Melanie
Written on Jan 9, 2017
4.5 stars
I’m a huge fan of The Daily Show. I’ve watched it off and on going back to Craig Kilborn, though I’ll admit that I didn’t watch it a lot back then. I watched it after Jon Stewart took over, but it did take me a while to become a regular watcher. The invention of the DVR has made it much easier for me to watch, as I’m not a late night person. I’m always a day behind since I won’t stay up to watch it.
Ever since I started listening to this, I’ve been trying to remember exactly when I became a regular watcher of the show. As I said, I watched off and on. I do know that the Colbert Report was on when I started recording and watching on a regular basis, since I started with both of the them on regular basis.
Anyway, this book is pretty much the oral story of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. While the show talks about Craig Kilborn, it is more in the aspects of the transition to Jon Stewart. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a single quote from Kilborn in this book (if there was, it was very few). There were several people from Kilborn’s team that stays on with Stewart and not just through the transition.
Mostly, this book is told with quotes from the different producers, the correspondents, writers, contributors and even some guests, like John McCain, Dennis Leary, Glenn Beck and more. So as you listen, there is one narrator who would read the speaking person’s name, title and timeframe, “Jon Stewart, The Daily Show host, 1999-2015” and then a different narrator would speak the quote that Jon says. There are also a lot of pieces of transcripts of the show with a description of what you would be seeing if you were watching. Like, “Jon behind news desk” or “Larry off to Jon’s right looking at ceiling” or even “hesitant laughter from the audience”.
I really loved listening to how Jon took on the show and really made it his own and the great show that it is today. Listening to the history as told by Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell, Mo Rocca, Sam Bee, Lewis Black and more. How they kept trying new things and how much those things worked. About how what they were reporting on changed them as people and what they wanted to do with the show. How Jon became the leader of these people. How he stood behind all of his staff during some really tough times, like writer strikes and personality conflicts. How he really wanted to help his staff learn to be who they wanted on the air. He wanted them to be as much a part of the show as he was.
It was very interesting to hear about the process that it took to make The Daily Show happen. How they were able to put together these great pieces showing how a politician literally contradicted a previous speech way before anyone else was doing this and way before YouTube. How they had to go and put together the interviews when they only had one camera and had to film it twice, once for the interviewer and for the interviewee.
This book covers several key events in history. They talk about election of George W Bush over Al Gore. They talk about 9/11. That part hit me the hardest. Hearing about what it was like to be behind the scenes and in New York when that happened. Stewart talks about feeling the first plane hit while he was still in bed. How they talked about if they even had a show any more. Because, they wondered if anything was ever going to be funny ever again. How they went on about decided what to do when they came back on air. If you haven’t seen Jon Stewart’s show in response to 9/11, I highly recommend you watch it, it’s just under 9 minutes long. They include the transcript of this speech in the book, but watching it was even tougher.
Narration
There are six different narrators for this book, so they tried to talk as much like the person they are quoting as possible. At first, this was very weird, because I know what Jon sounds like. I’ve listened to him talk for many years. The guy narrating him doesn’t sound like him, but as the book goes on, I did think it sounded a little like Jon. The got the mannerisms of the way Jon talk right, if not exactly the right voice. He did nail the tone. I don’t know who narrated what for the most part. I can say that Lauren Fortgang really nailed the women in this book. I didn’t realize she was the only woman narrator until I started to build this post. I thought she really nailed Sam Bee. She also had to voice Kristen Schaal, who has a very distinct voice. While Fortgang didn’t sound exactly like Schaal (I’m not sure if anyone can), I thought she did a great job doing her voice without making her sound bad. If you want to hear exactly what Schaal sounds like, here’s a link to one of my favorite clips with her.