Chris Smith (29)

A readable, nostalgic account of The Daily Show, focusing on its prime years when Jon Stewart was at the helm. (A quick google shows me that apparently viewership has increased under Trevor Noah, though that seems counter-intuitive to me. Is it anything like the cultural touchstone it once was? Even Last Week Tonight clips seem far more likely to go at least low-key viral than anything produced by TDS in the last few years, though maybe this perception is just a side-effect of me now being show more Old.) It was nice to revisit some well-known sketches/bits and to learn just what went into making them.

That said, while Chris Smith—who assembled the frame narrative around the lengthy interview excerpts—and the interviewees themselves were upfront about the moments of tension and conflict that peppered the show's run, The Daily Show: An Oral History does still read as slightly sanitised. I wasn't looking for a take down of Jon Stewart, but there wasn't enough distance provided here to really grapple with the show's issues with race and gender over the years. I found the section dealing with the infamous Jezebel article to be quite frustrating, for instance, particularly coming after recounting anecdotes about how male correspondents would, earlier in the show's run, kiss or grope women as part of a bit. There's clearly stuff to grapple with here that goes far beyond "some women on an internet site were unfair to the show", and perhaps in the future others will take the raw fodder presented here and do something more insightful with it. show less

It's actually an oral history (IDK what I was expecting). There's some brief explanation, followed by pages and pages of interviews with Daily Show correspondents, producers, writers, etc., and of course Jon Stewart. The interviews are all chopped up and sorted by year and topic, so that most of the narrative comes right from people who were there.

I had NO idea this much work and planning went into how the show worked.

There's a whole system behind it, and it's a system that developed both show more organically and strongly guided by Jon and others on the show. I had no idea how much Jon rearranged things when he started, to end up with Daily Show as it is today, how focused his vision was (and more so over time), how central his vision was to creating the show we know, and how much pushback he got. Even the show's signature "roll the video!" was virtually unheard of-- the writers spent about a decade doing that manually, watching through countless DVR recordings and relying on memory for relevant cross-references, until they had the software developed to have news recordings saved to servers and text-searchable. I was young when Stewart took over for Kilborn, so I wouldn't have known the difference.

I got the sense that there were a lot of hard feelings and bruised egos, but that the interviewees had left it in the past, are now more circumspect, and respect what they'd built together.

If you like the Daily Show or have any interest in the news or television, read it. It's also a really great case study in how to change an office environment/culture, warts and all. show less

I love oral histories, and this was really solid and very interesting. That said, I felt like it occasionally was a little glib or light on some of the more thorny issues the show faced under Stewart. If you're a fan of [b:Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live|55095|Live from New York An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live|James Andrew Miller|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1439437449s/55095.jpg|1417] this would be a great choice.

It's an oral history, not a work of literature - my rating is largely a function of what the Daily Show was during the period covered, and not an objective assessment of the book itself. The Daily Show didn't always get it right, but it got it mostly right most of the time (just one man's perspective) - more than almost any other political media that existed during my formative high school and college years. It evolved and grew, becoming a cultural touchstone (I just realized I grabbed that show more noun from the dedication - leaving this here as a testament to my plagiarism).

I very much enjoyed this book for the walk down memory lane it provided. For the best contrasting quotes in the book, turn to page 98/99. Most important contributor to the book? Paul Rudd. show less