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0:53

Today on basic, the second part

0:55

of our conversation with John Stewart

0:59

You

0:59

remember in the old days placement on the cable

1:02

dial was everything.

1:03

was everything. It was all about

1:06

proximity, and location.

1:09

And I think the lesson of our era

1:12

was, it doesn't

1:14

matter where you are. If it's

1:16

good, people will find it.

1:18

Where I was on the dial?

1:22

So was of no constant points to me.

1:25

Or the the size of the platform

1:27

people would say, don't you want to go to a network where

1:29

your platform is bigger? And and

1:31

I just always thought, no. I

1:34

2 be in a place where they they wanna

1:36

they'll let me make what I wanna make

1:39

because I really wanted satisfaction

1:42

more than I wanted attention, if

1:44

that makes sense. Hey,

1:48

1, and welcome to Basic, the official podcast

1:50

of the unofficial history of cable television.

1:52

I'm Doug Herzog, a former TV

1:54

executive, and we have even more

1:56

moments of Zen for you. And I'm Jen Cheney,

1:58

a TV critic for Voltura New York Magazine,

2:01

and I always get my produce from

2:03

produce

2:03

Pete. That's a great daily show reference,

2:05

Jen. We're back today with part two of our conversation

2:08

with John Stewart.

2:10

You know,

2:10

in part one, we talked a lot about how

2:13

John got into television. His

2:16

his years at MTV. And then,

2:18

of course, sort of the Rocky

2:20

Road of starting the Daily Show under

2:22

John 2. And I think we're gonna

2:25

go more into the meat of the daily

2:27

show in this episode. Right, Doug?

2:28

Yeah. Look, I I think and hopefully, you

2:31

heard part one if you're listening.

2:33

But, you know, it's not as easy as it looks. And

2:35

it wasn't as smooth a transition as

2:37

maybe history would say it was.

2:39

John goes into some detail about, you

2:41

know, trying to figure out the daily show when he first

2:43

got there. But We're gonna pick up the conversation

2:45

today

2:46

with, you know, sort of those moments

2:48

when it all started to come together for the Daily Show.

2:50

So enjoy the second half of our conversation

2:52

with John 2. And Doug and I will be back

2:54

at the end with our usual wrap up, which

2:56

I'm sure will be very Zenlike.

3:04

So you you you

3:06

really gutted it out there for in the

3:08

early days, but pretty like

3:10

around the time around two thousand.

3:12

Right? Things started to fall

3:14

into place and sort of click a little bit

3:16

or or so it seemed

3:18

watching watching from the outside

3:20

as I was at that Watch it from Fox.

3:22

Did you have other

3:23

What were you allowed to watch other

3:25

shows there? Maybe even unemployed, John,

3:27

but who'd

3:29

He just had binoculars and he was trying to see

3:31

into the into the building somehow. Well,

3:33

there was two you know, it was so to

3:36

get to where we wanted to go.

3:38

The first was to kind of straighten out the

3:40

point of view. Right? And the

3:42

second was to straighten out the process. Point

3:46

of view was, you know, so there

3:48

were a couple of moments in in that

3:51

sort of journey that that stuck out.

3:54

One was, I think it was It was the fortieth

3:56

anniversary of Barbie. You

3:58

know, expect then you weren't able

4:00

to pick and choose what you wanted to What

4:02

you covered was we had one feed, it was the AP

4:04

feed. And we subscribe to it. So

4:07

you could talk you could do a couple of jokes

4:09

on some topical shit that you got

4:11

from the network news. And then you'd

4:13

have to go with, like, whatever package

4:16

they would send out to everybody on the

4:18

AP feeds. So it'd be, like, the fortieth anniversary of

4:20

Barbie or the celebration of the Black Nas

4:22

Arena Philippines. Like, that's the shit

4:24

that you were dealing. So

4:26

the idea was to try and get the show

4:29

to be a little less kind of eccentric

4:31

and a little more to like

4:33

the shit we really cared about foundationally

4:36

with the press and with the government and

4:38

all these other kind. And so we were doing the fortieth

4:40

fortieth anniversary of Barbie, and half the jokes

4:42

were about the terrible message

4:45

it sends to young

4:47

women about their

4:49

bodies with Barbie as

4:51

the avatar for femininity. And

4:54

the other half, the jokes were about how

4:56

ugly the spokeswoman was in the

4:58

commercial about Barbie. And it

5:00

was one of those who were like, I think

5:02

we're gonna have to pick which

5:04

point of view we 2 go

5:06

here. And we you can't just like,

5:09

you can't napalm the room. We wanna

5:11

be more directional. So it was the idea

5:13

of of developing point of

5:15

view. And the second was the joke

5:17

pick every day used to be It

5:19

was like each writer and they're probably about ten writers

5:21

would write like ten to twelve pages of jokes.

5:23

And the joke pick was we'd sit in a

5:25

room. And each writer

5:28

would read the jokes that they read.

5:31

A lot. And it would

5:33

take about an hour and a half, maybe two hours.

5:35

And what it did two things. 1,

5:38

took up the entire day.

5:42

And the second thing was it invested

5:44

them with an

5:47

ownership over

5:49

the material that

5:51

wasn't conducive 2,

5:54

like, what we wanted, which was, you want

5:56

everybody in that building to be invested,

5:59

but to understand that, like, if

6:01

the show's good, we all win. But

6:04

if everybody is clinging to their

6:06

own particular turf with

6:08

ownership like the amount of energy

6:10

it takes to move somebody who has

6:12

ownership over a joke off

6:15

of that joke because it

6:17

doesn't serve the greater narrative

6:19

or other things that you 2 do. That's

6:21

energy you can't use making other shit

6:23

better because the energy of the

6:25

day is finite. Right.

6:27

So the change there was I

6:30

I said, you know, I can

6:33

read. I

6:35

learned it. Second or third grade. So

6:37

if we just put the jokes on the desk and I'll just

6:39

read them, that'll take ten minutes. And

6:42

then we can pick the good ones and then we can spend

6:44

the rest of that time making those

6:46

jokes better fit into

6:48

a thing, create a more essayistic approach,

6:50

you know. We have all this

6:52

time freed up for

6:55

creative momentum

6:58

as opposed to spending our day fighting

7:00

about but that joke's funny.

7:02

I understand it's funny. But you

7:04

can't make fun of the spokesperson's looks

7:07

while your point of view is about

7:09

empowering women. Like, that's just

7:11

not fucking singing. Right.

7:14

Because it's like that was the that

7:16

was the

7:16

day. So it was, like, it was

7:19

it was wild. Mhmm. I

7:21

mean, another thing that started to happen when

7:23

you took over just the amount of

7:25

talent that came on on board as correspondence

7:28

and in other roles, like, it really kind

7:30

of I mean, it kind of created the talent pool

7:32

for what late night ultimately ended up looking

7:34

like. They'd

7:34

always they'd always been great with talent. I mean,

7:36

the other thing is the writing stuff was

7:38

incredibly talented.

7:39

Like, it was always a great

7:42

lure for talent. And Madeline and Liz

7:44

had a great eye for Kirk Colbert

7:46

was

7:46

there when you got Colbert was there when I got there.

7:48

Yeah. They had a great eye

7:50

for talent of writers and correspondence

7:52

and all those other people.

7:55

And -- Mhmm. -- we tried to keep that going

7:57

and give them agency as

8:00

I said to Steven when he first started, which

8:02

was, you know,

8:04

we'd write a bid and I'd be like, what do you think? And

8:06

you'd be like, what do you mean? What do I think? Can I

8:08

what's your opinion about, whether

8:12

or not you do you think this

8:15

issue is important? Do you think it

8:17

right? You know, what do you think of it?

8:20

And,

8:20

like, I I remember the first time it asked him to be like,

8:24

you really 2 know. Yeah.

8:26

Because that's how we're gonna write this.

8:28

And so it was just harnessing

8:31

all those talents Honestly,

8:33

it was just it was just getting everybody pulling

8:35

in the same direction. That was

8:37

the all that was it was

8:39

such

8:39

a, like, great opportunity.

8:42

And it was just an opportunity to

8:44

maybe get everybody pulling in that direction because

8:46

you had so much talent around

8:48

you. That

8:49

was a nice part. I mean, at what point

8:51

did you start to realize, you

8:53

know, people were taking the show, like

8:56

seriously from political information

8:59

standpoint. Like, obviously, it was a

9:01

comedy show, but they were kind of it was starting to be seen

9:03

as, like, oh, this is, like, where I

9:05

get my news and, like, people in DC started

9:07

to take it. Seriously.

9:09

Like, when did the light bulb about all

9:11

of that go off for you?

9:12

I don't know if I I know

9:14

it's I mean, there was that always that moment where Steve Carell was

9:16

on the bus John McCain, you know, and

9:19

he did it. I think it those moments always

9:21

pointed to the kind of the

9:23

high and low of it. You know, we we

9:25

got access but ultimately we had

9:27

to pull the

9:29

joke. Do you know what I mean? Like,

9:30

when Steve Carell was sitting on the

9:32

bus with McCain and he was asking him the silly

9:35

questions we were the funny this was in two

9:36

thousand, I think, and we were the --

9:38

Mhmm. -- the funny group that entertains them.

9:40

I think, yes, John McCain. You

9:42

know, he's saying, like, favorite movie. Favorite

9:44

wine, favorite thing. And then he

9:46

said, you have famously said that you're against

9:49

pork daro politics. And

9:51

yet, you took amount

9:53

of money from lobbyists

9:56

that allowed them to add

9:59

in and he really

10:01

nailed it. On

10:03

the hypocrisy and absurdity of

10:05

one of his core positions. And

10:08

right after he said he goes to touch kidding. I don't know what any

10:10

of that means. But you could see it on John

10:13

McCain's face where he was, like, I think I

10:15

might have just gotten, like, shaved

10:17

And then when Steve broke the

10:19

tension, it was hilarious, but it

10:21

also went back to that whole thing of, like, we

10:23

always we still had to stay in

10:25

our

10:25

lane. To that

10:27

because when you were the only fake news. That's

10:29

right. We were the only we were

10:31

the only fake news.

10:33

It's amazing. Like fake news is, you

10:35

know, mean something else entirely in twenty

10:37

twenty two. 2. I know. You

10:39

know, canceled culture is, you know,

10:41

it's it's it's really amazing to see to see

10:43

how things flipped all. Although you

10:46

were pretty pressing in

10:48

your now infamous appearance

10:51

on crossfire or not cross

10:53

was that

10:53

crossfire? Was that crossfire? Was that correct? Carlson?

10:55

Yes.

10:55

Yeah. Yeah. In

10:57

Palmigali. Yeah. Yeah.

10:58

And looking at, you know, where cable news was

11:01

going.

11:01

Right. Right. Right. What

11:03

do you think about cable news

11:04

today? I mean

11:05

Well, clearly, I

11:06

think we

11:07

fixed it. Right.

11:10

It's gotten

11:12

much better since that's right. It's

11:14

it's

11:14

by the way, it's the it's the only thing keeping

11:17

basic cable afloat at this point. Yeah. That

11:19

and sports. Sports definitely.

11:22

Yeah.

11:22

Sports.

