Colbert Report Vs. The Daily Show

I forget the last time I watched The Daily Show, but it was a while ago. I had watched it, even by then, for a long time. I'd watched it since before there was a live studio audience. I watched it when Killborne was on. It was part of my after school routine, and almost always had a laugh or two in store. Stewart was a pretty funny guy, and the show's correspondents were almost always excellent (Colbert and Carrel got their starts there). Then, one day, I noticed that the show just wasn't funny anymore.

For one thing, it had become entirely politically oriented now. Back in the day, you could count on some entertainment jabs - a lot of which were sorely needed. It was all Bush (and McCain and Kerry and Rice and Cheney) and the audience didn't laugh as much as they seemed to break into applause and cheering. And why not? The United States was fairly anxious about many things political. The Daily Show answered the call to make jokes where jokes were now most needed.

But after a while it just didn't seem to be about the jokes anymore. Oh, there were jokes on display, yes, but not in the traditional sense. The point was not to make you laugh so much as it was to say what any number of left pundits were saying, in a round about way. The Daily Show no longer seemed anxiously humorous, but intently antagonistic. It stood for something now, and the audience had understood that, and Stewart knew it. You could see that he knew it.

You still can. The audience is always, always 100% on Stewart's side, not ready to be entertained so much as they are ready to rally. They know what the game is, and anytime the host comes even relatively close to a criticism of the right, they roar and applaud. Somewhere way in the back, they laugh a little. Stewart once went on cross-fire and attacked it for being a fake debate show. Daily has become a fake comedy show. Stewart knows his audience is dieing to cheer for his every jab, and yet appears to believe we don't. It gets tedius. It breeds lazy comedy (count how many times in a week Stewart performs mock-urban response to something).

So it's funny that the man who was born of Stewart's show and has blown right by him in popularity has remained so funny. Everyone loves Colbert. Everyone, and the man still writes tons of jokes. Are a lot of them aimed at the right? Sure; Colbert is on the left and his humor is going to be biased a bit, but the thing is that it's still funny. It channel's our sense of absurdity, not our sense of rhetoric. It allows, if anything, for us to be united in laughter, even if we return to our opinions shortly after. It's a really good show.

And it's such a bigger effort that Daily. Everything about it is more ambitious. The segments change. Gags that might sustain whole weeks of a lesser program are one off's on Colbert - fitting the purpose at hand. It has a heart and a mind and it genuinely means well. Colbert himself filmed a number of shows from Iraq last year as form of entertainment for the troops. He shaved his head. He's on the left, but he's not blinded by it, and that's important.

Stewart has, to be fair, jabbed at Obama now and then. He is not the left's answer to Glenn Beck and he can often seem a decent guy. His address to the Daily Show audience after September 11th was flooring and sincere. But he's getting on. He and the show seem comfortable in what they know and all too proud that they know it. I don't tune in, not because I disagree with their platforms, but because I know exactly what I'll be getting, every time. I don't know what will be on Colbert tonight, but it'll be energetic, inventive, and most of all funny. With all the bias in this world, we need all the funny we can get.


By Dave Beauchene