- Jon Stewart never clapped during the intro to the show, leading into or out of a commercial break. All of the new guest hosts clap for themselves, at the beginning of the show, leading into a commercial break, or at the end.
I think it’s weird to be clapping from the desk. The Daily Show has a dedicated hype man; he’s a comedian in his own right, and has been there for 20+ years encouraging the audience to clap. Clapping for yourself is weird, and it makes me feel awkward, and I don’t like it when the hosts do it for themselves.
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With the exception of Klepper–who isn’t even a fulltime correspondent anymore–there is nobody in front of the camera who extends back to the days of Jon Stewart. The cast is now entirely of a new generation, with Hasan & Klepper being the last correspondents to join under Stewart.
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The unofficial, self-described, standard of new correspondents joining after 2005 was to always do their best Colbert impression. You can find new correspondents saying in interviews, about being nervous, “I knew I had to get out there and just do my best Colbert impression” (in style, not in actual mimicry).
This is not meant to be mean, I but I have no idea what the recruiter saw in Grace Kuhlenschmidt during her audition. I don’t see anything funny about her delivery, style, or persona. She doesn’t strike me as being a comedian, or having a good grasp of the straight man delivery needed to be a correspondent.
With the exception of Jaboukie Young-White, Grace is the only other correspondent who I haven’t liked since first watching The Daily Show 25 years ago. For everyone else, I liked them. I didn’t like Troy Iwata for his first piece, but I thought he did a better job in his second piece. (Jaboukie, by the way, never had a sendoff like all the other correspondents. He just stopped appearing, and then months later it was revealed that he was no longer a correspondent. There must be some drama surrounding him leaving.)
Grace isn’t a good fit. I get that TDS needed a new correspondent after Roy quit, or because of the rumored impending departure of Dulce Sloan, but I don’t see how that person is Grace. How could it be that after scouring the comedy clubs, or asking for audition tapes, Grace was the best they found?
There are quite a few parallels between Jaboukie and Grace
They’re both mid 90s babies Jaboukie was born ‘94 Grace in ‘95
They’re both gay.
They both started their careers in Chicago’s standup scene before moving to New York
They both built relatively big followings on Twitter. Jaboukie for his tweets and Grace for her solo comedy sketches.
As a current Gen Z member of Chicago’s comedy scene (obviously nowhere near their level of success) I think Gen Z is less interested in skewering the behavior of corrupt politicians and more inclined to look inward and skewer the kind of people who fuel the culture that keeps electing corrupt politicians in the first place.
Grace’s piece she did about paying Beyoncé $500,000 to spit on her isn’t a take down of any politician it’s more a takedown of the average American and their vapid obsession with celebrity culture.
Thanks for the comparison.
I might just not be a fan of Gen Z humor. I remember reading a comment here on reddit from a Gen Z’er breaking down how they saw the differences in generational comedy. When they were describing what Gen Z kids found funny, I thought “That doesn’t sound like comedy, that doesn’t even sound funny”.
Generations change, and no future generation is obligated to understand what previous generations found funny. I don’t like Benny Hill-style comedy, even though that was top notch for its time.