11:22

Although I have a feeling that's streaming, it's all

11:24

gonna come back to cable is such a smart

11:26

idea and the idea of bundling

11:28

things into packages. It's

11:30

it's it's just so intuitive

11:33

that streaming will ultimately in the

11:35

way that streaming sort of was gonna

11:37

blow up the basic cable model,

11:39

as streaming you know,

11:41

gets weighed

11:43

down by their own fees and everything

11:45

else. It's all going to come back to

11:47

and it'll just be enhanced

11:50

basic cable model. And and it's

11:52

it's all gonna ultimately come back to

11:54

that. I I don't I don't disagree. I think these

11:56

companies have

11:56

gotten, you know, these streamers have gotten so

11:58

big, you know, like the networks were back in

12:00

their hay day. Right. And that's what that's what brought us

12:02

cable, something more specifics, something more

12:04

targeted. And so somehow I think

12:06

we get -- Yeah. -- we do get we do get

12:08

back. I mean,

12:08

once you start carrying twelve

12:11

streaming channel fees, at a

12:13

certain point, you're still paying for and

12:15

even if you cut the cord, you're like, well, I mean

12:17

and so somehow in all the consolidation and

12:20

everything, it's gonna end up being

12:22

you're gonna get your streamer and

12:24

a basic cable

12:25

package, and that's how it's gonna I

12:28

was foolishly as it

12:30

turned out worried that when you were leaving the

12:33

Daily Show, pre Trump,

12:35

right, it felt to me

12:37

like the end, not only of an era for

12:39

daily show, but an era for cable news, I

12:41

thought it was on its way out. I

12:43

thought nobody was watching it anymore, everybody

12:46

was really old,

12:47

And that

12:48

and that and that Trevor was gonna have to

12:50

find another news source to kind of,

12:52

you know you know make fun of in

12:54

the post John Stewart

12:55

2. And then, of course, Trump came

12:57

along and literally reinvented cable

12:59

television. Yeah.

13:00

I mean, III never

13:03

worried about it because

13:05

what we do is kind of as old as time.

13:07

The only thing that changes is the

13:09

delivery system. And so

13:11

it really net, you know, we

13:13

kind of came in the

13:15

more standard era

13:17

of you have your cable

13:19

stations and those are, you know, and

13:21

your your network news

13:23

and your cable. And those

13:25

were the two methods of consumption. And

13:27

we existed side by

13:29

side with cable, basic cable. We

13:31

were considering

13:32

peers. It was the era of Do

13:35

you remember in the old days placement on the

13:37

cable dial was every was a big deal? It

13:39

was everything. If you went out to

13:40

be,

13:41

like, in the top thirty, if there you know, nobody

13:43

could find you. We fought for that all the

13:45

time. He got up in the nosebleeds. It was

13:46

over. It was all about proximity

13:50

and and location. 1

13:53

I think the lesson of our era

13:55

was, it

13:56

doesn't matter where you are.

13:59

If it's good, people will

14:01

find

14:01

it. And it doesn't matter if you're

14:03

beachfront or if you're up in the mountains or if you've got

14:05

a, you know, a lake or if you're

14:07

down in

14:08

Appalachia, like, if people are interested

14:11

in it, they will find their way to

14:13

it. Right. And

14:15

and that was that was kind of -- Yep. --

14:17

that was a big idea for you in

14:19

general because I always

14:21

admired how you felt that

14:22

even though you're on Comedy Central

14:25

on this little dinky cable channel. There

14:27

wasn't anything you couldn't do or couldn't

14:29

achieve. And you

14:31

didn't have to be, you know, on

14:33

channel two or CBS or

14:36

and you could host the Oscars and be on the cover

14:38

of Time Magazine and win endless Emmy

14:40

awards and and produce the show you wanted

14:42

to

14:42

do. From wherever, you know, from wherever you chose.

14:44

Because that I think the thing you just said

14:47

is is everything. Produce the show you

14:49

wanna do. Where

14:51

I was on the dial, so

14:55

was of no consequence to Or

14:58

the the size of the platform, people would

15:00

say, don't you wanna go to a network where your

15:02

platform is bigger? And and I

15:04

just always thought, no.

15:06

I wanna be in a place where they

15:08

they want they'll let me make what I

15:10

wanna 2. Yeah. Because I really

15:12

wanted satisfaction more

15:15

than I wanted attention, if

15:17

that makes sense.

15:17

Mhmm. Because

15:18

I was, you know, you spend so much time

15:21

and you work so hard with all these people.

15:24

And the process is so

15:26

fun, but you wanna

15:28

you wanna walk out after

15:30

every show and go we executed

15:32

our intentions to their

15:35

highest aspiration. We we did the

15:37

best we could with what we were

15:38

and and and that's what

15:41

we were always just focused

15:42

on. It was always just

15:45

making something we cared about as well

15:47

as we could and then trying to fix

15:49

what went wrong if we thought so

15:51

that the next day it would be

15:53

even

15:53

better. And everybody was so

15:56

bought into that. And it made

15:58

the place such

16:01

incredible hives

16:04

of creativity and

16:07

excitement in the

16:08

building. Nothing was better than the

16:11

feeling in the building.

16:11

It was

16:12

outside the building that nonsense

16:15

like crossfire and all that other shit happened.

16:18

In the

16:19

building, that that's where

16:21

it was a what I love.

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price. After

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you left, was there even like a

17:58

millisecond where you were like,

18:00

I wish I could go back.

18:02

No. III

18:05

mean, you

18:06

you do that for such a long

18:08

time. And we'd evolved it from,

18:10

you know, if you think about Douglas, in

18:12

nineteen ninety nine, you know, we were still editing in

18:14

the online room. Like, you're still editing in

18:16

the control room. Like, if you if

18:19

you fuck up a real, you gotta

18:21

start again. Like,

18:23

there's no Avid, there's no,

18:24

you know, we didn't

18:26

have a you start to build montages from

18:29

all these various sources. You

18:31

know, if

18:33

you think about all the changes that occurred, not

18:36

just informationally, but

18:38

technologically through those

18:40

years. The show evolves

18:42

through that entire process,

18:45

but then it

18:45

gets to a point where I don't know what

18:47

else to do

18:48

with it. And

18:50

we're covering a very

18:53

redundant and poisonous news

18:54

cycle. You know, I could go back

18:57

to two thousand and two thousand and four and two

18:59

thousand and eight. And show you all

19:01

the similarities of

19:03

the redundancy of

19:05

democracies and the

19:07

redundancies of gas

19:09

lighting and all the various techniques

19:12

and tools that the government was using

19:14

to exercise

19:15

there. changes that we made

19:18

in staffing and the changes that we made

19:20

in all those different areas to

19:23

become more nimble and

19:25

diversified and stronger

19:27

and layered and focused and

19:29

have stronger point of view.

19:33

But I think I had reached

19:35

the peak of my ability

19:37

to do that. I just didn't know

19:40

I couldn't I couldn't

19:42

think of a way to make it better.

19:47

And when you work with people that you

19:49

respect so

19:50

and that you know are pouring

19:52

everything into 2.

19:54

You can't draw you

19:57

know, I you can't walk them down a blind alley and then go,

19:59

this is where we're gonna live for the next five

20:01

years.

20:01

Right. You just gotta go.

20:03

I'm

20:03

not gonna stay here just because I

20:06

can. I think you're you're gonna

20:08

have a better shot with the

20:10

next iteration if I'm

20:12

not

20:12

here. And and that's

20:15

what happened. But that was, you

20:17

know, and I I think it just had

20:19

to be done. I just didn't know

20:22

you know you know when you're you're a a prisoner inside

20:24

your own brain and and there's only

20:26

so many permutations that

20:29

you can that you can achieve.

20:32

And so

20:33

with with that

20:35

I was just gonna say not a lot of people would have

20:37

the self awareness and humility

20:40

though to realize that because it's a great

20:41

gig. You know,

20:41

can you're

20:42

right. You know, I I

20:45

hadn't

20:45

looked at it that way, but now that you

20:47

now that you and spun it I can't help but agree

20:49

with you.

20:52

Most people would stay for the check as

20:55

long a camera. This is -- Yeah. -- red goes on. Yeah. But, you know,

20:57

I'd like I we know, John. Yeah.

20:59

We know. Because also, like, the check had been

21:01

so good. Like, I'd already made way more money

21:03

in my life than I ever had a right

21:05

to and would have dreamed

21:06

of. And my family

21:09

was, you know, my kids were gonna be seven. And it

21:11

like,

21:12

you know, I I think there are sometimes where you

21:14

just gotta go like, wow. Yeah.

21:16

I got I did it.

21:18

I did it. And and -- Yeah. -- let

21:20

me let me take the blessings and

21:23

put it in a 1

21:25

wonderful frame and head

21:28

on back to discover what the next debentures are because

21:30

it it didn't mean the

21:30

end. It just meant the end of that

21:33

one thing. As

21:34

it turned out, your timing was great, John.

21:36

You you know, what what 1

21:38

a rough couple of years it's been in

21:40

the

21:40

world. But really, it's just

21:43

gonna

21:43

help me. That that that might that might

21:45

have driven you to quit. Now

21:48

most people, I think, a lot of, you

21:49

know, a lot of the industry

21:52

and what I can sometimes

21:54

provide for them is some basic, like,

21:56

air support. Because

21:59

they're fighting and toiling kind of

22:01

anonymously

22:01

underground. And so

22:04

The idea of this is to try and combine

22:06

a little bit of what I learned during the Daily Show

22:08

with a little bit of what I learned being down at

22:10

DC with a little bit of what I learned

22:12

hanging out with the folks that

22:15

are that that whose lives are

22:17

consumed with the day to day

22:19

of that kind of activism. And

22:22

and trying to put together in

22:26

a a sort of not

22:28

just a primer but to to

22:30

create kind of a narrative arc to sort of set

22:32

the stage with a little bit of the

22:35

comedy to hear from the stakeholders and

22:37

then to go to somebody who has some agency

22:40

within that world, right,

22:42

like an ark. Right.

22:45

And then to

22:48

create some kind of support

22:50

mechanism behind that so that it

22:52

doesn't die in

22:54

its

22:54

presentation. Right.

22:55

That that's not the end.

22:57

Right. And so that that

22:59

was the impetus to try and

23:02

blend, flotation, with

23:05

inspiration, with what I

23:07

love, with people that

23:09

I

23:09

admire. And and see if there was something

23:11

to create in in that

23:13

-- Mhmm. -- if

23:15

that makes sense. It feels

23:16

yeah. It makes a lot. It feels like you got a long way towards

23:18

getting there. Yeah. Well,

23:20

you know, as you know, sometimes

23:22

some shows some shows more than

23:24

others, but but yeah, that's that's the

23:26

beauty of it. They can't all be diamonds. That

23:29

that's what I'm talking

23:29

about, baby. Yeah. Are you most importantly, are

23:32

you having fun? Oh my god. You're

23:34

funny again? Yeah. The

23:36

the staff is fucking ridiculous.

23:39

Like -- Good. -- smart everybody you

23:41

said, you

23:41

know, millennials. I mean,

23:43

these dudes

23:44

are the most hardworking,

23:48

just brilliant, but

23:50

funny, and then they'll go out, and

23:52

everybody's wearing sequins and

23:54

just dance in the night or, like, this is just a lovely

23:56

group of people and I in

23:58

my usual fashion really enjoy

24:01

standing in a corner

24:03

watching them with my hands in my

24:05

heart. Because I I

24:07

love

24:07

it. It's like it's like

24:07

Batman and the Teen Titans.

