For nearly two decades as host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart’s brutal takedowns of political media talking heads made Ronda Rousey look like Ghandi. He and his team of writers and producers were surgical in their mocking of hosts, correspondents, candidates, analysts, politicians, and anyone else who had the misfortune of doing something dumb on a cable news channel.
With Stewart riding off into the sunset and Comedy Central tapping South African comedian Trevor Noah as his replacement, the show and the people that create are aiming to appeal to a younger audience on a wider variety of platforms.
To help with this shift, Comedy Central has hired Baratunde Thurston, former digital director of The Onion and author of How to Be Black. A New York Times article outlines Thurston’s vision for a new Daily Show which will broaden its scope to focus on stupidity that happens outside of television:
“There’s a lot of pent-up demand here to do some really fascinating things,” Mr. Thurston said, “and as we shift that focal point of the lens, beyond cable video news into other realms, the show itself will change.”
He added: “What can we say that is the ‘Daily Show’ take on a space like Instagram? These places are real communities. They’re not just technical platforms. They’re like Soylent Green — they’re people.”
Thurston’s saying that The Daily Show started out as a funny cable news program that mocked real cable news programs. And, since cable news programs have expanded to reach consumers through a gaggle of devices and applications, so too should The Daily Show.
We might not be able to swipe right and meet up with The Daily Show for a spontaneous tryst, but we should be able to interact with some iteration of it outside of a 22-minute episode at 11 p.m. ET, Monday-Thurs.
On a train in the rain. In a box with a fox. Or, like, via podcast while we’re stuck in commuter traffic or on Instagram while we’re pretending to poop at work. Basically, get ready for Trevor Noah to start breaking up all those baby pictures and engagement photos clogging your Facebook newsfeed.
[h/t The New York Times]
