Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz on November 28, 1962) is an American political satirist, television host, actor and stand-up comedian. He is best known as the host of The Daily Show, a satirical news program airing on Comedy Central.

Stewart started as a stand-up comedian but later branched out to television, hosting Short Attention Span Theater for Comedy Central. He went on to host his own show on MTV, called The Jon Stewart Show, and then hosted another show on MTV called You Wrote It, You Watch It. He has also had several film roles as an actor. Stewart became the host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central in early 1999. He is also a writer and co-producer of the show. After Stewart joined, The Daily Show steadily gained popularity and critical acclaim leading to his first Emmy Award in 2001.

Stewart himself has also gained significant acclaim among some viewers as an acerbic satirical critic of the Bush administration and of personality-driven media shows, in particular the coverage of the U.S. news media networks CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. Critics say Stewart benefits from a double standard: he critiques other news shows from the safe, removed position of his "fake news" desk. Stewart himself agrees, countering that neither his show nor his channel purports to be anything other than satire and comedy. In spite of its self-professed entertainment mandate, The Daily Show has been nominated for a number of news and journalism awards. Stewart hosted the 78th Academy Awards and the 80th Academy Awards. He is the co-author of America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, which was one of the best-selling books in the U.S in 2004.

Personal background
Jon Stewart was born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz in New York City to a Jewish family and grew up in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, where he attended Lawrence High School. His mother named Marian, is an educational consultant and teacher, and his father, Donald Leibowitz, is a physics professor at The College of New Jersey. At some point during Jon's childhood, the couple divorced. Stewart was a member of the school band as a French horn player. Stewart has said that he was subjected to bullying for being a Jewish kid. He describes himself in high school as "very into Eugene Debs and a bit of a leftist." He graduated from Lawrence High School third in his class and was voted "Best Sense of Humor."

Stewart attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, majoring in psychology and playing on the men's soccer team. An award titled the "Leibo" is now given out annually in honor of Stewart to the member of the men's soccer team who experiences the most personal growth and provides the most laughs for his teammates. Stewart claims he was "miserable" in college.

After graduating from William and Mary in 1984, Stewart held numerous jobs, including: contingency planner for the New Jersey Department of Human Services, contract administrator for City University of New York, puppeteer for children with disabilities, construction worker, caterer, busboy, shelf stocker at Woolworth's, assistant soccer coach at a high school, and bartender at a local blue-collar bar, the Franklin Corner Tavern. During part of this time, Stewart roomed with future congressman Anthony Weiner, who, to date, is the only politician to have received campaign donations from the Daily Show host.

Stewart married Tracey McShane, his girlfriend of four years, in 2000. The couple met on a blind date set up by a production assistant on Stewart's film, Wishful Thinking.

On June 19, 2001, Stewart and his wife filed a joint name-change application and legally changed both of their surnames to "Stewart."

He proposed to his future wife through a personalized crossword puzzle created with the help of Will Shortz, the crossword editor at The New York Times. The couple had their first child, Nathan Thomas Stewart (named after Stewart's grandfather), on July 3, 2004. Their second child, a daughter, Maggie Rose Stewart, was born on February 4, 2006. They also have a cat named Stanley and two pit bull terriers, Monkey and Shamsky (named after Art Shamsky).

In 2004, Stewart spoke at the commencement ceremonies at his alma mater, William and Mary, and was presented with an honorary Doctor of Arts degree. Stewart was also the Class Day keynote speaker at Princeton University in 2004, and the 2008 Sacerdote great names speaker at Hamilton College. In addition to his interest in soccer, Jon Stewart is also an avid baseball fan; his favorite team is the New York Mets. In 2000, he described his political affiliation as socialist or independent. His height of 5 foot 7 inches often appears in Stewart's self-deprecating humor.

According to city records research conducted by The New York Observer in 2005, Stewart purchased and moved into a $5.8 million 6,000-square-foot Tribeca loft penthouse in downtown Manhattan. He also sold his $3.995 million apartment on West 13th Street in west Greenwich Village.