24:10

Yeah. As you

24:13

know, Doug, I am not I am not one for

24:16

participation. Yeah. Even when

24:18

I tell you about the punk

24:18

clubs, like Oh, I say all those MTV parties you've

24:21

heard about Jen, John. Yeah. He might have been

24:23

there. I was there, but he wasn't he wasn't having a great

24:24

time. Yeah. I

24:25

was I was I was was standing back and I would just

24:27

be like, wow. Kenny

24:32

Kenny over. He can really

24:34

He can really put he can put

24:36

him back. He can put him back. He can he can take

24:38

care of things. He can he can dance

24:40

around. Oh, yeah. Judy McGrath just

24:42

broke her arm. On the dance floor. That is

24:45

yeah. That's fucked up. Did

24:45

she really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Slipped that literally,

24:48

Slipped broke her. She would yeah. Brokered

24:50

her ankle one time 2. It's

24:51

yeah. We

24:52

we were on,

24:53

like, I don't know if it was like an indoor

24:55

speed skating rink. Like, it

24:57

was. We were at this fucking it's like,

24:59

it's a night club, but it's also

25:02

a roller blading race course. Yeah.

25:04

If people are dancing

25:04

and then going over, like, locals, like,

25:07

it was the fucking weirdest it was the

25:09

weirdest time. We

25:10

had a good we had a good

25:11

time. We had a very good time, but but I'm not

25:13

one four

25:14

good times.

25:15

You don't? Not your thing.

25:16

I enjoy I enjoy the observation.

25:18

No. I I was just curious as far as

25:20

the problem with John Stewart, like, do you know

25:22

if there's going to be a season

25:23

three? What's what's the status of that?

25:26

Never

25:26

know. You know.

25:28

Okay. I

25:28

don't know if you know this, but Apple, they have

25:30

other products besides content.

25:32

Do they? Yeah. They have a whole other

25:35

line. I'm not privy to what's going on with it, but apparently,

25:38

they

25:38

have something where you can put everything you've

25:40

ever listened to into your pocket. I

25:42

Oh my gosh. You should get them to do that. You should

25:44

get them to do that 2 thing. Like, remember

25:47

when they put YouTube on every

25:48

iPad,

25:48

they should put your show on every phone they

25:50

said. Because nothing

25:51

made YouTube more popular in Beloved.

25:53

That worked out

25:54

well. It was the best

25:56

decision Bono ever. Then to show up

25:58

in every month, it's a big pocket.

26:00

They were all like, I don't

26:02

like you

26:02

too. What do I mean? Yeah. I

26:04

I hope that we we

26:06

we do

26:07

more. I like I like doing. So

26:10

And

26:10

and I think I think it's good. So

26:12

that that

26:13

also, like, is good. The people seem

26:14

to like it. Yeah. If it would if I

26:16

felt like it was shitty, I'd

26:18

cry with my

26:29

Well,

26:29

that's a that's I I will tell a great John Stewart

26:32

story about it. John has a very

26:34

high bar, and he's never gonna do anything

26:36

shitty. He's just he's got he he

26:38

he's The work and the quality work is 2

26:41

paramount. And John's production

26:43

company once made a pilot for

26:45

Comedy Central a scripted pilot

26:47

about minor league Yes. And

26:49

I can't remember the name of it, but

26:51

it was unwatchably awful

26:54

to quote, What is I the chappell

26:56

what was the word he used on SNL when

26:58

he was describing? It is it

27:01

was observably bad. And

27:05

we all we all we

27:07

all were we all were

27:10

we all were John, of course,

27:12

you know, he's you know, John was John was

27:14

the gentle ten thousand pound

27:16

gorilla and never really threw his weight around, but,

27:18

you know, he was, you know, he was

27:20

John 2, and he had the he

27:22

was this

27:23

pilot, and we were like, oh my god.

27:25

We just like or

27:27

he's gonna want us to put this fucking thing

27:29

in here. And we

27:31

were like,

27:32

fuck. And

27:33

we have our little conference call and

27:35

John gets on the phone and God bless me,

27:38

goes. I wanna apologize. And

27:41

we're like, I just wanna apologize for that

27:43

pilot. It's

27:43

terrible. And we're like,

27:44

oh my god. You

27:48

remember that one? I do remember that one.

27:50

The only other time I threw out my remember

27:52

this this was the and it was, like, one of

27:54

the worst times in the history of

27:56

the

27:56

show. It was, do you remember during

27:58

the writer's

27:59

strike? We were trying

28:02

I was trying desperately

28:04

to get Comedy Central

28:06

to do the deal.

28:08

That the writer's guilt

28:11

wanted. Yes. And

28:14

so I was making Doug's

28:16

life

28:17

miserable. I was calling

28:20

I was calling who was in charge?

28:22

I was calling everybody I

28:25

can't remember who it might have been still a

28:27

woman named Joela West if I

28:29

can remember correctly. She was at business affairs

28:31

for a

28:32

long I'm beating the shit of them.

28:35

Yeah. Every day.

28:37

Doug, there's fairness here and there's and

28:39

Doug to his credit was always like

28:41

not trying. I'm trying to move mountains over

28:44

it, but, you know, they don't wanna do they

28:46

we don't like to pay people, we

28:48

don't wanna do and they don't I remember the

28:50

do you remember the big word precedent.

28:53

We don't wanna set a precedent, and we

28:55

had gone through this a few

28:57

years back when the show first

28:59

wanted to unionize. Comedy

29:01

Central wasn't union. Cable back then was still

29:03

they would they would say, like, it's not a business model that

29:05

you can

29:05

unionize. It's just not a good business model. And then you're

29:08

like, I think it might be the best business

29:10

model. But

29:11

so what we did in that

29:13

situation was, Doug finally

29:15

got Viacom

29:18

to accept We weren't gonna do the whole

29:20

network, but he would allow our

29:22

show and Colbert 2 to

29:24

form like a fake production. That's

29:25

right. Right. Right. Right. Right. It's called a

29:28

pass through. I think it was called. We we

29:29

already had a fake production company. Yellow doggy.

29:31

And and we created it as a

29:33

pass through, and so the

29:36

guild

29:37

Comedy Central could do a deal with the past

29:40

through and still have plausible deniability

29:42

that wasn't the whole network.

29:45

And for the guilt, they knew that

29:47

when those dominoes fell, everything

29:49

else was common. It was just gonna be months.

29:51

And that's what happened. So -- That's right. --

29:53

we'd already done this. Smashed cut

29:55

to the 2 strike. I'm on

29:57

with them. You mother you have

29:59

to do they are not asking for any

30:02

reason. We're trying.

30:04

We're trying to do the 2. And then it comes

30:06

out that letterman's company

30:08

is gonna get

30:11

the deal. They've agreed to

30:13

do it. Do you remember this? Yeah.

30:15

That so I immediately get

30:17

on them and I'm fucking hammering 2

30:19

two weeks

30:20

later. Doug gets them to do it.

30:22

He gets

30:23

them to agree that we

30:26

can

30:27

we'll accept the writers' guild

30:30

deal as is. We're gonna get everybody

30:32

back on the year. We had this has been,

30:34

like, months for a while. People

30:36

are fucking Like, I got a hundred people,

30:38

like, out of work struggling. You know,

30:40

you we pay

30:42

like, it's getting ugly.

30:45

Getting ugly. He

30:47

finally agrees to 2. We're gonna do it the same

30:49

way we did it last time. They're

30:51

gonna agree to

30:51

it, and it's gonna go through our pass

30:54

through, and we're gonna get everybody back

30:56

on the air.

30:56

I call the

30:58

writers field. I I'm, like, beside

31:01

1. I go, guys, we did

31:03

it. We got Comedy Central.

31:06

Dgging them. They're

31:06

gonna give you exactly what you want it. Same

31:09

way we did it a couple of years

31:11

ago,

31:11

just like the letterman

31:13

deal. I'll never forget

31:16

the guy goes. Yeah. No.

31:17

We're not gonna

31:18

do that. And I

31:20

go. I

31:22

go. Say

31:23

that again. He goes, yeah, Letterman,

31:25

they produce the show. You don't produce

31:27

the show. Your your the

31:29

company you've created is a shell

31:31

company. It's not a real production house.

31:33

And

31:34

I go,

31:35

that I created. We

31:39

created it for you You're

31:41

the ones who suggested it. We

31:43

did this to do the deal and never get

31:45

the gun says to

31:46

me. So I go so let me get

31:49

this straight. The company

31:51

we created was good enough for you

31:53

to sign a deal with,

31:55

with Comedy Central to create a unionized

31:58

show but not good enough now because

32:00

it's not a real production

32:01

company. Is that what

32:02

you're telling me? And the

32:05

guy goes, It's a very biblical

32:07

way of looking at it.

32:10

It's very rabbinical. And

32:13

I was like, I

32:14

I don't I don't know that I've ever been madder.

32:16

I you know, I do remember I

32:18

I you're breaking it all back. I remember

32:21

you're Yeah. You're chewing change. In in regards to the guilt, it

32:23

changed after

32:23

that. But but it was that

32:26

went that strike went on a long time. Yeah.

32:28

But to touch cut, like, look,

32:30

we were on opposite sides of the game, but you

32:32

were always incredibly gracious. You were

32:34

always incredibly open to ideas.

32:36

That's what I love about Doug like.

32:39

We could have those conversations. We might not agree,

32:41

but he was always like

32:43

really opening to listening

32:46

to creative ideas

32:48

to solve a problem, a way he was

32:50

not rigid in any way. He respected

32:52

the people that worked for him, he

32:54

honored that, like, their creativity. Ask the

32:56

South Park guys same shit. Like -- Mhmm. --

32:58

always really I appreciate that.

33:01

To creative problem solving. And the funny part

33:03

was when we finally got it,

33:05

I thought I was walking back to the guild

33:07

with like a gold receptor

33:10

And they were like, that's a Burger King hat.

33:13

Right? It was

33:16

honestly, Doug, I it may be the saddest I

33:19

think I've ever been. Well,

33:20

I can remember one or two times. It will save that for another

33:22

podcast. Alright. So But you can but

33:25

by the way, I I will say this, guys, John.

33:27

Rarely rarely rarely lost tempered.

33:29

I mean, almost never. Yeah. And what he

33:31

did, it was it was it was always for good reason. I

33:33

will also say, I never and thank

33:36

you for being so gracious about

33:38

my openness. But the truth is,

33:40

never 1 an argument with John Stewart. He

33:42

is worried about the debateers forget

33:44

about a

33:45

rabbi. Probably should have been a lawyer because he never

33:48

lost a case. No. But he's

33:50

that good. Yeah.

33:51

But but

33:51

thank you. Yeah. But we we had some fun, Brandon.

33:53

We had some good times. Yeah. We

33:54

had some good time. That's for sure. Alright, Jen. Take us

33:57

home. Alright.

33:57

Now segueing into our last question that

34:00

we asked

34:00

all of our guests. Okay. Alright.

34:03

What Aside from obviously

34:05

the wonderful pilot that you wrote and

34:07

your

34:07

own, you know, other work, what is your favorite

34:09

basic cable show of all

34:11

time?

34:11

Wow. Of all

34:13

time. Mhmm. Sure. You can

34:15

go back to the eighties. Does

34:17

anyone have an answer for

34:19

this? Yeah. most people's well,

34:20

no. Most people's

34:21

answer is what's basic cable.

34:24

I'm not kidding. It's

34:28

so depressing. I mean, for me, it's it's hard to

34:30

beat the rapport. It's just hard

34:32

to beat, you know And you 2 involved

34:34

in that

34:34

one. So that's kind of a cheat. Isn't it?

