RIP The Best F#@king News Team... Ever
It has been 13 months since Jon Stewart stepped down from hosting The Daily Show. It's been even longer since The Colbert Report aired its last episode in December of 2014. It feels like an eternity. But it was the sudden cancelation of The Nightly Show a few weeks ago that it really hit home. The late night Comedy Central line-up is utterly unrecognizable from just a year ago, and I feel like the Golden Age of Fake News that so informed my demographic has breathed its last.
I'm sure most Millennials cannot recall watching The Daily Show since Craig Kilborn's 2-year reign. Only us OTG folk (and some Gen Xers of course) feel the deepest ache of this pop cultural shift. Trevor Noah and his flunkies are simply not doing it for me these days. I mean, how dare they change the theme music, Jesus Christ.
Of course, I did not adopt Jon immediately either, because I was a dumb teenager who only liked Kilborn's dumb jokes. But nine days after that historic September morning in 2001, Jon delivered a heartfelt speech about American values in the light of horrific acts of terrorism. I watched every episode afterwards.
Throughout my college years, I remember catching Jon on my dorm common room's TV while eating Pokey Stix with my friends and roommates. I recorded him every night with my TV/VCR combo set, so I could watch the next day in between classes. When I left college, Stephen Colbert spun off and began his ten-year crusade to report on Truthiness. Jon and Stephen were an unstoppable team, and I squeed at every "toss" and cheered at every takedown of corrupt politicians and the toothless mainstream media. They both walked us through the most historic elections of our generation, took us to the edge of satire, and showed us some true bullshit that CNN and MSNBC and Fox News never even tried to uncover.
But then, one day in 2014, Stephen got the call to be the next host of The Late Show. Only a few months later, Jon announced that he was about to retire. A part of me died.
Luckily, during this tumultuous time, at least there was our old buddy John Oliver serving up fresh TDS-style bullshit detection... once a week on HBO. Samantha Bee then popped up this year to give us some of her beloved TDS-honed comedic critiques. After Larry Wilmore departed, Joliver And Sam became the only recognizable faces on the fake news scene. Two nights a week. With sometimes months in between. That's all we've got.
Then there's Stephen. I love him. He is still great. But The Late Show lacks all the bite The Report was famous for bringing to the fake news party. Recently, his old character took one last gasp, as Stephen channelled "Col-bear" for a segment on The Late Show that pricked up Viacom's lawyers' ears.
Sadness. Pure sadness.
I watch Trevor Noah sporadically now, and every time I tune in, it seems to get more and more asinine, and it carries less and less gravitas. At least Larry brought a warm righteousness to his oft-overlooked topics, probably because he paid more attention during his TDS tutelage.
The Peabody-winning court jesters of America are gone, my friends. The bullshitters rejoice. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that Biff is running for president now, and getting away with it. What am I to do? I can't watch the other late night people. I don't even know who they are. I have no patience for broadcast television. It all seems like it's all focus-grouped with goldfish.
My formative years were spent taking a spoonful of sugar with the medicine, but now there's precious little medicine to go around. Am I supposed to "grow up" and be depressed whenever I listen to Rachel Maddow or something?
Perhaps I just need to be thankful that for fifteen years, I was taught how to be my own bullshit detector. As Jon said in his last speech:
"The good news is this: Bullshitters have gotten pretty lazy. And their work is easily detected. And looking for it is kind of a pleasant way to pass the time. Like an 'I Spy' of bullshit. So I say to you tonight, friends, the best defense against bullshit is vigilance.So if you smell something, say something."
P.S. TDS may be dead to me, Jon, but least we will always have the dreidel moment. Thank you.
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