"The Daily Show" Prequel

I figure that in addition to techie stuff, I should still try to post some things for those folks who don't speak Geek.  This is something I wrote the other day, but didn't get around to posting yet.

Before The Daily Show, Jon Stewart did a talk show on Comedy Central in 1995.  It wasn't terribly successful, lasting about a year, though it certainly had to have helped as a foundation for what came next.  So "successful" has a lot of different avenues it can take.

If you never saw it -- and based on numbers, there's a good chance of that -- this is the final episode.  Making it all the more entertaining is that his guest is David Letterman.  Letterman famously hates doing interviews, but he's actually quite gracious and open here.  Part of that might be because it's 18 years ago and he hasn't gotten fully burned-out by them yet.  Part might be because of his admiration for Jon Stewart.  Part might be because, having gotten cancelled from his own talk shows, he understood the moment well.  In any regards, it's an enjoyable interview, make all the better by him bringing along footage of the final episode of his own Morning Show on CBS.

(That final episode famously posted the resumes of staff members whenever they'd cut to commercials.  I never watched the show much, but when I did, it was a hoot.  Just clearly not the right time and venue for it.  I recall seeing its Fourth of July broadcast, and one of the bits was cutting outside to show New York's renowned Daytime Fireworks.  The camera would show the sky and, of course, the only thing you got were sound effects of the kabooms, since the daylight ostensibly washed out being able to see anything.)

Anyway, here's a somewhat edited version of that final episode of The Jon Stewart Show.  Letterman is off at the 21-minute mark, so if you don't want to watch the long puppet sketch following it, you can stop at that point.  However, if you do decided to quit there, jump forward 10 minutes, because there's a fun closing bit that starts around 31 minutes.

No doubt Mr. Stewart was concerned about his future -- something Letterman tries to assuage him away from.  Four years later, he'd be signed as host of The Daily Show and...well, you know the rest...