34:37

Yeah. But Just watch

34:39

No, John. No, John. I'm gonna I'm gonna feed you one. Yeah. I do remember going way

34:41

back when you and Tracy were fans

34:44

of early fans of

34:47

the real world. The real world look let me tell you

34:49

something about the real world as,

34:52

like,

34:52

fucked up as we wanna talk about in terms

34:54

of, like, reality television or

34:57

you know, and it like, once it got to the point 2, like,

35:00

we're taking the real world season

35:02

one against,

35:04

you know, summer camp season two, and we're gonna put them on a

35:06

mountain with no food.

35:08

And we're gonna give one side

35:10

pocket knives and the other side will

35:12

have blocks.

35:14

It's weak. Nobody knows what's gonna happen. Like, once

35:17

when it when it started getting

35:19

hunker game

35:19

y, that's when shit kinda went off

35:22

the rails. But

35:24

I can remember watching the real

35:27

world and thinking

35:28

in a crazy way this

35:31

is going to advance race relations

35:34

and understanding about sexuality.

35:37

It's this I think

35:39

is actually going

35:41

to be a net

35:43

positive in an enormous way

35:46

culturally. And it was

35:48

the simplest thing, but it was like, oh,

35:50

none of us know each other. Yeah. And it's going

35:52

to be incredibly awkward, but what

35:54

if we got to know each

35:58

other or at least observe each

36:00

other in that pursuit. And I have

36:04

to say, I actually

36:06

I I think it it was a real

36:09

net

36:09

positive. Certainly, the early years,

36:12

the

36:12

first three,

36:13

four, maybe five seasons. Before

36:16

it really started going off on the

36:18

rails of of, like I

36:20

say, like, before it got into lord of the fly. I started

36:22

right. Mhmm. And then it became

36:24

designed purely

36:26

to provoke or to do

36:28

that. But in in those early

36:30

years, I remember thinking, there's been nothing

36:32

like this. And there's a lot

36:34

because young people are more

36:36

open to this kind of observation. This is

36:38

going to be 2. And and

36:40

and I think it it was. And I think it was.

36:42

And then on the

36:44

flip side, they had dating games that could have been

36:46

called spring break date rape.

36:48

So other than that,

36:50

you know, 2 that wasn't

36:52

actual show. In

36:52

Yang. It was the Yinin Yang.

36:56

Yeah. It was Boy, you know, the

36:58

MTV had this Great. You know, we we

37:00

used to try and use our superpowers for good

37:02

whenever we could, but you couldn't make a business

37:04

out of that. So you gotta you gotta do some of that

37:06

other stuff. Right. That was always my favorite stuff with

37:08

Doug. Like, every now to

37:09

get he be like, John, it's a

37:11

business. No. It's I

37:14

used to say, like, why are we doing

37:15

this, Doug?

37:16

It's a business. Yeah. That that was a yeah.

37:17

That that was a famous trigger for

37:20

you. That was always that was always my trigger when

37:22

Doug used to hit me with that in the conversation.

37:24

Got it.

37:25

Yeah. Yeah.

37:26

Yeah. Well, that's that's for the

37:28

next podcast. John Stewart, you

37:30

are a great gentleman to be

37:32

here in Genesis. I'm so thrilled

37:35

to have you -- Yeah.

37:35

It was

37:36

really -- lovely lovely to talk to you guys.

37:38

And thank you for being so generous with

37:40

your time. We we really appreciate it. And

37:42

I hope to see you in twenty

37:44

three, John. I miss you I miss you too. I'm incredibly

37:46

busy

37:46

and have

37:47

lots of matter of

37:49

fact, I have hold on. Hold

37:52

my calls. So,

37:54

you know, the

37:56

Daily Show as we've talked about was just such

38:00

a huge phenomenon really on cable television

38:02

under John's tenure. And

38:04

what's interesting about it to me, one of

38:06

the many

38:08

things, is is a degree to

38:10

which it started to play a real role in

38:12

politics. You know, he talked about that moment

38:14

with Steve Carell and John

38:16

McCain on on McCain's bus back in

38:18

what 2 thousand, I guess, it was. But it it it's amazing that, you know,

38:21

obviously, it's a comedy show, but it became a

38:23

place that, you know, if you're running for office, you

38:25

should be on the daily go

38:28

because as much as you should be on, like,

38:30

meet the press, like, it became a place that you

38:32

wanted to talk because that's where a lot

38:34

of young people would go to get their

38:35

news, honestly. No. It

38:38

really it really mattered in that regard.

38:40

And and politicians and

38:42

policymakers would come on

38:44

the show to sort of, you know, float

38:46

ideas and different things that they were

38:48

working on or or had been working on.

38:50

And and it became a real place

38:52

for conversation

38:53

and a influence people. 2 other

38:55

thing it became, we didn't talk about this

38:57

much, but I remember when my book

38:59

came out talking to 2 at

39:01

Simon and Schuster, and I was like, what are the most important

39:04

places to get your book like

39:06

highlighted? And she said NPR and The

39:08

Daily Show. And -- Yeah. -- under John, like, they really did have

39:10

authors on a lot talking about, like, you

39:12

know, serious intellectual issues. So

39:14

to the you know, it was a

39:16

comedy for sure, but there was

39:18

really some thoughtful discourse

39:20

going on

39:20

there. And and -- Yes. -- it

39:21

still has been

39:22

under Trevor as well. Howard Bauchner: Yeah, became a

39:24

big place for authors. And and and

39:26

the most sort of wonky kind of subjects, which

39:29

I think prior to that, you know,

39:31

nobody was talking about on on

39:33

cable television. That was probably, you

39:35

know, relegated to public television. And

39:38

he and he made it work. You know, we didn't

39:40

ask him about this. This is a little daily

39:42

show anecdote. I got a call

39:44

from John, And I was trying to the best time to talk to

39:46

John was always after the show. And so I

39:48

would I'd usually call him around seven

39:50

o'clock, seven thirty. He would still be

39:52

the office. And one ninety

39:54

picks up the phone and he goes, hey, man, you

39:56

know where I was today? I go, well, you did the

39:58

show. Right? He said, yeah. He goes, but you know where

40:00

I was? During the day? He

40:02

said, no. He said,

40:04

let's count the White House talking to Barack Obama.

40:06

And, you know, he had

40:08

just been summoned, like, obama just wanted to meet

40:10

him and get into his head a little bit and

40:12

hang

40:12

out. You know, this was, like, think during his

40:15

first term. And So they didn't

40:17

film this. It was just John going Oh, no.

40:19

This was no. This was this was this was this was Obama just saying, hey, man, I'd like to love to

40:21

meet you and talk to you. Wow. And that's how

40:23

that's how important and influential

40:26

and

40:26

central. John Woes to the conversation,

40:28

I think, in those days. That's incredible.

40:30

Do you know what they

40:31

talked about? You know, he he I

40:34

mean, this goes back a long time. I

40:36

remember him telling me nothing, of course, that I

40:38

that I can remember. But but I just,

40:40

you know, like, he was put on a

40:42

jet and sent down the White House and spent the morning, you know, in the

40:44

Oval Office, talk to the or or right outside the

40:46

Oval Office, he's in this other room, tell you

40:48

a little conference room,

40:50

talk to president. And then he put him on a

40:52

jet and sent him back to New York so he could do the show. And, you know, he was

40:54

John Stewart. Yeah. I

40:54

mean, that well, it speaks to,

40:57

as you said, the significance of the Daily Show and and

40:59

of John at that time. It also speaks to

41:01

how savvy Barack Obama was in terms of

41:04

pop

41:04

culture. Like,

41:05

he was he

41:07

got it better than any president in my lifetime. That's for sure. No offense

41:09

to Bill Clinton. And, you know, look, 1

41:11

you know, John's back on TV, and we got to

41:13

hear a little bit about

41:16

that, but Boy. What a what a legacy

41:18

for The Daily Show in John Stewart and and what he built there. And

41:20

not only the people, you know, great people

41:22

in front of the camera, the car

41:25

minutes which you talked

41:25

about, but you know, tremendous people behind the camera too,

41:27

great producers and writers, and it's quite a team.

41:29

It's quite

41:30

a team and quite

41:31

an operation. Absolutely.

41:32

Well, we were we were really pleased to have John who was he's one of our

41:34

dream guests who was on the list for basic from

41:36

the day we decided we wanted to do the

41:38

show. We hope you enjoyed both

41:42

parts. And we hope you'll be back next week. So from me

41:44

and

41:45

Jen. Thanks.

41:46

Basic is a Pantheon

41:47

media production in partnership

41:50

with SiriusXM. Hosted

41:51

by Jen Cheney and Doug

41:53

Herzog.

41:53

Produced by Christian Swain and

41:56

Peter Ferrioli. Lindley Erlick

41:57

is our assistant producer. Sound

41:59

design and music by Jerry Daniels. Mixed

42:01

and mastered by Brian Slusher.

42:04

Recording

42:04

and edited by Zach busier. You

42:06

can find basic on Apple Podcasts, the

42:09

SiriusXM app, Pandora, Stitcher,

42:11

or wherever you

42:13

like to listen. If you like the

42:15

show, please rate, review, and share so people can find us. Don't forget to follow

42:18

the show so you never miss

42:20

an episode.

42:23

Today on

42:25

basic, the second part of our

42:28

conversation with John

42:29

Stewart. Do you remember

42:31

the old days placement on the cable everything.

42:34

It was everything. It was all about

42:37

proximity and

42:40

location.

42:41

And I

42:41

think the lesson of our era

42:44

was,

42:44

it doesn't matter where

42:46

you are. If it's good, people

42:49

will find

42:50

it. Where

42:50

I was on the dial.

42:52

So was of no

42:55

consequence to me or the the

42:57

size of the platform, people would say, don't you 1 to go to a

43:00

network where your platform is bigger?

43:02

And and I just always

43:04

thought, no. I wanna be in

43:06

a place where they they wanna they'll

43:08

let me make what I wanna make

43:10

because I really wanted satisfaction

43:13

more than I wanted attention, if

43:15

that makes sense.

43:20

Hey, 1, and welcome to Basic, the official podcast of the unofficial

43:22

history of cable television. I'm Doug

43:24

Herzog, a former TV

43:25

executive, and we have even more

43:28

moments of zen for you.

43:29

And I'm Jen Cheney,

43:30

a TV critic for Voltura New York Magazine,

43:32

and I always get my produce

43:34

from produce Pete. That's a great

43:36

daily show reference, Jen. We're back today with

43:39

part two of our conversation with John

43:41

Stewart. You know, in part one, we

43:44

talked a lot about how John got into

43:46

television. His

43:48

his years at MTV. And then, of course, sort of the

43:50

Rocky Road of starting the

43:52

Daily Show under John Stewart. And

43:54

I think we're gonna go more

43:58

into the meat of the daily show in this

43:59

episode. Right, Doug? Yeah. Look, I I think

44:01

and hopefully, you heard part one if

44:03

you're listening. But, you know, it's not as

44:05

easy as it looks. And it

44:07

wasn't as smooth a transition as maybe

44:10

history would say it was. John goes

44:12

into some detail about, you know,

44:14

trying to figure out the daily show when he first got

44:16

there. But We're gonna pick up the conversation today

44:17

with, you know, sort of those moments when it all started to

44:20

come together for the Daily Show. So enjoy the

44:22

second half of our conversation with

44:24

John Stewart. 2 Doug and I back

44:26

at the end with our usual wrap up,

44:28

which I'm sure will be very Zenlike.

