Jon Stewart helmed Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” from 1999 through 2015. Now, nearly 10 years after his initial departure, the network announced Stewart is returning to host the show on Mondays beginning Feb. 12 through the 2024 election season. He will also serve as executive producer both this year and next.
Chris McCarthy, the chief executive of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, which owns Comedy Central, said the network is honored to have Stewart back.
“We are honored to have him return to Comedy Central’s ‘The Daily Show’ to help us all make sense of the insanity and division roiling the country,” McCarthy said in a statement reported by The New York Times. “In our age of staggering hypocrisy and performative politics, Jon is the perfect person to puncture the empty rhetoric and provide much-needed clarity with his brilliant wit.”
Stewart has kept busy in the intervening years since his last turn hosting “The Daily Show,” with several projects including a show for Apple TV+ called “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” which concluded in 2023.
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“The Daily Show,” itself, has been busy since Stewart’s 2015 departure. Comedian Trevor Noah took over that year and helmed the desk for seven years before departing in 2022. Since Noah’s departure, the show has gone without a permanent host, instead turning to a rotating cast of comedians who fill in. Earlier this month at the Emmy Awards, former ‘Daily Show’ correspondent Roy Wood, Jr. mouthed “Please hire a host” as the team behind the show — including Noah — took the stage to accept their award for outstanding talk series. See the funny moment below in a quote tweet by Wood himself:
chill fam I was trying to do that in the low
https://t.co/kW1AD4yxhN
— Roy Wood Jr- Ex Jedi (@roywoodjr) January 16, 2024
Predictably, fans are pumped for Stewart’s return, taking to Twitter/X to share their excitement.
Twitter/X user BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) said simply, “Can’t wait!”
Who else is psyched to see Jon Stewart returning to work on The Daily Show?
CAN'T WAIT!!!! pic.twitter.com/IJCsvYgsZR
— BrooklynDad_Defiant!
(@mmpadellan) January 24, 2024
Another Twitter/X user Kelli Boyle (@kellixboyle) said “We won.”
Jon Stewart back on The Daily Show we wonpic.twitter.com/XEvtRJRmHL
— Kelli Boyle (@kellixboyle) January 24, 2024
The landscape Stewart’s “Daily Show” is returning to is wildly different than the one he left in 2015, and the New York Times reports a growing number of Americans losing trust in the news media. By putting him behind the desk for Mondays most-watched episodes, reports Times writer Matt Stevens, executives are hoping viewers tune in to catch up on news that broke from Thursday through Sunday.
Fans can tune in to “The Daily Show” Monday through Thursday nights at 11 p.m. ET on Comedy Central or stream episodes on Paramount+.
Seeing Jon Stewart back behind “The Daily Show” desk may be the only perk to look forward to throughout 2024’s election cycle, and we certainly are!
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Jon Stewart is returning to host ‘The Daily Show’ on Mondays originally appeared on Simplemost.com
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