My Salute to Jon Stewart

Friends,

If you are in need of a good laugh and a reminder that there is someone on Comedy Central once a week (usually Monday night at 11pmET) who feels our pain and has been a force for good for nearly 30 years — I hope you’ve been watching the return of Jon Stewart to The Daily Show since February. He is pulling no punches. He is saying what many are afraid to say, and his cast and writers are on fire, just when we need them the most.

What I admire greatly is that he has been almost a lone voice on television in standing up, fearlessly, with his brutal humor and satire, and placing himself squarely on the side of the tens of thousands of civilians who have been slaughtered in Gaza — and the hundreds of thousands more who are facing imminent death by being purposely denied food, water, shelter, and medical care.

I have known Jon since 1994. In his youth he had a cool show on MTV. He was that New Jersey guy. Funny. Edgy. Not political. I had just begun my series “TV Nation” on NBC, a weekly show of political satire that won the Emmy its first year on the air. One of my castmates was Janeane Garofalo. She and Jon were friends, and she would occasionally bring him on one of our shoots or invite him to one of our wrap parties. We all loved having him there. And he LOVED watching us mix comedy with politics in a way that seemed we would surely be removed from the network. And of course we got to see the early wheels of his genius spinning in his head as he offered his comments, his questions, his Jersey laugh. A couple years later he was offered The Daily Show.

I thought for today’s Substack I would share with you some of my favorite clips from his recent return to Comedy Central, ones that specifically focus on Israel and Palestine.

First up is from the closing night of the Democratic Convention:

This was Jon, right after he returned in February:

And here, six months into the slaughter:

Finally, in May, after Biden held up an arms shipment to Israel:

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