First, Samantha Bee and now Trevor Noah. Are none of the unfunny contenders for Jon Stewart’s crown safe? Not even Stewart who made a shambling comeback in an Apple show.
When Stewart originally stepped down, I wrote that, “It’s no wonder that Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, anticipating eight more years of Hillary, have chosen to move on. The genre has long since outlived its original response to 9/11 sincerity. It now exists only to feed on itself. To act as a comedic Media Matters churning out viral videos slamming opponents for some sin against the left while pretending to be part of mainstream consensus.”
Since then things have only gotten worse. Comedy is mostly dead. Saturday Night Live is Media Matters and Occupy Democrats. Anyone making jokes is pretty much the counterculture. Good thing for Trevor Noah that he didn’t really try to be funny. Seemingly baffled by the whole landscape, he showed up and looked around in bemusement, having inherited the Daily Show before driving it to exciting new lows.
“But after seven years, I feel like it’s time, you know? I spent two years in my apartment, not on the road, stand-up was dead. And when I got back out there again, I realized there’s another part of my life I wanted to carry on exploring. I miss learning other languages, I miss going to other countries, I miss putting on shows,” Trevor Noah told all 5 people in the audience.
I’m sorry. It might actually be as many as 30.
Even he was tired of it. And it’s hard to blame him. It’s hard to think of a more thankless task than injecting more mean-spirited snark into a media landscape already overflowing with it.
The subtext has long since become text. The Daily Show isn’t making fun of the news, it’s echoing it. The central shtick is just what everyone does. The media is political snark, comedy is political snark, and none of it is funny. It’s not sublimated aggression, it is aggression for nerds with dorks like Stewart and Noah trotted out to do what all of Twitter is already doing.
Now maybe the Daily Show can give the slot to Keith Olbermann.
Olbermann may be too much of a dork even for Comedy Central, and Joe Sacrborough already has a job. Besides, he has downs syndrome and that isn’t funny.
I haven’t watched that network since “Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn” was canceled. I wonder if ANYBODY actually watches it now without being paid to do it so they can write about it?
Yeah, they killed comedy somehow. Nothing I’m seen from them in all these years struck me as funny.
people who can only laugh at others, but not at themselves, are inherently unfunny
it just takes a while to notice
That’s an excellent point. One of the first things I learned about comedy, is the comedian has to be able to laugh at himself.
Poor Trevor. He’s eventually going to run out of countries to be unfunny in. Maybe the Space Force after that?
Good one. He probably knows all the fake pronouns already so he’s fully trained according to the Alzheimer Joe administration’s standards.
Well he should go to Iraq and play Yakov Smirnoff over there. See how well he is received.
Noah wants America to be like home where he’s appreciated because people there are teaching the world how to be a crime ridden economic meltdown where you can’t turn on the lights. He’ll be back with more lectures.
I don’t imagine that Noah, like most of his demo, actually wants to live full time in Mandelastan
Noah has never been authentic because authentic people don’t have his stupid attitudes until their kids get politicized. This disaster is ongoing. It is only good for one class of people.
These idiots can’t even fix basic education for the next generation but what they can do is tell everybody else how to appreciate what they’re accomplishing.
That’s a good point. Got me thinking. What is basic education? Well, in math I guess it is counting and basic arithmetic, like adding and subtracting. People don’t believe me when I tell them that the schools have graduated some people who can’t add small numbers, let alone subtract. But I had some Berkeley students like that.
I guess it is like basic literacy (not my speciality, but …) People forget that many people are illiterate, that is they can’t read or write. That should be basic education the schools should teach, how to read and write.
Noah, that Maher clown and Stewart are going to learn you all good and the sad thing is you are.
Trevor Noah is a Comedian… Who knew…
lol, good one 🙂