Early work
With a reputation for being a funny man even in school, Jon Stewart moved to New York City in 1986 to try his hand at the comedy club circuit, but he could not muster the courage to get on stage until the following year. He made his stand-up debut at The Bitter End, the same place where his comedic idol, Woody Allen, began. He began using the stage name "Jon Stewart" by dropping his last name and changing the spelling of his middle name "Stuart" to "Stewart." He often jokes this is because people had difficulty with the pronunciation of Leibowitz or it "sounded too Hollywood" (a reference to Lenny Bruce's joke on the same theme). He has implied that the name change was actually due to a strained relationship with his father. Stewart became a regular at the Comedy Cellar where he was the last performer every night. For two years, he would perform at 2 a.m. while developing his comedic style. In 1989, he landed his first television job as a writer for Caroline's Comedy Hour. In 1991, he began co-hosting Comedy Central's Short Attention Span Theater along with Patty Rosborough. In 1992, Stewart hosted the short-lived You Wrote It, You Watch It on MTV, which invited viewers to send in their stories to be acted out by the comedy troupe The State. When David Letterman left NBC in 1993, Stewart was a finalist to replace him, but Conan O'Brien was hired instead.

Later in 1993, Stewart developed his own talk show at MTV. Despite the quick cancellation of his previous MTV show, the network was still eager to work with him. The Jon Stewart Show was the first talk show on that network and was an instant hit, becoming the second- highest rated MTV show behind Beavis and Butt-head. In 1994, Paramount pulled the plug on The Arsenio Hall Show and, with new corporate sibling MTV (through MTV parent Viacom's acquisition of the studio), launched an hour-long syndicated late-night version of The Jon Stewart Show. Many local affiliates had moved Hall's show to 2 a.m. during its decline and Stewart's show inherited such early morning time slots in many cities. Ratings were dismal and the show was canceled in June 1995.

Amongst the fans of the show was David Letterman, who was the final guest of The Jon Stewart Show. Letterman signed Stewart with his production company, Worldwide Pants. Stewart then became a frequent guest host for Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show, which was produced by Letterman and aired after Late Show on CBS. This led to much speculation that Stewart would soon replace Snyder permanently, but Stewart was instead offered the time slot after Snyder, which he turned down.

The Daily Show
In 1999, Stewart began hosting The Daily Show on Comedy Central when Craig Kilborn left the show to replace Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show. The show, which has been hugely popular and wildly successful in cable television since Stewart became the host, blends humor with the day's top news stories, usually in politics, while simultaneously poking fun at politicians and many newsmakers as well as the news media itself. In an interview on The O'Reilly Factor, Stewart denies the show has any intentional political agenda, saying the goal was "schnicks and giggles." "The same weakness that drove me into comedy also informs my show," meaning that he was uncomfortable talking without hearing the audience laugh.

Stewart has since hosted almost all airings of the program, except for a few occasions when correspondents such as Stephen Colbert, Rob Corddry, and for a whole week Steve Carell, have filled in at the anchor desk. Stewart has won a total of ten Emmys for The Daily Show as either a writer or producer. In 2005, The Daily Show and Jon Stewart also received a Best Comedy Album Grammy Award for the audio book edition of America (The Book). In 2000 and 2004, the show won two Peabody Awards for its coverage of the presidential elections relevant to those years, called "Indecision 2000" and "Indecision 2004", respectively.

One of the show's most serious moments remains the September 20, 2001 show —the first show after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The show began with no introduction. Prior to this date, The Daily Show introduction included footage of a fly-in towards the World Trade Center and New York City. The first nine minutes of the show included a tearful Stewart discussing his personal view on the event. His remarks ended as follows: The view... from my apartment... was the World Trade Center... and now it's gone, and they attacked it. This symbol of American ingenuity, and strength, and labor, and imagination and commerce, and it is gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the South of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty. You can't beat that."

Another notable moment occurred on April 4, 2006, when Stewart confronted his longtime friend, US Senator John McCain, about his decision to appear at Liberty University, an institution founded by Jerry Falwell, a man who McCain had previously denounced as one of the "agents of intolerance," In the interchange, Stewart asked McCain, "You're not freaking out on us? Are you freaking out on us, because if you're freaking out and you're going into the crazy base [politics] world—are you going into crazy base world?" McCain replied, "I'm afraid so." The clip was played on CNN and created a surge of articles across the blogosphere.

More recently The Daily Show was involved in former correspondent Stephen Colbert's announcement that he would run for president in 2008.

On October 18, 2007, Stewart renewed his contract with Comedy Central and will continue to host The Daily Show through 2010.

Stewart is paid a reported $1.5 million for one season of The Daily Show. According to the Forbes list of Celebrities, he earns $14 million per year.

Speculation of replacing Letterman on The Late Show
In the middle of 2002, amid rumors that David Letterman was going to make a switch from CBS to ABC when his contract ran out with the former, Stewart was rumored to be the person who would take over Letterman's show on CBS. But ultimately, Letterman renewed his contract with CBS. On the March 9, 2002 episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Stewart, a "Weekend Update" sketch poked fun at the situation. In the middle of the sketch, Weekend Update anchor Jimmy Fallon said that he could not continue doing the broadcast and he brought Stewart in to replace him. Stewart glowed with excitement and chattered to himself about this chance to prove himself on network television. His pep talk went on too long, however, and before Stewart could deliver any headlines, Fallon returned and said he would be able to finish out the broadcast himself.

Later that year, ABC offered Stewart his own talk show to air after Nightline'. Stewart's contract with The Daily Show was near expiring and he expressed strong interest. But ABC decided to give another Comedy Central figure, Jimmy Kimmel, the post-Nightline slot.

Crossfire appearance
In a televised exchange with former CNN personality Tucker Carlson on Crossfire on October 15, 2004, Stewart criticized the state of television journalism and pleaded with the show's hosts to "stop hurting America," and referred to both Carlson and co-host Paul Begala as "partisan hacks." When posted on the internet, this exchange became widely viewed and a topic of much media discussion.

Despite being on the program to comment on current events, Stewart immediately shifted the discussion toward the show itself, asserting that Crossfire had failed in its responsibility to inform and educate viewers about politics as a serious topic. Stewart stated that the show engaged in partisan hackery instead of honest debate, and said that the hosts' assertion that Crossfire is a debate show is like "saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition." Carlson responded by saying that Stewart criticizes news organizations for not holding public officials accountable, but when he interviewed John Kerry, Stewart asked a series of "softball" questions. Stewart responded that he didn't realize "the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity." When Carlson continued to press Stewart on the Kerry issue, Stewart said, "You're on CNN! The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls! What is wrong with you?" In response to prods from Carlson to "be funny," Stewart said, "No, I'm not going to be your monkey." When Carlson later told Stewart that he was not as fun in person as he was on his show, Stewart retorted, "You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show."

Stewart discussed the incident on The Daily Show the following Monday: We decided to go to this place, Crossfire, which is a nuanced public policy analysis show... named after the stray bullets that hit innocent bystanders in a gang fight. So I go to Crossfire and, let's face it, I was dehydrated, it's the Martin Lawrence defense... and I had always in the past mentioned to friends and people that I meet on the street that I think that show... um... blows. So I thought it was only the right thing to do to go say it to them personally on their program, but here's the thing about confronting someone with that on their show: They're there! Uncomfortable! And they were very mad, because apparently, when you invite someone on a show called Crossfire and you express an opinion, they don't care for that... I told them that I felt their show was hurting America and they came back at me pretty good, they said that I wasn't being funny. And I said to them, "I know that, but tomorrow I will go back to being funny, and your show will still blow."

In January 2005, CNN announced that it was canceling Crossfire. When asked about the cancellations, CNN/US' incoming President, Jonathan Klein, referenced Stewart's appearance on the show: "I think he made a good point about the noise level of these types of shows, which does nothing to illuminate the issues of the day." Soon after, Stewart quipped on The Daily Show that "I fought the law, and the law lost!"

When asked about his relationship with Tucker Carlson on CNN's Larry King Live in February 2008, Stewart said: "It became this idea that it was personal between the two of us, and it wasn't… If there's one thing I regret about that thing, it was probably the idea that it was personal, that there was something I was saying about Tucker to Tucker, but actually it was about the show."

On March 18, 2009, Tucker wrote a blog entry for The Daily Beast criticizing Stewart for his handling of the CNBC controversy (see below). In this article, Carlson discusses the CNN incident and claims Stewart remained backstage for at least "an hour" and "continued to lecture our staff", something Carlson described as "one of the weirdest things I have ever seen."

CNBC criticism
Stewart again became a viral internet phenomenon following a March 4, 2009 The Daily Show sequence. CNBC cancelled Rick Santelli's scheduled appearance but Stewart still ran a short segment showing CNBC giving bad investment advice. The segment was meant to make Santelli uncomfortable before the interview.