44:36

So

44:36

you you you really gutted

44:38

it out there for the early days,

44:40

but pretty quickly, like around the

44:42

time around two thousand. Right? Things

44:45

started to fall into place and sort

44:47

of click a little bit or or so

44:49

it seemed watching from

44:52

the outside as I was at that

44:53

point. Watching from Fox that you have

44:55

other were were

44:56

you allowed to watch other shows there? Maybe even unemployed, John, but

44:58

who'd He just had

45:00

binoculars and he was

45:01

trying to see into

45:04

the building somehow? Well, there was two you know,

45:05

there was so to get

45:07

to where

45:08

we wanted to go, the the first was

45:10

to just kind of straighten out the point of

45:13

view. Right?

45:13

And the second was to straighten out the

45:16

process. The

45:17

point of view

45:18

was, you know, so there were a

45:21

couple of moments in that sort

45:23

of

45:23

journey that that stuck out. One was, I

45:26

1, it was the it was the fortieth anniversary

45:28

of Barbie. You know, because

45:31

back then, you weren't able to pick and choose what you wanted

45:33

to cover. What you covered was, we had one feed,

45:35

it was the AP feed, and we

45:37

subscribed to it. So you could talk you could do a couple

45:39

of jokes on some topical shit that you got

45:42

from the network news. And then

45:44

you'd have to go with, like,

45:46

whatever package they

45:48

would send out to everybody on the AP Feed. So it'd be like

45:50

the fortieth anniversary of Barbie or the celebration of

45:52

the Black Nazarim in the

45:54

Philippines. Like, that's the that

45:56

you were

45:57

dealing. So the idea was

45:58

to try and get the show to

46:00

be a little less kind of

46:03

eccentric and a little more to, like,

46:05

the shit we really cared about foundationally with the press

46:07

and with the government and all these other kind. And

46:09

so we were doing the

46:12

fortieth 40th anniversary of Barbie, and

46:14

half the jokes were about the terrible message

46:16

it sends to young women

46:19

about their bodies. With

46:22

Barbie as the Avatar for femininity. And the other

46:25

half of the jokes were about how

46:27

ugly the spokeswoman was in

46:30

the commercial about Barbie. And it was one of those who

46:32

were like, I think we're gonna have to

46:34

pick which point of view we

46:37

wanna go 2. And we you

46:39

can't just like, you can't

46:42

napalm the room. We wanna be more

46:44

directional. So it was the idea of

46:46

of developing point of view. And the

46:48

second was the joke pick every day used to be, it was

46:50

like each writer 2 they're probably about ten writers

46:52

would write, like, ten to twelve pages of

46:54

jokes. And the joke pick was we'd sit

46:56

in a

46:58

room. And each

46:59

writer

46:59

would read the jokes that they

47:01

read out loud. And it

47:03

would

47:03

take about an hour and

47:05

a half, maybe two hours. And

47:07

what

47:07

it did 2 things. 1,

47:10

took up the entire

47:12

day. And

47:14

the second thing was it invested them

47:18

with an ownership

47:20

over the material that

47:24

wasn't conducive 2,

47:26

like, what we wanted, which was, you want

47:28

everybody in that building to be

47:29

invested, but to understand

47:32

that, like, if the show's

47:34

good, we all

47:35

win. But if everybody is clinging

47:37

to their own particular

47:40

turf with ownership like the amount of

47:42

energy it takes to move

47:44

somebody who has ownership over

47:46

a joke off of that

47:48

joke because it doesn't

47:50

serve the greater narrative or other things that

47:52

you wanna do. That's energy. You can't use making other

47:54

shit better because the energy

47:56

of the day is finite.

47:58

Right. So the change there was

48:02

I I said, you know,

48:04

I can read.

48:06

I learned it, second or third grade.

48:09

So if we just put the jokes on the desk and I'll just read them,

48:11

that'll take ten minutes. And then we can

48:14

pick the good ones and then we can spend the rest

48:16

of that time making

48:18

those jokes better fit

48:20

into a thing, create a more

48:22

essayistic approach, you know, we

48:24

have all this time

48:26

freed up for

48:27

creative momentum

48:30

as opposed to spending our day fighting about

48:33

but that joke's funny. I understand it's funny. But

48:36

you can't make fun of the

48:38

spokesperson's looks while your point of

48:40

view is about empowering

48:42

women. Like, that's just not fucking

48:44

singing. Right. Because it's

48:46

like that was the that was the

48:48

day. So it was like, it

48:50

was it was it was wild.

48:52

Mhmm. I mean, another thing that started

48:54

to happen when you took over

48:56

just the amount of talent that came on on board as correspondence and

48:58

in other roles, like, it really kind

49:00

of I mean, it kind of created

49:02

the talent pool for what late

49:04

night ultimately ended up looking

49:05

like. Well, they'd always they'd always been great with talent. I mean, the other

49:07

thing is the writing step was incredibly

49:10

talented. Like, it was always

49:12

a great

49:14

lure for talent. And Madeline and Liz had a great

49:16

eye for Her Colbert was there when you

49:18

got Colbert was there when I got there. Yeah.

49:20

They had a great eye

49:22

or talent of writers and correspondence and all those

49:25

other people. And -- Mhmm. -- we tried

49:27

to keep that going and give

49:30

them agency

49:31

as I said to Steven when he first started, which was,

49:34

you you

49:35

know, we'd write a bid and I'd be like, what do

49:38

you think? You'd be like, what

49:40

do you mean? What do I think? Can I go, what's your opinion

49:41

about, you know, whether

49:42

or not you do you think

49:46

this issue is important? Do you think it

49:48

right? You know, what do you think of

49:49

it? And, like, I I remember

49:51

the first time

49:52

I asked the news like,

49:54

You really wanna know? Yeah.

49:56

Because

49:57

that's how we're gonna write this. And

49:59

so it was just harnessing

50:01

all those

50:03

talents Honestly, it

50:04

was just

50:05

it was just getting everybody pulling in the same

50:07

direction. That was the all that was

50:09

it was such a,

50:12

like, great opportunity.

50:14

And it was just an opportunity to maybe

50:16

get everybody pulling in that direction because

50:18

you had so much talent around

50:20

you. That was a nice part. I

50:21

mean, at what point you start to realize, you

50:24

know, people were taking the

50:26

show, like seriously from

50:28

a political

50:30

information standpoint. Like, obviously, it was a

50:32

comedy show, but they were kind of it was starting to be seen

50:34

as, like, oh, this is, like, where I get

50:36

my news and, like, people in DC started

50:39

to take Seriously. Like, when did the light bulb about

50:42

all of that go off for

50:44

you? I

50:44

don't know if I I know it's I mean,

50:46

there was that always that moment where Steve Carell was

50:48

on the bus with John came, you

50:50

know, and he did it. I think it those moments always

50:52

pointed to the kind of the high

50:54

and low of it. You know, we

50:57

we got access but ultimately we had to pull

50:59

the joke. Do

51:00

you know what I mean? Like, when Steve

51:02

Carell was sitting on the bus with McCain and

51:04

he was asking him the silly questions

51:07

we were the funny this was in two thousand, I think, and we were

51:09

the --

51:09

Mhmm. -- the

51:10

funny group that entertains them. I

51:12

think, yes, John McCain. You know, you're

51:15

saying, like, favorite Favorite wine, favorite thing. And

51:17

then you said, you have famously said that

51:19

you're against pork barrel

51:21

politics. And yet, you

51:24

took pump up up

51:26

amount of money from lobbyists

51:28

that allowed them to

51:30

add in and he really

51:33

nailed

51:33

it. On the

51:34

hypocrisy and absurdity of one

51:37

of his core positions.

51:39

And right after he said he goes

51:42

to touch kidding. I don't know what any of that means. But you could see it on McCain's

51:44

face where he was, like, I think

51:46

I might have just gotten, like, shaved

51:49

And then when Steve broke

51:50

detention, it was hilarious, but it

51:53

also went back to that whole thing 2, like,

51:55

we always we still had to

51:57

stay in our

51:58

lane. To that when you were the only fake

51:59

news. That's right. We were the only

52:02

we were the only

52:04

fake news.

52:05

It's amazing. Like fake news is, you

52:07

know, mean something else entirely in twenty

52:09

twenty two. 2. know. You know,

52:11

cancel culture is, you

52:14

know, it's it's it's really amazing to see to see how things flipped

52:16

all. Although you were

52:18

pretty pressing in your now

52:21

infamous appearance on crossfire. Or

52:24

not was that cross was crossfire with

52:26

Tucker Carlson? Yes.

52:28

Yeah. Yeah. And

52:29

Paul Baghali. Yeah. Yeah.

52:31

And looking at, you know, where cable news was

52:33

going. Right.

52:33

Right. Right. What do

52:34

you think about cable news

52:35

today? I

52:35

mean Well, clearly,

52:37

I think we

52:40

fixed it. Right.

52:42

It's gotten much better

52:44

since that's right. It's

52:45

it's by the

52:46

way, it's the it's the only thing keeping basic

52:49

cable to float at this point. Yeah.

52:51

That and sports. Sports definitely.

52:54

Yeah. Sports. Although I have a feeling that's streaming, it's all

52:56

gonna come back to cable is such a smart

52:58

idea and the idea of

53:00

bundling things into packages. It's

53:02

it's it's just so intuitive that

53:05

streaming will ultimately in the way that streaming sort of was gonna blow

53:07

up the basic cable

53:09

2. As

53:12

streaming you know,

53:13

gets weighed down by

53:16

their own fees and everything else. It's

53:18

all 2 come back to and it'll

53:20

just be enhanced basic cable

53:21

model. And and it's it's all gonna

53:24

ultimately come back to that. I I don't I don't disagree. I

53:26

think these companies have gotten, you

53:28

know, these streamers have gotten

53:30

so big, you know, like the networks were back

53:32

in their hay day. Right. And that's what that's what

53:34

brought us cable, something more specific, something

53:36

more targeted. And so

53:37

somehow, I think we get we we

53:40

do get we do get back. I mean, once you start

53:42

carrying twelve streaming

53:44

channel fees, at a certain

53:46

point, you're still paying for and even

53:48

if you cut the

53:48

cord, you're like, well, I mean and so somehow

53:50

in all the consolidation and everything,

53:52

it's gonna end up being

53:54

you're gonna get

53:55

your streamer and a basic cable package, and that's how

53:57

it's gonna 1

53:59

was Foolishly

54:02

as it turned out worried that when you

54:04

were leaving the Daily Show,

54:06

pre Trump, right, it felt

54:08

to me 2 the end, not only

54:10

of an era for daily show, but an era for cable news, I

54:13

thought it was on its way out. I thought nobody was watching

54:15

it anymore, everybody was

54:18

really old, And

54:20

that and that and that Trevor was gonna

54:22

have to find another new source to kind

54:24

of, you know you know make fun of

54:26

in the post John Stewart

54:27

2. And then, of course, Trump came along

54:30

and literally reinvented cable

54:32

television. Yeah.

54:32

I mean, III

54:35

never worried about it because what

54:37

we do is kind of as old as time. The

54:39

only thing that changes is the delivery

54:42

system. And so it

54:44

really net you know, we kind

54:46

of came in the

54:48

more standard era of

54:50

you have your cable stations. And

54:52

those are, you know, and your your

54:54

network news and your cable. And

54:57

those were the two methods of consumption. And we existed

54:59

side by side with cable, basic cable.

55:01

We were considering

55:04

peers. It was the era of do you remember in the

55:07

old days? Placement on

55:07

the cable dial was every was big

55:10

deal. It

55:12

was everything. If you went 2

55:13

to be, like, in the top thirty, you know, nobody could find you. We fought for that

55:15

all the time. You got up in the nosebleeds. It was

55:18

over. It was all

55:20

about proximity, and

55:23

and location. And I think

55:24

the lesson of

55:25

our era was, it doesn't

55:28

matter

55:29

where you are. If it's

55:32

good, people will

55:33

find it.

