Awesome.
And John Oliver is better at being Jon Stewart than Jon Stewart ever was.
It’s the accent.
"I think my accent became a persona in and of itself, in its – I think deep down, Americans still can’t help but respect the British accents. I think it’s something latent in your history, in our history. You still can’t help but respect the authority of this voice.” ~ John Oliver quoted in Salon
Not for me. I mostly appreciate how much quicker Oliver’s delivery is. He spends less time mugging, and sort of, lapping up applause. Oliver makes Stewart, who spent a lot of time drawing attention to himself, look a bit egotistical.
I just hope he manages to escape to a Resistance safe house before the Goldshirts come to kick his door down at 4am a couple of years from now
I was mostly joking, though I do enjoy how Oliver is conscious of the effect his accent has, and that he’s skilled at using it for that effect. But yeah, I love Stewart but - and this is with the caveat that I don’t really know him, just his public persona - I do agree he seems to have a big ego, albeit with a healthy dose of self-deprecating self-awareness. Mind you I don’t think that’s a particularly damning character flaw, but it does make his style less adroit. I think the comedy of Stewart and Colbert is as much about drawing attention to their personalities as it is about the jokes. It’s not a bad style, just different from Oliver. I agree that Oliver (and Colbert) seem much faster on the mic. I wonder how much that’s the age difference and how much it’s natural wittiness. Oliver does seem more rehearsed (not in a bad way, but in a practice makes perfect way) than Stewart or Colbert who seem more to wing it.
Gawds, now I feel really old. I remember when The Daily Show was Craig Kilborn!
“Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci
Samantha Bee, too. I think only doing one show a week helps enormously to concentrate and improve the Jon Stewartness.
I agree with all of that. And I don’t mean to discount the “automatically higher IQ effect for Americans” of an English accent. I agree with Oliver on that too, though I hope it’s not true for me, as I do see other things he just does better than Stewart did. Ah, shit, who am I kidding? I think it actually is true for me too. Monty Python, for instance, would probably have struck me as less clever if Americans were doing those same skits and bits. Eddie Izzard too.
He just sounds like that guy down the pub to me.
I liked TDS a lot, but I think a weekly format allows for better writing and research, and that probably helps.
Seems a bit unfair to me that the US gets John Oliver, while the UK gets Matt LeBlanc.
(although they also get Rich Hall and Reg D Hunter, and they’re pretty good).
Oliver and the other Daily Show alumns also had the benefit of coming up in the best satirical news school in history, namely the team Stewart was instrumental in building, so maybe that gave them an advantage over Stewart himself.
John Oliver is willing to actually take sides…
Yes, Stewart was clearly on the left, but he also stuck closer to the center than Oliver does. And his targets tended to be easier, more obvious ones. I think even Stewart himself got sick and tired of pointing out how ridiculous FOX News is.
I don’t know about “hits Trump hard” - they actually seemed to leave a lot of the best material on the table. I imagine Trump will respond to that the same way he responds to everyone else. Maybe they’re saving the best stuff for a second segment when/if Trump gets the nomination and its closer to election day?
The problem is, and Oliver acknowledges this obliquely, that Trump and his supporters feed off the bad press and negativity. I’m not sure it even has anything to do with being anti-establishment. Watching him troll Rubio… that kind of behaviour will make people ignore everything else. It’s damn funny. The biggest miscalculation among the other nominees is that they waited too long to join him in the dirt. Instead of coming off as charismatic themselves, they look unnatural and awkward.
“The uploader has not made this video available in your country.”
#ForeignDevil
#foreigndevil
Start with a backslash.
What sorcery is this?
Ah-ha! Original post fixed. Thank you.
#bbsmagicsavesthedayagain
I’m gonna disagree SLIGHTLY. He’s a little too fond of punchline->expounding-on-punchline for my tastes, while Stewart would do the out-of-character-response-to-gag bit only once in a little while. (Oliver has done his thing multiple times in one long-form piece.) Don’t get me wrong - I love Oliver’s work, but that one particular tic bugs me.
On the flip side, Oliver’s delivery on this particular piece was damn near FLAWLESS.
$17.50 is a bit steep… But still …