Subsequent media coverage of exchanges between Jim Cramer, who had been featured heavily in the original segment and Stewart led to a highly anticipated face-to-face confrontation on Comedy Central's The Daily Show. The episode received a large amount of media hype and became Comedy Central's second most-viewed episode of The Daily Show trailing only the 2009 Inauguration Day episode. It had 2.3 million total viewers and the next day The Daily Show website saw its highest day of traffic in 2009. Although Cramer acknowledged that some of Stewart's criticisms of CNBC were valid and that they could "do better," he later said that Stewart's criticism of the media was "naïve and misleading."

Books
In 1998, Stewart released his first book, Naked Pictures of Famous People, a collection of humorous short stories and essays. The book reached The New York Times Best Seller List.

In 2004, Stewart and The Daily Show writing staff released America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, a mock high school history textbook offering insights into the unique American system of government, dissecting its institutions, explaining its history and processes, and satirizing such popular American political precepts as "one man, one vote," "government by the people," and "every vote counts." The book sold millions of copies upon its 2004 release and ended the year as a top fifteen best-seller.

In 2005, Stewart provided the voice of President James A. Garfield for the audiobook version of Assassination Vacation.

In 2007, Stewart voiced a role on friend Stephen Colbert's audiobook based on I Am America (And So Can You!). He plays Mort Sinclaire, former TV comedy writer and Communist.

Film and television acting
Although best known for his work on The Daily Show, Stewart has also had roles in several films and television series.

His first film role was a minor part in The First Wives Club but his scene was deleted. In 1995, Stewart signed a three-year deal with Miramax. He played romantic leads in the films Playing by Heart and Wishful Thinking. He also had supporting roles in the romantic comedy Since You've Been Gone and in the horror film The Faculty. Other films were planned for Stewart to write and star in but they were never produced. Stewart has since maintained a relationship with Miramax founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein and continues to appear in films they have produced including Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Doogal and the documentary Wordplay.

He also appeared in Half Baked as an "enhancement smoker," in Big Daddy as Adam Sandler's roommate, and he has joked on the Daily Show and in the documentary The Aristocrats that to get the role he slept with Sandler. Stewart often makes fun of his appearances in the high-profile flop Death to Smoochy, in which he played a treacherous television executive, and the animated film Doogal, where he played a blue spring named Zeebad that shot a freeze ray from his mustache. In 2007, Stewart made a cameo appearance as himself in Evan Almighty which starred former Daily Show correspondent Steve Carell. In the movie, Stewart was seen on a television screen in a fictional Daily Show episode poking fun at Carell's character for building an ark.

Stewart had a recurring role in The Larry Sanders Show in which he played himself as an occasional substitute and possible successor to late-night talk show host Larry Sanders (played by Garry Shandling). In 1998, Stewart hosted the television special, Elmopalooza, celebrating thirty years of Sesame Street. He has guest-starred on other sitcoms such as The Nanny, Dr Katz, Professional Therapist, Spin City, NewsRadio, American Dad, and The Simpsons. He has also made guest-appearances on the children's television series Between the Lions, Sesame Street and Jack's Big Music Show.

Producing
In the mid-1990s, Stewart launched his own production company named Busboy Productions. The name of the company is a reference to Stewart's previous job as a busboy. The company's production logo features the sound of a glass being knocked over followed by a voice whispering "Oops. Sorry." Stewart signed a deal with Miramax to develop projects through his company, but none of his ideas were ever produced. After Stewart's success as host and producer of The Daily Show, he revived Busboy Productions with Daily Show producers Ben Karlin and Rich Korson. In 2002, Busboy planned to produce a sitcom for NBC starring Stephen Colbert but the show did not come to fruition.

In 2005, Comedy Central reached an agreement with Busboy to finance the production company. Comedy Central has a first-look agreement on all projects, then Busboy is free to shop them to other networks. The deal spawned the Daily Show spin-off The Colbert Report. Other projects include the sitcom pilot Three Strikes, the documentary Sportsfan, the series Important Things with Demetri Martin, and the film The Donor.

WGA strike of 2007-2008
Stewart was an important factor in the unionization of the writers for Comedy Central. The Daily Show writers were the first of the Comedy Central's writers to be able to join the guild, after which other shows followed.

He supported the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, commenting on The Daily Show episode just before the strike in a sarcastic manner about how Comedy Central had made available all of the episodes for free on their website, but without advertising, and said 'go support our advertisers'. The show went on hiatus when the strike began, like other late night talk shows. Upon Stewart's return to the show on January 7, 2008, he refused to use the title The Daily Show, stating that "The Daily Show" was the show made with all of the people responsible for the broadcast, including his writers. During the strike, he referred to his show as A Daily Show with Jon Stewart until the strike ended on February 13, 2008. Stewart, as well as several other late night talk shows, returned to TV early in January even though the strike was not over, because their stage crews and production teams were suffering much more than the writers from the financial crunch, and by that point had been out of work for two months.