55:34

And it doesn't matter if you're beachfront or if you're

55:36

up in the mountains or if you've got a, you know,

55:38

a lake cat or if you're down

55:40

and Apple agent,

55:40

like, if people are interested in it, they

55:43

will find their way to it.

55:45

Right.

55:45

And and that was that was kind of

55:48

-- Yep. That was a

55:50

big idea for you in general

55:52

because I always admired how

55:54

you felt that even though you're

55:56

on Comedy Central, on this little

55:58

dinky cable channel. There wasn't

56:00

anything you couldn't do or couldn't

56:02

achieve. And you didn't have

56:04

to be you know, on channel two or CBS or

56:06

and you could host the Oscars and be

56:08

on the cover of Time Magazine and win endless

56:10

Emmy awards and and produce the

56:12

show you wanted to

56:14

do. From wherever, you know, from wherever you chose. Be because that I think

56:16

the thing you just said is is everything.

56:18

Produce

56:18

the show you wanna do.

56:21

2 I was

56:23

on the dial, so

56:25

was of no

56:27

consequence to me. Or

56:30

the the size of the platform, people would 1,

56:32

you wanna go to a network where your platform

56:34

is bigger? And and I just always thought

56:38

No. I wanna be in a place where

56:40

they they want they'll let me make what

56:42

I wanna 2.

56:43

Yeah. Because I really

56:44

wanted satisfaction

56:46

more than I wanted attention,

56:48

if that makes sense. I

56:50

was, you know, you spend so much time

56:52

and you work so hard with all these people.

56:55

And the process is

56:58

so

56:58

fun, but you wanna you wanna

57:01

walk out after every show and

57:03

go we executed our intentions

57:06

to their highest aspiration.

57:08

We we did the best we could with what

57:10

we were and and

57:12

and that's what we were always just

57:14

focused on. It was always just

57:18

making something we cared about as well as

57:20

we

57:20

could. And then trying to fix

57:22

what went wrong if we thought so

57:24

that the next day it would

57:26

be even better. And everybody was so

57:28

bought into that and it made the place

57:32

such incredible

57:36

hives of

57:38

creativity and

57:39

excitement in the building. Nothing was

57:42

better than the feeling in the

57:43

building. It was

57:45

outside the building that

57:46

nonsense like crossfire and all that other shit happened

57:49

in the building. That

57:51

that's where it was

57:54

that's what love.

58:00

After

58:05

you left, was there even, like, a millisecond

58:07

where you were, like, I

58:10

wish I

58:11

could go back? I mean,

58:14

you do that for such

58:15

a long time, and we'd evolved

58:17

it from, you know, if you

58:19

think about Dublin, in

58:21

nineteen ninety nine, you know, we were still editing in the

58:24

online room. Like, you're still editing in the

58:26

control room. Like, if you if you fuck up

58:28

a real, you gotta

58:30

start again Like, there's

58:32

no Avid, there's no,

58:34

you know, we didn't have a TiVo where

58:36

you could start to build montages from

58:38

all these various

58:40

sources. You

58:40

know, if you think about all the

58:43

changes that occurred, not just

58:45

informationally, but technologically through

58:48

those

58:49

years. The show evolves through that entire

58:52

process, but then

58:53

it gets to a

58:54

point where I don't know what else to

58:57

do with

58:58

it. And we're covering

58:59

a very redundant and poisonous news

59:02

cycle. You know, I

59:04

could

59:04

go back to two thousand and two thousand and four

59:06

and two thousand 2 eight.

59:08

And show of the

59:11

redundancy of democracies and

59:15

the redundancies of gas

59:18

lighting and all the various techniques and

59:20

tools that the government was using to

59:24

exercise there. And

59:26

the changes that we made in staffing and the changes

59:28

that we made in in all those different

59:30

areas 2 become more nimble

59:34

and diversified and stronger

59:36

and layered and focused and

59:38

have stronger point of

59:41

view. But I think I had

59:44

reached the peak of my ability to do that.

59:46

I just didn't know

59:50

I couldn't

59:50

I couldn't think of a way to make it better.

59:54

And when you work with

59:56

people that you respect so much,

1:00:00

and that you know are pouring everything into

1:00:02

2. You can't draw you

1:00:05

know, I you can't walk them down a blind

1:00:07

alley and then go this where

1:00:09

we're gonna live for the next five

1:00:10

years. Right. You just gotta go. I'm

1:00:13

not gonna stay here just because

1:00:15

I

1:00:15

can. I

1:00:16

think you're you're gonna have a better shot

1:00:18

with the next iteration, if I'm not here.

1:00:21

And and that's what happened.

1:00:23

Right? But that was

1:00:26

you know,

1:00:27

and I I think it just had to be done. I just

1:00:29

didn't know, you know, you know, you're you're

1:00:31

a a

1:00:31

prisoner inside your own brain

1:00:34

and and there's

1:00:36

only so many permutations that you

1:00:39

can achieve. And

1:00:41

so

1:00:44

with that, I was just gonna say not a lot of people would have

1:00:46

the self awareness and humility

1:00:48

though to realize that because it's a great

1:00:50

gig. You know,

1:00:51

can You're right. You know, I I

1:00:53

hadn't looked at it that way, but now that you

1:00:55

now that you've spun it so positively, I can't

1:00:57

help but

1:00:59

agree with

1:01:00

you. Most people would most

1:01:01

people would stay for the check as long as the camera

1:01:04

doesn't have red light goes

1:01:05

on. Yeah.

1:01:05

But, you know, I

1:01:07

Like, I we

1:01:07

know John. Yeah. We know. Because also, like,

1:01:10

the check had been so good. Like, I'd already made

1:01:12

way more money in my life than

1:01:14

I ever had a right to and would have dreamed of.

1:01:16

And my family was, you know, my

1:01:18

kids were gonna be seven and

1:01:20

it, like,

1:01:22

you know, I I think there are sometimes where you just gotta go

1:01:25

like, wow. Yeah. I

1:01:26

got I did it. I did it. And and --

1:01:28

Yeah. -- let me let me take the blessings

1:01:31

and put it in a wonderful

1:01:34

frame and head on back

1:01:36

to discover what the next adventures are

1:01:39

because it it didn't mean the end. It just meant the end

1:01:41

of that one thing. As

1:01:43

it turned

1:01:44

out your time, it was great, John. You you know,

1:01:46

what what a what a rough couple of years it's been, you

1:01:49

know, really interesting how

1:01:51

I

1:01:51

mean, that that might that

1:01:52

might have driven you to quit. Now

1:01:56

most people, I think, a lot of, you know, a lot of the industry, your your fans, your

1:01:58

viewers, I don't I don't think anybody really thought you

1:02:01

were going home after you left. I

1:02:03

knew a little better because, you know, you and I had had a lot of

1:02:06

discussions along the way. Mhmm. And, of course,

1:02:08

you did go home. I visited you once

1:02:10

a couple years ago down there on the farm. John knows

1:02:12

the names of all the pigs.

1:02:14

It's stunning. But

1:02:16

but now you're back with the

1:02:18

the problem with John Stewart just finished

1:02:20

season two. Congratulations. Thank you. So what what was

1:02:22

it that inspired you to get, you know,

1:02:24

back to a TV

1:02:26

show? One, I didn't have

1:02:27

to make a hundred and sixty up

1:02:29

in a year. That was a big deal. I

1:02:31

think what I

1:02:32

there's a

1:02:32

few things. You

1:02:33

know, one was I

1:02:36

I got 2 stand

1:02:38

up pitches. I got to scratch a film pitch. I

1:02:40

got to do some other things. I

1:02:42

love to work. I

1:02:44

love to make things

1:02:46

with people that I think are really

1:02:48

talented and funny and not

1:02:50

nice. And it's

1:02:52

a wonderful privilege

1:02:56

to be able to

1:02:58

2 have that environment.

1:03:02

And I love it. And I think,

1:03:04

you know, the daily show

1:03:06

felt for me ultimately very

1:03:12

insulated. I began to feel

1:03:13

like I was just

1:03:16

in kind of a you

1:03:19

know, a beautiful glass s

1:03:21

case and we sat in there

1:03:23

screaming and never realized

1:03:26

like, oh, you can get out

1:03:28

of

1:03:28

this. And

1:03:29

actually get your hands

1:03:32

dirty in the world.

1:03:34

And that that also can be fulfilling

1:03:36

and cathartic and and

1:03:39

you can touch the

1:03:41

things that your

1:03:43

impedidly raging about?

1:03:45

Well, you definitely clearly did that with

1:03:48

your support of the nine eleven first responders

1:03:50

and all your great work there. Well, so that was

1:03:52

the impetus of

1:03:53

this. You know, what is it was it

1:03:55

was a recognition that, oh,

1:03:57

there are millions of people every

1:03:59

day in

1:04:01

the trenches, fighting for

1:04:04

even the most incremental

1:04:07

change

1:04:08

or or, you

1:04:11

know, turf that can get them

1:04:13

closer to the world they'd rather be

1:04:15

living in. And what

1:04:18

I can sometimes provide for them is some

1:04:21

basic like air support because they're fighting

1:04:23

and toiling kind of

1:04:26

anonymously underground.

1:04:28

And so The

1:04:30

idea of this is to try and combine a

1:04:32

little bit of what I learned during the Daily Show with

1:04:34

a little bit of what I learned being down at

1:04:36

DC with a little bit of what I learned

1:04:38

hanging out with the

1:04:40

folks that are that that whose lives

1:04:42

are consumed with the day

1:04:44

to day of that kind of

1:04:45

activism. And and trying put

1:04:48

it together in a

1:04:50

a sort of

1:04:52

not just

1:04:55

a primer but to to create kind of a narrative arc

1:04:57

to sort of set the stage with a little

1:04:59

bit of the comedy to hear

1:05:01

from the stakeholders and then to go

1:05:03

to somebody who has some

1:05:06

agency within that

1:05:07

world. Right? Like an

1:05:09

arc. Right. And then

1:05:12

to create some kind

1:05:14

of support mechanism behind that so

1:05:17

that it doesn't die

1:05:19

in its presentation. Right. That

1:05:22

that's not the end.

1:05:24

Right. And so that that was the

1:05:26

impetus to try and

1:05:28

blend

1:05:29

vocation with inspiration,

1:05:30

with what I love, with

1:05:33

people that

1:05:34

I admire,

1:05:34

and and see if there was something to

1:05:37

create in in that.

1:05:39

If that makes sense.

1:05:41

Feels yeah. It makes a

1:05:42

lot and feels like you got a long way towards getting there.

1:05:44

Yeah. Well, you know, as

1:05:47

you know, sometimes, some shows some shows more than others, but

1:05:49

but, yeah, that's that's the beauty of

1:05:51

it. They can't all be diamonds. That that's what

1:05:53

I'm talking about,

1:05:56

baby. Are you most fun? god.

1:05:58

Is your fun

1:05:59

again? Yeah. The the staff

1:06:01

is fucking ridiculous.

1:06:05

Like -- Good. -- smart. Everybody you

1:06:07

said, you know, millennials. These

1:06:10

dudes are the

1:06:12

most hardworking just brilliant

1:06:15

but funny and then they'll

1:06:17

go out and everybody's wearing sequins and

1:06:19

just dance in the night. Like,

1:06:21

It's just a lovely group of people and

1:06:23

I in my usual fashion really

1:06:26

enjoy standing in

1:06:28

a

1:06:28

corner. Watching them with my hands

1:06:30

in my heart

1:06:30

because I I love it. It's like it's like Batman

1:06:33

and the Teen Titans.

