'The Daily Show' Tries Its First Hosting Duo And Welcomes New Correspondent Troy Iwata

On the fourth day back from the Writers Guild of America strike, The Daily Show revealed two previously unannounced guest hosts. Well, sort of. For this stretch anyway.

At the open of the October 19 show, it was revealed that Michael Kosta wouldn’t be anchoring his fourth and final night alone. He was joined by fellow correspondent Ronny Chieng. Chieng joined the show as one of Trevor Noah’s recruits for the start of his era in September 2015 and has since appeared in such films as M3GAN and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and television series as Doogie Kameāloha, M.D.. He was supposed to get his own week to host, but the pencils went down after one day of Dulce Sloan during a stretch of correspondent-hosted weeks, his full week has been seemingly dropped. Instead, he’s the initial test (co-?) subject of the experimentation the network had considered just a few weeks after Trevor Noah announced his departure on his seventh anniversary as host. In fact, it was reported as such a thing by Deadline barely a year ago that duos and trios are in consideration, and this was the first time in this half a year of guest hosts that it’s been tried. Desi Lydic and Roy Wood Jr. had been a considered pair, though that won’t get an onscreen test after Wood departed the show as correspondent shortly before its return.

Wood’s departure did leave the correspondents’ team down a member, but that was something addressed that same night. Troy Iwata debuted as the newest correspondent, and his first segment was about book banning. Serving as Senior Book Fair Expert, he joked that books like James and the Giant Peach should be banned because “James crawls right up inside that peach.” Iwata has starred in the Apple miniseries WeCrashed and the single-season Netflix series Dash & Lily. His smaller appearances include three episodes of NBC’s New Amsterdam and an episode of The CW’s Katy Keene.

One may wonder what was meant by second guest host. That stems from the News Team Takeover which he slips into on just 30 days on the job when it happens the week of November 20. That arrangement alleviated that no outside talent has to come in on Thanksgiving week, and so all of the correspondents, including Lydic, Klepper, Sloan, Kosta, Chieng, and Lewis Black, do it instead. As for until then, Desus Nice hosted the week of October 23, returning to late night following the demise of his Showtime series, Desus & Mero. Charlamagne Tha God, who had his own Comedy Central talk show under a couple of names until December as well, is now halfway through his week. That’s followed by return stints for Sarah Silverman and Leslie Jones. After Thanksgiving, former correspondent Michelle Wolf takes the desk.

December guest hosts are not yet known, but a permanent host is expected to be named in time for 2024.

Source: Deadline (1, 2)