If I Could Tell Just One Thing to Jon Stewart ...

After a long, intensive career in broadcasting, I went cold turkey on the medium and stopped watching television, except for news, football, and a few select programs. One of the select of the select, the only series on my DVR, is The Daily Show . Its appeal:

• Format: Pure television, rather than televised radio
• Intelligence level: Adult, rather than talking down to the audience
• Expression: Both sacred and profane, rather than bland pap
• Timeliness: Current, rather than designed for re-runs
• Point of view: Innovative, rather imitative

And, of course, Jon Stewart, the star and spirit behind the series, whose talent (and, frequently his humor) is over the top. I'm addicted to the show.

Yet, if I could offer one piece of advice to Jon, it would be to do more listening to his guests during interviews, and less interrupting. Jon's illustrious predecessor, Johnny Carson, the king of late night television, got as many laughs per minute as does Jon, but Johnny drew more out of his guests. The king's approach: listening and reacting; and his reaction, more often than not, was a silent mug.

Jon Stewart's rubbery face can mug with the best of them. His repertory of facial expressions is as broad as that of Red Skelton or Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. If you think about it, the comic talent of those classic clowns was as much in what they did, as in what they said. Silence is golden.

In an ironic twist of that aphorism, Jon Stewart took golden advantage of Barack Obama's silences. The president, as he often does in unscripted presentations, paused repeatedly before and during his thoughtful answers in a recent press conference. The Daily Show's video editors created two sequences that lampooned the president's pauses. One in which Stewart shouted counterpoint gags in the pauses, and another in which the editors strung together multiple pauses to make Obama appear halting and uncertain.

Jon Stewart's interruptions work for comedic purposes, but not in interviews.
Listen and react. It worked for Johnny Carson; it can work for Jon Stewart.

Comments

[SpencerCat]

Oh yes, I totally agree with this. I love Jon Stewart, but so many times he talks over his guests with "funny" lines and obliterates the point they were making. I preferred his interviews during the writers' strike, when he was forced to actually have a real conversation with the guest rather than waiting for an opportunity to throw in a scripted joke.

[Holypat777]

Kids In the Hall rule !(or ruled!) I consider myself a Cerebral American, actually. I've been emersed in American culture all my life (Specifically music!)

I wish I'd get adopted by a nice American family. I can cook, clean and say "please". And I can also play the Star Spangled Banner (à la Jimi Hendrix, though.)

What's Angelina Jolie's number?

[RexOzone]

He ain't no Steve Colbert. They don't even see him comin'.

[bubbesattva]

Though I can see where you're coming from on this, I believe that the way Jon conducts interviews is perfectly fine, because that's his style. That's how he interviews people: never backing down on a subject he's interested in, firing off responses much more quickly than in the sedentary interviews Jon's guests usually get elsewhere, and Jon does this to get gut answers from a person who may not have queued-up talking-points answers. And yes, to be fair, he has a shorter amount of time in which to talk than other TV personalities do, so much of his questions are designed to get a laugh instead of a long response.

Personally, I'm usually more interested in what Jon has to say about a certain subject and the guest is just there to prompt his opinions. You can tell which guests he respects the most by how much time he gives them to answer his questions, and those are the guests I want to hear the most from anyway, so it's a good system. For example, whenever Neil DeGrasse Tyson comes on, Jon will sit back and let him explain everything, and Jon knows the interview is better for it because he knows Neil has something genuinely interesting to say. Some other guests, not so much.

[radiclib]

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Exactly.
And Colbert also could be a better listener/i­nterviewer­, although he is improving.
Jon has to get the ``Joe Scarborough'' syndrome out of his system.
Jon will learn ----- and Joe won't, ever ----- that, sometimes, the guest is more interesting than the host and the host can dance with the guest without leading all the time and stepping on his partner's foot.
.
.

[dadw5boys]

,Yeah Jon will blow off those whose books blow.

He blew off Mc Cain after John Mc Cain made his 11 th visit to the show in less than a year to sell a book. Jon was not going to be a Republican launching pad for Mc Cain.

Remember Jon said " Buy Senators Mc Cain book in book stores now or don't he will have another one out in about 3 weeks. "

Mc Cain never came back in the show.

[walk0nwalls]

I don't know, I think Jon's timing is down good. It's a different rhythm but it still works.

I think Lettermen has a bit of Carson's rhythm.

[ohioan73]

I'm old enough to remember Carson (miss him) and also the pace of the world in those days. Things were a bit slower, there were less commercials and fewer TV channels. Nowadays, show hosts must keep up with the rhythm of the information era and be exciting enough to hold the attention of people with less time and more choices and a diminished attention span.

[MisterChaz]

ABSOLUTELY agree 100%! Jon is a God in this house, yet his only real flaw to me is his occasional running monologue on top of an interview guest. Sometimes the guest gets in 20% verbage to Jon's 80%. That is not an interview. If he is harranguing a bad guy or swatting down b.s. talking points I don't mind, I rather enjoy it. But even a neutral guest gets stepped on sometimes.

Jon has to do what he does best and I wouldn't presume to critique him...except for this one point. It has bothered me for awhile now, and seeing someone else notice it makes it clear I am not just being odd.

[Holypat777]

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are the saviours of television (American, that is. I'm in Canada and we're pretty much hopeless, except for news! You want really bad TV? Check out Corner Gas. Eeesh!)

I will say we're lucky we don't get Fox 1(we get Fox 2) So my only issue is I've never actually heard any of Colmes or Hannity or the other people he talks about on his show.

But (and finally to the point) News as such is depressing. I can't stand it because it's always about someone getting killed or other horrors, it's nice to have a guy make jokes around serious topics. Perhaps in a few years he will get credit for revolutionizing TV News.

Go Jon!!! Go Mr. Colbert!!

[ohioan73]

I tried to watch that Corner Gas show once after my Canadian buddy told me about it. I almost fell asleep the first three minutes. What a bizarre format. Maybe you were adopted from an American family because apparently Canadians love that dern show.

Kids in the Hall? I can totally relate. I still "squish people's heads" when I'm at a high vantage point. :D

[IndependentTogether]

I think that is a fair criticism. However, Jon does have a much more compact show that Johnny Carson's. There is much less time for interviews, so he has to pack as much as possible into a smaller space.

Chis Mattews -- now that's one annoying interrupter. He just love the sound of his own voice, and yet he has the most inane things to say, at times.