1:06:37

you know,

1:06:38

Doug, I am not I am not one

1:06:40

for participation. Yeah.

1:06:42

Even when I

1:06:42

tell you about the punk clubs, like Oh, I say

1:06:44

all those MTV parties you've heard about Jen

1:06:47

John -- Yeah. -- he might have been there. I was there, but he

1:06:49

wasn't he wasn't having a great

1:06:50

time. Yeah. I was I was I was standing

1:06:52

back and I would just be like, wow.

1:06:55

Kenny

1:06:57

Kenny over. He can

1:06:59

really he can really put he can put him

1:07:02

back. He can he can take care

1:07:04

of things. He can he can dance

1:07:06

around.

1:07:06

Oh, yeah. Judy McGrath just broke her arm on the dance floor.

1:07:08

Oh, yeah. That's fucking Did she really?

1:07:11

Yeah. Yeah. Slipped

1:07:12

that literally slipped broke her. She would yeah.

1:07:14

Broker broke an ankle one time too. It's

1:07:16

yeah. We we

1:07:17

were on, like,

1:07:19

I don't know if it was, like, an indoor

1:07:21

speed skating rink. Like, it was we

1:07:23

were at this fucking it's, like, it's

1:07:25

a night club, but it's

1:07:27

also a rollerblading race course. Yeah. People are dancing

1:07:29

and then going over, like, motels. Like, it was the

1:07:32

fucking weirdest. It was the

1:07:34

weirdest time.

1:07:36

We

1:07:36

had a good we

1:07:37

had a good time. We had a very good time, but I'm not one

1:07:39

for good time. You don't?

1:07:40

Not your

1:07:40

thing. I enjoy I

1:07:41

enjoy the observation.

1:07:44

No. I I was just curious as far as the problem

1:07:46

with John Stewart, like, do you know if there's

1:07:48

going to be a season three? What's what's

1:07:50

the status of that? Never

1:07:52

know. You know. Okay. I don't

1:07:54

know if you know this, but Apple, they have

1:07:56

other products besides content. Do

1:07:58

that? Yeah. They have a whole other line. I'm not

1:08:00

privy to what's going on with it, but apparently, they have

1:08:03

something where you can put everything

1:08:05

you've ever listened to

1:08:07

into your pocket. I Oh my god. You should get them to do that.

1:08:09

You should get them to 2 that YouTube thing. Like, remember when they

1:08:11

put YouTube on every iPod. They should put your

1:08:14

show

1:08:14

on the iPhone they said. Because

1:08:17

Nothing made 2 two more popular and

1:08:19

beloved. That worked out well. It was the

1:08:19

best decision possible ever. Then

1:08:21

to show up

1:08:23

in everything that rocket. They

1:08:25

were all like, I don't like you too. What do I mean? Yeah. I I

1:08:28

hope that

1:08:32

we we we

1:08:33

do more. I like I like doing. So and and

1:08:35

I think I think it's good. So that that also it

1:08:38

is good that people

1:08:39

seem to like 2. If

1:08:42

it would if I felt like it was shitty, and the pride was not doing it.

1:08:45

1,

1:08:51

that's that's I I

1:08:53

will tell a great John

1:08:56

Stewart story, Bad.

1:08:58

John has a very high bar, and he's never gonna do

1:09:00

anything shitty. He's just he's got he he

1:09:02

he's the the work and the

1:09:05

quality work is to it was always paramount.

1:09:07

And John's production company once made a pilot

1:09:09

for Comedy Central, a scripted pilot

1:09:11

about minor league

1:09:13

Yes. And I can't remember

1:09:15

the name of it. But it

1:09:17

was --

1:09:18

Yeah. -- unwatchably awful to quote, what is 2 the chappell what

1:09:20

was the word he used on S

1:09:22

and L when he was describing? It

1:09:26

is absurd it was observably bad.

1:09:29

And we all

1:09:32

we all we

1:09:34

all were we all were We

1:09:36

we were John, of course, you know,

1:09:38

he's you know, John was John was the gentle ten thousand pound

1:09:40

gorilla, never really through

1:09:43

his weight around, but you know, he was,

1:09:45

you know, he was John Stewart, and he had the he was he

1:09:47

had this pilot, and we were, like, oh my

1:09:50

god. He was just,

1:09:52

like, of course, he's gonna want

1:09:54

us to put this fucking thing in

1:09:55

here. We were like, oh, fuck.

1:09:56

And we have

1:09:59

our little conference call and

1:10:01

John gets on the phone and God

1:10:03

bless

1:10:04

me,

1:10:04

goes. I wanna apologize. They

1:10:05

were like, I I

1:10:06

just wanna apologize. They're

1:10:07

like, pile

1:10:07

it. It's terrible. And

1:10:10

we're like,

1:10:11

oh my god. You remember that you

1:10:13

remember that one?

1:10:14

I do remember that one. The only other

1:10:16

time I threw away you might not remember

1:10:18

this this was the 1 was, like,

1:10:20

one of the worst times in the history of this show.

1:10:22

It was, do you remember during the writer's strike?

1:10:26

We

1:10:26

were trying I

1:10:29

was trying desperately to

1:10:31

get Comedy Central to do

1:10:33

the deal. That the writer's

1:10:36

guilt wanted. Yes. And

1:10:38

so I was making

1:10:41

Doug's life miserable.

1:10:44

I was calling I was calling who

1:10:46

was in

1:10:47

charge? I was calling everybody

1:10:49

I'm trying to

1:10:50

remember who it might have been still a woman named Joela West, if I can remember

1:10:52

correctly. She was at business

1:10:54

fairs for a long

1:10:56

time. I'm

1:10:58

beating the shit of

1:10:59

them. Yeah. Every day.

1:11:02

Doug, there's fairness here

1:11:05

and there's and Doug to his credit was always

1:11:07

like, John, we're trying. trying to move mountains it, but, you know, they wanna do they we don't like

1:11:09

to pay people, we don't wanna do and

1:11:12

they don't I

1:11:15

remember the do you remember the big word was precedent? We don't wanna set

1:11:17

a precedent, and we had gone through

1:11:20

this

1:11:22

a few years back first unionize. Comedy Central

1:11:24

wasn't 2. Cable back then was still

1:11:27

they would they would say, like,

1:11:29

it's not a business model

1:11:31

that you can unionize. Not a good

1:11:33

business model. And you're like, I think it

1:11:35

might be the best business model. But so what we did that

1:11:39

situation was, Doug finally got Viacom to

1:11:41

accept.

1:11:41

We weren't gonna do the

1:11:43

whole network, but he would

1:11:45

allow our show and Colberta

1:11:47

show to form

1:11:49

like a fake production. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. It's called a pass through. I think it was called.

1:11:51

We we already had a fake production company.

1:11:54

As a yellow doggy, and

1:11:57

and we created it

1:11:59

as a pass through. And so the Comedy Central could

1:12:01

do

1:12:02

a deal with the pass

1:12:04

through. And

1:12:06

still have plausible deniability that

1:12:08

wasn't the whole network. And

1:12:10

for the guild, they knew

1:12:13

that when those those dominoes fell, everything else was common. It it

1:12:15

was just gonna be months. And that's what happened. So -- That's right. -- we'd

1:12:17

already done this. Smash cut

1:12:19

to the writer's strike. I'm

1:12:23

on with

1:12:23

them. You mother you have to

1:12:25

do they are not asking for

1:12:28

anything.

1:12:28

We're trying. We're

1:12:29

trying to do the thing. And then it comes out

1:12:31

that letterman's company is gonna

1:12:34

get the deal. The

1:12:37

they've agreed to do it. Do

1:12:39

you remember this? Yeah. That

1:12:41

So I immediately get on them

1:12:43

and I'm fucking hammering with two weeks later. Doug do it. He

1:12:46

gets them

1:12:47

to agree that 2

1:12:51

can we'll accept the writers' guild deal

1:12:54

as is. We're gonna get

1:12:56

everybody back on the year. We

1:12:58

had this has

1:12:59

been, like, fucking

1:13:00

like, I got a hundred people, like, out

1:13:02

of work struggling, you know, you we

1:13:05

pay like, it's

1:13:08

getting ugly. Getting

1:13:10

up. He finally agrees

1:13:10

to

1:13:10

it. We're gonna do

1:13:11

it the same way we did it last time.

1:13:13

They're gonna agree

1:13:16

to

1:13:16

it. And

1:13:18

it's gonna go through our pass through. And

1:13:20

we're gonna get everybody

1:13:22

back on the air.

1:13:24

I call the writers deal. I 1,

1:13:26

like, beside myself. I go, guys, We did

1:13:28

it. We

1:13:29

got Comedy Central,

1:13:30

Doug and then they're gonna give

1:13:31

you exactly what

1:13:32

you want it. Same way we did

1:13:34

it a couple of years ago.

1:13:37

Just like the letterman deal. I'll never forget the guy goes,

1:13:39

yeah, no, we're not

1:13:43

gonna do that. And I go

1:13:45

I go. Say

1:13:46

that again. He goes, yeah,

1:13:47

Letterman, they

1:13:49

produce the show. You

1:13:51

don't produce the show. Your

1:13:54

your the company you've created is

1:13:56

a shell

1:13:57

company. It's not a real

1:13:59

production house. And I

1:14:01

go that I create

1:14:02

We created it for

1:14:04

you. You're the ones

1:14:06

who suggested it. We

1:14:09

did this to do the deal and never get

1:14:11

the guy says to

1:14:12

me. So I go so let

1:14:15

me get this straight.

1:14:16

The company

1:14:16

we created was good enough for you to

1:14:19

sign a deal with with Comedy Central to create

1:14:21

a unionized 2, but not

1:14:23

good enough now because

1:14:25

it's not a

1:14:27

real production

1:14:28

company. Is

1:14:28

that what you're telling me?

1:14:31

And the guy goes, it's a very biblical way of looking at it. It's

1:14:36

very rabbinical. And

1:14:38

I was like, I I don't I

1:14:40

don't know that I've ever been

1:14:42

madder. I you

1:14:42

know, I do remember I I'd you're

1:14:45

bringing it all back. I remember you're yeah.

1:14:47

You're chewing change. In in regards to the it changed after that. I but but

1:14:49

it was that went

1:14:50

that strike went on a long time.

1:14:54

Yeah. But to 2 cut like, look. We

1:14:56

were on opposite sides of the game,

1:14:58

but you were always incredibly gracious. You

1:15:00

were always incredibly open to ideas. That's

1:15:02

what I love about Doug like. We

1:15:05

could have those conversations. We might not agree, but

1:15:07

he was always like really opening to

1:15:12

listening to creative ideas to solve a problem, a

1:15:14

way he was not rigid in any way. He respected the people

1:15:18

that worked for him, he honored that, like, their creativity. Ask

1:15:20

the South Park guys same shit. Like --

1:15:22

Mhmm. -- always really I appreciate

1:15:26

that. To create date of problem solving. And the

1:15:28

funny part was when we finally got

1:15:30

it, I thought I was walking back

1:15:32

to the guild with, like, a golden

1:15:35

scepter. And they were like,

1:15:37

that's a Burger King

1:15:39

hat. Right? Oh, It was

1:15:42

honestly, Doug, I it may be the saddest I think I've ever been. Well, I can remember one or two times.

