Choosing Trevor Noah to replace Stewart...
...what a tough call/high bar in the hiring of the torch-bearer for this show.
And, as far as I'm concerned the choice of Noah reflects both the toughness of that call and the height of that bar: Noah is an amazing person.
He has much of the spirit of Stewart, and then some.
Stewart did a great job, and he's a national treasure. But it's instructive to make a reasoned comparison; what does Noah bring that Stewart may have (somewhat) lacked?
Here's the deal: A comedian/comic can acquire skills from years working in front of crowds in stand-up... and that's what Stewart did.
But... Noah HAS THEATRE CHOPS. Noah has, really, everything that Stewart did, PLUS theatre chops. And that's an amazing thing to see.
So, the way I see this transition is that Noah has *everything* Stewart had (not forgetting top staff!), and then toss in very mature theatre chops, and you've only improved the product.
There is one other thing: One senses that the Daily Show producers used this transition as a cover to make some changes in content programming: That is, The *new* Daily Show (with Noah) both bumped up the produced content quality AND nudged over a bit in the direction of including more global perspective... which the old show did rather lack. These are *great* decisions!
So: If'n yuz asks me, the new Daily Show took an amazing show and only made it better.
...what a tough call/high bar in the hiring of the torch-bearer for this show.
And, as far as I'm concerned the choice of Noah reflects both the toughness of that call and the height of that bar: Noah is an amazing person.
He has much of the spirit of Stewart, and then some.
Stewart did a great job, and he's a national treasure. But it's instructive to make a reasoned comparison; what does Noah bring that Stewart may have (somewhat) lacked?
Here's the deal: A comedian/comic can acquire skills from years working in front of crowds in stand-up... and that's what Stewart did.
But... Noah HAS THEATRE CHOPS. Noah has, really, everything that Stewart did, PLUS theatre chops. And that's an amazing thing to see.
So, the way I see this transition is that Noah has *everything* Stewart had (not forgetting top staff!), and then toss in very mature theatre chops, and you've only improved the product.
There is one other thing: One senses that the Daily Show producers used this transition as a cover to make some changes in content programming: That is, The *new* Daily Show (with Noah) both bumped up the produced content quality AND nudged over a bit in the direction of including more global perspective... which the old show did rather lack. These are *great* decisions!
So: If'n yuz asks me, the new Daily Show took an amazing show and only made it better.