Posted on 02/01/2006 8:52:40 PM PST by LdSentinal
Tinseltown insiders will be buzzing today about who was, or was not, nominated for an Academy Award. Me, I'll still wondering why Jon Stewart was selected to host the Oscarcast March 5 on ABC in the first place.
Try as I might - and trust me, I've tried - I just don't get Stewart. I don't think he's all that funny and he's vastly overrated.
I realize he's gotten loads of critical acclaim. And I understand my lack of appreciation for Stewart & Co. is sacrilege in TV circles.
That's because many of my colleagues fawn over Stewart. A year ago, the Television Critics Association awarded his Comedy Central faux-news program, "The Daily Show," the best newscast.
Yet watching "The Daily Show" for me is like being on the outside of an inside joke. The audience cheers wildly and laughs like hyenas at every Stewart line.
It's during these moments, when I'm missing Stewart's appeal, that I realize I'm not alone. A lot of people are feeling the same way.
Take a look at the Nielsen figures for the show, and the numbers are startling. This supposedly terrific program, with its high hipness factor - people actually say they get their only news from "The Daily Show" - is averaging 1.3 million viewers in January, most of them men between the ages of 18 and 49. During November, the political high season in which Stewart and his cohorts supposedly thrive, the show averaged 1.45 million viewers.
For comparison, Nielsen estimates there are 218 million people over the age of 18 in the nation's 112 million homes with televisions.
That's a lot of people not getting Stewart's comedy.
Now, before the legions of Stewartites start bellyaching that the show airs on Comedy Central, so the numbers are going to be smaller, stop. Comedy Central is in 88 million homes, so it's well-distributed.
What's more, Stewart gets amazing press for his work - a level far outstripping his reach - so even if people aren't watching, they've heard about him.
But that's the point.
Stewart's appeal - at least from what's on Comedy Central - is limited at best. He's playing to a small crowd, just like many of the other critically acclaimed phenoms dotting the pop-culture landscape.
There's the rub.
Stewart is being given the reins of the biggest entertainment program in history - the Academy Awards. An estimated 42.1 million people watched the show last year. It's a show that's often referred to as the Super Bowl for women, a group that watches Stewart in far lower numbers than men do.
"One of the benefits of having a person who is a standup comic," said longtime Oscar producer Gil Cates told the Daily News when the deal was announced, "is they can deal with the unexpected, with the surprising.
"When you think of the Oscars, most of the things you remember were not prepared by the producer."
It would help, though, if they started with someone funny, who maybe spoke to the masses than to a small group of people pretending to be in on the joke.
I don't care who they use. I'm not watching.
I think Jon used to be funny. Once he became popular, however, it freed up his obsession with the notion that "Republicans are evil". He constantly rips on Cheney and Bush, and does a token joke on the worst of democrats (Dean, Kennedy, etc). He is fiercely liberal and plays ONLY to an audience that will guffaw at every recycled joke and "give him props" for his role in the movie "Half Baked". America elects Republicans, Hollywood elects Democrats... Makes you wish for Billy Crystal!
I stopped watching the daily show when craig kilborn left.
"I stopped watching the daily show when craig kilborn left."
Me too. I used to love "God Stuff" and the "5 questions". Now its all "Bush SUCKS..." with the occasional "isn't this democrat a hoot?" thrown in to make it seem balanced.
Jon Stewart is extremely funny, charismatic and smart, and its actually a shame that he's got his head stuck so far up his ass.
It'll be low rated and they'll try to suck in Billy Crystal again next year, who will decline because he sees the Titanic sinking yet again.
At least Stewart is a little (only slightly) more interesting than the incomprehensibly (for me) popular but very bland and boring Carson Daly. Zero personality, zero brains.
They gave this to Stewart because no one is watching.
For the 40th consecutive year, I'm not waiting 2 hours of my life watching that crap. They could shrink the whole show down to 5 minutes maybe I would sit through it but it would be a crap shoot each year. And there is no way I would watch it this year considering that it is going to be a queer festival
Jimmy Carter just said to Larry King, about Iranian nukes, "All I know is what I see on your show, and the Daily Show, and you know...other programs."
Heh, yep. Never seen it. Never missed not seeing it. I suppose that could change but I don't see how.
Great minds think alike. I never missed the Daily Show with Kilborn. Now, I really do miss the Daily Show, because it's gone, having been replaced with the "Daily Leftist Screed Show." And wtf is supposed to be different about the Colbert Report? Not funny at all.
...probably not "Best Actress" though, with Gyllenhaal and Ledger to choose from, it'll probably get at least four nominations in that category alone...
I was in the car and heard Jimmah Cahtah's voice and immediately turned it off. He didn't really say that, did he?
Jimmah said it jokingly with just a hint of a chuckle, but yes.
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