Chris Smith (29)

This book was a lot of fun!

It seems like everyone that was ever part of the show as far as on-air personalities or behind the scenes people were interviewed here. However, many of the guests-friendly to the show or not, were also interviewed, which made the book all the more interesting.

I learned a lot about the dynamics of the show and how it worked. I learned about who was not happy there and who was. I learned that Jon Stewart paid people out of his own pocket for as long as he could when the writers went on strike. I learned that Jon really cared about the people he worked with, and he deeply cared about some causes-like obtaining health care for 9/11 rescuers.

I learned all of this and plenty more, laughing all the while. I enjoyed hearing what John McCain felt when interviewed, (at times friendly interviews, at others-not so much). Anthony Weiner, Hillary Clinton and many others were also interviewed-all very absorbing.

This book didn't present only one side, but it did mostly slant towards loving Jon Stewart, and since I already did that, now I love and respect him even more. I'm not sure if the book started out to deify Jon, or if it was just because he's actually a good man- so what everyone had to say about him was mostly positive.

What I disliked about this audio book is that actors do all the voices. First, that was hard to get used to. Second, since all of these former employees, guests, and comedians were interviewed for this book already, wasn't there a way to get their permissions to use their actual voices instead of actors?

The Daily Show: An Oral History was hilarious and I learned a lot. I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about the show.

*Thanks to my awesome local library for the audiobook loan.*… (mehr)

A readable, nostalgic account of The Daily Show, focusing on its prime years when Jon Stewart was at the helm. (A quick google shows me that apparently viewership has increased under Trevor Noah, though that seems counter-intuitive to me. Is it anything like the cultural touchstone it once was? Even Last Week Tonight clips seem far more likely to go at least low-key viral than anything produced by TDS in the last few years, though maybe this perception is just a side-effect of me now being Old.) It was nice to revisit some well-known sketches/bits and to learn just what went into making them.

That said, while Chris Smith—who assembled the frame narrative around the lengthy interview excerpts—and the interviewees themselves were upfront about the moments of tension and conflict that peppered the show's run, The Daily Show: An Oral History does still read as slightly sanitised. I wasn't looking for a take down of Jon Stewart, but there wasn't enough distance provided here to really grapple with the show's issues with race and gender over the years. I found the section dealing with the infamous Jezebel article to be quite frustrating, for instance, particularly coming after recounting anecdotes about how male correspondents would, earlier in the show's run, kiss or grope women as part of a bit. There's clearly stuff to grapple with here that goes far beyond "some women on an internet site were unfair to the show", and perhaps in the future others will take the raw fodder presented here and do something more insightful with it.… (mehr)