The Writers Guild Strike of 2007 was also responsible for a notable mock feud among Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Conan O'Brien in early 2008. Without writers to help fuel their witty banter, the three comedians concocted a crossover/rivalry in order to garner more viewers during the ratings slump. Stephen Colbert made the claim that because of "the Colbert bump", he was responsible for Mike Huckabee's success in the 2008 presidential race. Conan O'Brien claimed that he was responsible for Huckabee's success because not only had he made mention of him on his show, but also that he was responsible for Chuck Norris' success (Norris backed Huckabee). In response, Stewart claimed that he was responsible for the success of O'Brien, since Stewart had featured him on his earlier comedy program, and in turn the success of Huckabee. This resulted in a three-part comedic battle between the three pundits, with all three appearing on each other's shows. The feud ended on Late Night with Conan O'Brien with a mock brawl involving the three talk-show hosts.

Honors
Stewart and the rest of the members of The Daily Show have received two Peabody Awards: the first one for a piece covering the 2000 Presidential Elections entitled Indecision 2000, and another for covering the 2004 Presidential Elections entitled Indecision 2004. In the December, 2003 New Years edition of Newsweek magazine, Stewart was named the "Who's Next?" person for the coming year of 2004, with the magazine predicting he would emerge as an absolute sensation in that year (the magazine said they were right in the "who's next for 2005" issue). Stewart was also named one of the 2005 Time 100, an annual list of 100 of the most influential people of the year by Time Magazine. Entertainment Weekly named Stewart as its "Entertainer of the Year" for 2004. In addition, Stewart and The Daily Show received the 2005 NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language. Asteroid 116939 Jonstewart is named in his honor. In 2004, Jon Stewart gave the Class Day address at Princeton University. Stewart was presented an Honorary All-America award by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) in 2006.

Grammy Awards
Stewart has hosted the Grammys twice, in 2001 and in 2002. In the middle of the 2001 broadcast, after laying a number of comedic duds, Stewart did what he encourages most public officials to do, and owned up to his bad hosting: he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to say I feel your scorn and accept it." When Stewart returned to host the next year, his comedy was more successful. Joking about the performance of the song "Lady Marmalade", he said, "Our next performance is from the movie Moulin Rouge!, a film about a time when the whorehouses were about the music!" When the award winners for Album of the Year walked up on stage, many in number, Stewart quipped, "I don't know what you may have heard, but you were only supposed to go on stage if you worked on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, not if you heard it."

Oscars
On January 5, 2006, Stewart was officially announced as the host of the 78th Academy Awards, which were held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on March 5. Responding to press questions at the time of his selection, Stewart remarked: "As a performer, I'm truly honored to be hosting the show. Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can't help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal." (According to The New York Times, Oscar producer Gil Cates knew Crystal was going to be performing 700 Sundays during the time period and was not able to host.) On the Monday before the Oscars, Stewart told Larry King that he was more "excited" than nervous about the job and joked that if he turns out a failure, he could be "bumped down to public access". When asked what the opening would be, the comedian chastised himself by comparing a Stewart opening to a "Gene Rayburn homage". Instead, the opening segment, preceding Stewart's monologue, featured several recent hosts "declining" to host the show.

Critical response to Stewart's performance was mixed. Various celebrities and other film personalities were generally positive. Roger Ebert compared him favorably to legendary Oscar host Johnny Carson. Other reviewers were less positive; Tom Shales of The Washington Post said that Stewart hosted with “smug humorlessness.” James Poniewozik of Time said that Stewart was a bad host, but a great “anti-host” in that he poked fun at parts of the broadcast that deserved it, which lent him a degree of authenticity with the non-Hollywood audience. Stewart and correspondent John Oliver later poked fun at his lackluster reception on The Daily Show ' s coverage of the 79th Academy Awards by saying that the "demon of last year's Oscars had finally been exorcised."

Stewart also hosted the 80th Academy Awards on February 24, 2008. Reception this time, however, was far more positive, with Stewart's performance commended by critics and viewers, despite the show being criticized as boring and ranking as the lowest rating Oscar broadcast ever.