1:15:44

It

1:15:45

will save that

1:15:47

for another

1:15:48

podcast. We can but by

1:15:50

the way, I will say this guy, John. We rarely rarely rarely lost his temper. I

1:15:52

mean, almost never. Yeah. And what

1:15:54

he did, it was it was

1:15:58

was always for good reason. I will also say I never

1:16:00

and thank you for being

1:16:02

so gracious about my openness.

1:16:05

But the truth is never want an argument

1:16:07

with John Stewart. He 2 worried about the bakers.

1:16:09

Forget about a rabbi. Probably should have

1:16:11

been a lawyer because he never

1:16:13

lost a case No. But He's

1:16:15

that

1:16:15

good. Yeah. But but

1:16:16

thank you. Yeah.

1:16:17

But we we had some fun, Brandon. We had some

1:16:19

good times.

1:16:20

Yeah. We had some good times. That's for sure.

1:16:22

Alright, Jen. Take his home. Alright.

1:16:23

Now segueing into our last question that we asked

1:16:25

all

1:16:26

of our guests. Okay. Alright.

1:16:27

What aside

1:16:29

from obviously the wonderful

1:16:31

pilot that you wrote, and your

1:16:33

own, you know, other work. What

1:16:35

is your favorite basic cable show of all time? Wow.

1:16:39

Of all time.

1:16:40

Mhmm. Sure. You

1:16:41

can go back to the eighties. Does anyone have an answer for

1:16:43

this? Yes. No. Most people's well, no.

1:16:45

Most

1:16:46

people's answer is what's basic cable.

1:16:49

I'm not kidding. It's so depressing. I

1:16:51

mean, for me, it's it's

1:16:54

hard to be the

1:16:56

2. It's just

1:16:58

hard to be, you know But

1:17:00

you are involved in that one. So that's kind

1:17:02

of a cheat. Isn't

1:17:03

it? Yeah. But just Gotcha. No, John.

1:17:05

I'm gonna I'm gonna feed you one. Yeah.

1:17:07

I do remember going way back when

1:17:09

you and Tracy were fans of early fans of the

1:17:12

real world.

1:17:15

The real

1:17:15

world look let me tell you something about the real world as,

1:17:17

like,

1:17:17

fucked up as we wanna talk about

1:17:19

in terms of,

1:17:22

like, reality television or you know, and it got, like, once it got to

1:17:24

the 1, like, we're taking the

1:17:26

real world season one against, you

1:17:29

know, summer camp

1:17:32

season two, and we're gonna put them on

1:17:34

a mountain with no food. And we're gonna give one side pocket knives and the

1:17:37

other side will

1:17:40

have blocks. It's weak. Nobody knows what's gonna happen.

1:17:42

Like, once when it when it started getting

1:17:44

1 game y, that's when

1:17:46

shit kinda went off the rails.

1:17:49

But I can remember watching the real world and thinking

1:17:51

in a

1:17:55

crazy way this

1:17:58

is going to advance race relations and understanding about sexuality.

1:18:00

It's this I think

1:18:02

is actually going to be

1:18:07

a net positive

1:18:08

in an enormous way

1:18:10

culturally. It was the

1:18:12

simplest thing,

1:18:13

but it was like,

1:18:15

none know other. Yeah. And it's

1:18:17

going to be incredibly 2, but

1:18:20

what if we

1:18:22

got to know each other least each other

1:18:24

in that

1:18:25

pursuit. And I have

1:18:28

to say, 2, I

1:18:31

I think it it was a

1:18:33

real net positive. Certainly, the

1:18:35

early years.

1:18:38

The first three, four

1:18:39

-- Yeah. -- five seasons. Before it

1:18:41

really started going off on

1:18:43

the rails of of like I

1:18:45

say, like, before it got into 2 of the

1:18:47

fly. I 2 right. Mhmm.

1:18:50

And then it became

1:18:52

designed purely to provoke or to

1:18:54

do that. But in in those early years, I remember thinking, there's been nothing like this. And there's

1:18:57

a lot because

1:19:00

young people are more

1:19:02

open to this kind of observation. This is going to be seminal. And and and I think it was.

1:19:04

And I think it was.

1:19:06

And then on the flip side,

1:19:09

they had dating games that could have been called spring break date

1:19:11

rape. So other than that, you know, it I think

1:19:13

that was an actual show. Didn't

1:19:16

get it.

1:19:19

It was the yin'ang. Yeah. It was

1:19:21

But, boy, you know, MTV had

1:19:23

this great you know, we we used

1:19:25

to try and use our superpowers. For good whenever we could, but

1:19:27

you couldn't make a business out of that. So you gotta you gotta

1:19:30

do some of that other stuff. Right. That was always my

1:19:32

favorite stuff with

1:19:32

Doug. Like, every now to get you

1:19:34

be 2, John, it's a business. No.

1:19:37

It's I used to say, like, why are we doing

1:19:39

this, Doug? It's a business. Yeah. That

1:19:41

that was a

1:19:43

they have that was the famous trigger

1:19:46

for you. That was always that was always my trigger when Doug used

1:19:47

to hit me with that in the conversation. Go 2.

1:19:52

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's and

1:19:54

that's for the next

1:19:55

podcast. John Stewart, you are a great gentleman to be here in Genesis.

1:19:58

2 pleasure. Rilled.

1:20:00

To have you --

1:20:01

Yeah. It was really -- lovely lovely to talk to you guys. Yeah. And thank you for being

1:20:03

so generous with your time. We we really appreciate it. And I

1:20:05

hope to see you in twenty three, John.

1:20:07

I miss you,

1:20:10

I miss you too. I'm incredibly busy and

1:20:12

have lots of

1:20:13

matter of fact, I have hold

1:20:16

on. Hold my calls.

1:20:18

So, you know, the

1:20:20

Daily Show as we've

1:20:22

talked about was just

1:20:24

such a huge phenomenon

1:20:26

really on cable television under

1:20:29

John's tenure. And what's interesting

1:20:31

about it to 2, one

1:20:33

of many things, is is a degree

1:20:35

to which it started to play a real role

1:20:37

in politics. You know, he talked about

1:20:39

that moment with Steve Carell

1:20:41

and John McCain on on McCain's bus back in what two

1:20:43

thousand, I guess it was. But it it it's amazing

1:20:46

that, you know, obviously, it's a comedy show, but

1:20:48

it became a

1:20:50

place that you know, if you're running for office, you should be

1:20:52

on the daily show because as much as

1:20:54

you should be on, like, meet the press.

1:20:56

Like, it became a place that you wanted to

1:20:59

talk because that's where a lot of young people would go to get

1:21:01

their

1:21:01

news, honestly. No, it really

1:21:03

mattered in that regard.

1:21:05

And and politicians and

1:21:08

policymakers would come on the show

1:21:10

to 2 of float ideas and different things that

1:21:13

they were working on or

1:21:15

or had been working on it. And it became a real place for conversation and

1:21:18

a real place to influence people. The

1:21:20

other

1:21:21

thing it became, and we didn't talk about this

1:21:23

much. But I my book came out talking to a publisher's assignment in

1:21:25

Schuster, and I was like, what are the most

1:21:28

important places to get

1:21:30

your 2, like, highlighted? And

1:21:32

she at NPR and The Daily

1:21:34

Show. And -- Yeah. -- under John, like, they

1:21:35

really did have authors on a lot talking about, like,

1:21:39

you know, serious intellectual issues. So to you know, it was a comedy

1:21:41

for sure, but there was really some

1:21:43

thoughtful discourse going on there. And and

1:21:45

-- Yes. -- still has been under

1:21:47

Trevor as well.

1:21:49

Yeah, became a big place for authors.

1:21:51

And and and and the most, you know, sort of wonky kind of subjects, which I think prior to that, you

1:21:53

know, nobody was talking about

1:21:56

on on cable

1:21:59

television. That was probably, you know, relegated to public television. Mhmm. And he

1:22:01

and he made it work, you know. We

1:22:04

didn't ask him about this

1:22:06

as a little daily show anecdote.

1:22:08

I got a call from John and I was trying to be I

1:22:10

the best time to talk to John was always after the show. And so

1:22:13

I would I'd usually call

1:22:15

him, you know, around seven o'clock,

1:22:17

seven thirty, he would still be the office. And one night he picks up the phone and

1:22:19

he goes, hey man, you know where I was today? I go, well, he did the

1:22:21

show. Right? He said, yeah. He goes, but you know

1:22:23

where I was? During

1:22:27

the day? No. He said, let's

1:22:29

dump the White House talking to

1:22:31

Barack Obama. And, you know, he

1:22:33

had just been summoned, like, obama just wanted

1:22:35

to meet him and get into his head a little bit and

1:22:37

hang

1:22:38

2. You know, this was, like, think, during his first term.

1:22:41

And So they

1:22:42

didn't film this. It was John going there Oh, no. This was no. This was this this was this was Obama

1:22:44

just saying, hey, man, I'd like to love to meet

1:22:46

you and talk to you. Wow. And that's how

1:22:49

that's how important and

1:22:51

influential and

1:22:52

central. John Woes to the conversation, I

1:22:54

think, in those days. Howard Bauchner: That's incredible. Do you know what

1:22:55

they talked about? Howard

1:22:55

Bauchner: You know, he he 2 I

1:22:58

mean, this goes back a long

1:23:00

time. Remember him telling me

1:23:02

nothing of course that I that I can remember. But but I just, you know, like, he was on

1:23:04

a jet and sent

1:23:07

down the White House and

1:23:09

spent the morning, you know, in the Oval Office, talk to the or or right outside the

1:23:11

Oval Office, he said in his other room, tell you a little conference room, talk to the president, and

1:23:13

then you put him on a jet and send him back to New York

1:23:15

so you can do the

1:23:16

show. 2, you

1:23:19

know, he was John Stewart. Yeah. I mean, 2

1:23:21

well, it speaks to, as you said, the significance

1:23:24

of the Daily Show and and of John

1:23:26

at that time, It also speaks to how savvy Barack Obama

1:23:28

was in terms of pop

1:23:29

culture. Like, he was

1:23:31

he got it better

1:23:32

than any president in my lifetime. That's for

1:23:34

sure. No offense to Bill Clinton.

1:23:36

And look, John's back on TV and we got to hear

1:23:38

a little bit about that, but boy, what a legacy

1:23:41

for the Daily Show and John Stewart and

1:23:43

and what he built there, and 2

1:23:47

only the people, you know, great people in front of the

1:23:49

camera, the correspondence which you talked about, but you know,

1:23:51

tremendous people behind the camera 2,

1:23:53

great producers and writers. And It's quite a

1:23:55

team. It's quite a

1:23:55

team and

1:23:55

quite an operation. Absolutely. Well, we

1:23:57

were really pleased to have John.

1:23:59

He 2 he's one of

1:24:01

our dream guests was on the list for basic from

1:24:03

the day we decided we wanted to do

1:24:05

the

1:24:05

show. We hope you enjoyed both parts,

1:24:08

and we hope you'll be back

1:24:10

next week. So from me

1:24:11

and Jen. Thanks. Basic is a Pantheon

1:24:13

media production in partnership with SiriusXM. Hosted by Jen

1:24:16

Cheney and

1:24:19

Doug Herzog. Produced by

1:24:19

Christian Swain and Peter Ferrioli. Lindley Erlick

1:24:22

is our assistant

1:24:23

producer. Sound design and music

1:24:25

by Jerry Daniels. Mixed and

1:24:27

mastered by Brian Slusher. Recorded

1:24:29

and edited by Zach Schwissner. You can find basic on Apple Podcasts, the

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