'The Daily Show' Returns Bringing Back Jon Stewart For Mondays Until The Election

Auditions for the next host of The Daily Show have officially closed, apparently. It was December 8, 2022 when Trevor Noah left The Daily Show, more than 7 years after taking over for longtime host Jon Stewart. Guest hosts and correspondents on the news team would anchor for what turned out to be the entirety of 2023, reduced by 5 months by the Writers Guild of America strike. But then 2024 began, The Daily Show missed the MLK Week return and had not named a new host. That changed on January 24, when they announced their plans for the first 10 months, namely the return of Stewart.

Comedy Central announced that Stewart, who originally succeeded Craig Kilborn in 1999 and hosted until summer 2015 will host Mondays until Election Day, giving him a platform to cover the presidential race between Joe Biden and the dreaded but inevitable Donald Trump nomination, as his Apple TV+ show The Problem with Jon Stewart collapsed due to “creative differences”, as Apple meddled with how he discusses China and AI. He starts February 12, and has become an executive producer for the show through the end of 2025 to “shape” the next chapter of the franchise. He’s reunited with showrunner and executive producer Jen Flanz, who has been there since before he originally got there, starting as a production assistant. Stewart’s manager James “Baby Doll” Dixon has also been made an executive producer. This came two days after the show’s YouTube channel posted an entire highlight reel of some of Noah’s correspondent pieces with a last segment being from one of Stewart’s first drop-bys.

As mentioned, auditions have apparently closed, as the correspondents on the News Team will be hosting for the rest of the week, though it’s unclear if they’ll be rotating daily or weekly. Currently, the News Team roster features Desi Lydic, Michael Kosta, Dulce Sloan, Lewis Black, Ronny Chieng, Jordan Klepper, and recent recruits Troy Iwata and Grace Kuhlenschmidt. Whether they’ll be paired off at any frequency is not mentioned either. Under Stewart’s reign, The Daily Show won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Series for 10 consecutive years from 2003-2012, and again in his final season, only (once they started winning) losing to The Colbert Report in Stewart’s era and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in Trevor Noah’s era (when they were moved to Outstanding Variety Talk Series), shows hosted by Daily Show correspondents under Stewart.

It was at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, held this past January 15 due to the strikes, where Last Week Tonight moved out of what is now Outstanding Talk Series and into Outstanding Scripted Variety Series that The Daily Show with Trevor Noah won, and that brought the team of the time up, including former correspondent Roy Wood Jr., who departed before the show returned from the strikes due to dissatisfaction with the host-picking process. He ended up going viral for mouthing "Please hire a host." during Noah’s acceptance speech. Afterward he claimed in a tweet he was "trying to do that in the low.” but even he knows how ridiculous it was getting, returning 4 to 5 weeks later than everyone else just to not have picked a permanent host. However, at the show, Noah endorsed his news team, saying "The good news is I didn’t make this show by myself. You’re looking at all the people who made it. So if you’re still looking for a place to get all of your satire, that covers all of the news that is probably going to be a little crazy, this is the team. These are the people writing the best jokes, coming up with the best show on television every single night. The good news is The Daily Show is still there."

The naming of a permanent host was derailed by the work stoppages as writers and actors fought for their fair deals. They nearly had secured someone too, frontrunner Hasan Minhaj. That was until the New Yorker hitpiece alleging that he’d exaggerated and sometimes fabricated autobiographical details of his comedy, which Minhaj called “needlessly misleading” but the damage was done.

And how is everyone, or at least veteran correspondents reacting? Well, former correspondent John Oliver, who got HBO’s Last Week Tonight from having been Jon’s fill-in host in the summer of 2013, marked by Anthony Weiner’s sex scandal, chimed in. He compared it to Michael Jordan’s return to the Chicago Bulls in 1995 following his first retirement where he pivoted to baseball. The news broke mid-Today interview and he said, while urging for a permanent host “That’s, that is a surprise. That’s a show that needs a host. He certainly is a very, very good one. So yeah, it’ll be exciting to see what he does.” He wants Roy Wood Jr. or Late Night with Seth Meyers contributor and The Amber Ruffin Show host Amber Ruffin. Noah himself tweeted “Yessssssss he’s back,” Noah posted, adding five “raising hands” emoji. Klepper jokingly claimed “This dude’s been juicing,” adding on Instagram “welcome home, JS” with a picture of Stewart back at his desk. Newbie Iwata, posted a picture of a surprised Minion, while Kuhlenschmidt shared the Sugarland song “Stuck Like Glue” with an image of Stewart, adding, “I just know this is going to be our karaoke song.” 

One promo was subsequently released on February 2 to herald the return, marketed as “A Second Term We Can All Agree On”, using footage of late original run Jon. On Friday, a newly-filmed promo with Stewart back behind the desk that includes a popcorn munch recreating the gif was released.

Sources: Deadline, Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter