all being lost and then indicate that he has nothing to do with that, that all decisions of that sort are made by other people way over his head, and indeed it certianly seems that it's Comedy Central, not Busboy productions, that has decided to exploit the TDS's YouTube popularity not with a series of DVD releases but with their own Comedy Central organized & run online streaming video service, first with with that crappy Motherload boondoggle, then with the much improved TDS archive they have now, complete with revenue-generating ads and heavy promotion of the site on Comedy Central. All indications are that Jon & Busboy had little if anything to do with creating either site.

By contrast, by the end of his Tonight Show tenure Johnny Carson had managed to finegal for himself a really sweet deal for ownership of the Tonight Show that closely matches (and was in fact a model for) the deal that Letterman later got for ownership Late Show from CBS (indeed, since Carson's deal covered not just episodes of The Tonight Show starting from the moment he signed the contract but was retroactive to cover all the past episodes starting from the very first (surviving) show with him as the permanent host, it was actually a lot sweeter than Letterman's deal and almost equivalent to if Letterman had somehow managed to finegal ownership of all his old NBC shows as well as the CBS shows produced under this contract). And sure enough, a few years after he retired, Carson Productions released an elaborate "Best of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" VHS set (and eventually DVD, I assume). This package was put together & released by Johnny's production company, not NBC, and even boasted that the clips were selected by Johnny himself. It was advertised all over television (not just on NBC), and was not part of any cheesy "NBC classics" larger series of video releases of largely much more forgetable product. And if anybody ever wants to be able to (legally) see old Carson tonight show clips on the web, it's the Carson family you'd want to talk to, not NBC.

In seeking deals with Worldwide Pants on the one hand and Comedy Central on the other, the WGA is simply going after the entities that actually have the rights to and would be the ones to put together (and collect the money from) any DVD or online release of the material in question. In the case of TDS/TCR, Comedy Central are clearly the people to talk to, and it would just not make any sense for them to secure a special deal for the Comedy Central produced Colbert Report DVD but screw over the WGA members whose work is featured on the Comedy Central produced Sarah Silverman Program DVD (which granted, will probably sell about a dozen copies, but still...)

About the Baltimore(?) paper's and the New York Times' articles on the return of the shows, the niggling fanboy in me got a little miffed about some very minor errors in the Times article which indicated the writer is not quite as slavish a viewer as many of us here (he ended the show with a toss to Stephen like he does "every" show? *"Every"*? Not for a very long time now, I'm afraid. And it also bugged me that he put the emphasis on the absolutely wrong word in the Sean-Penn-Supports-You-So-You-Must-Have-A-Cause joke, which served to completely change its meaning (no doubt he was reading from a hastilly scribbled written account provided by some audience member other than our own Miss Kean But I think the other article seemed to unfairly pile on TDS. While granted it was not as sharp as TCR, Jon's show had quite a few amusing moments of its own, and despite what the writer claims they actually *did* do a fair bit of political humor, notably the "Cold White people voting for the President of Scandinavia" bit (which despite how I mangled it here, was actually quite funny when Jon did it) and especially the Huckabee/Norris & photoshopped Dodd/Segal pics.

(and BTW, I'm still not sure how kosher that last one was. It might have been the technical people who actually went and prepared the photoshopped image, but someone also had to come up with the idea ahead of time, which required the preperation of actually telling the technical people to create the shot. Even if it was the technical people who came up with the idea on their own, they could be said to be said to be "writing" prepared material themselves in place of the striking WGA. The fact that Jon didn't have anything spectacularly clever to say about the image is, again, actually not all that uncommon for many TDS sight gags of this sort.)

Not only was the end of TCR cut off on my DVR, but the opening and first few seconds of TDS was as well, which means the shows actually started a bit early and ended rather late. I was surprised to hear from Miss Kean that with all that TDS taping actually went much longer and was edited down considerably (although I did notice that Jon's unibrow seemed to suddenly disappear between shots) I'm hoping they held onto the cut footage, they may well find themselves having to air it in order to fill time on a future show. In fact I'm really wondering how they'll manage to fill the time after a couple of days. Giving xenophobic yahoos like Lou Dobbs and extreme anti-union Right Wingers like Canada's answer to Bill Kristol who are willing to cross the picket line more time to spew their poison doesn't sound promising. I'm wondering if Jon may in fact have to resort to showing clips of old ladies slipping on ice. (My God, maybe Geraldo isn't a clueless douchebag after all, but rather an unrecognized prophet! Sure, there wasn't anything in Al Capone's vault back when he dug it out, but maybe someday, there *will* be...)