Watch 16 memorable moments from 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart'
A look back at the comedian's remarkable run.
On the eve of Jon Stewart's final appearance as host of "The Daily Show," fans of the comedian are reflecting on the satirical news talk show he popularized. Below, Yahoo News has gathered 16 of the most memorable moments from Stewart's 16-year run.
• Jan. 11, 1999: Stewart's first show
"Hey! Welcome, welcome, welcome to 'The Daily Show.' Craig Kilborn is on assignment in Kuala Lumpur. I'm Jon Stewart." And with that, Stewart took the reins from Kilborn, the first host of "The Daily Show," with coverage of President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial. His first guest: Michael J. Fox.
• Fall 2000: 'Indecision 2000'
A year into his tenure as "Daily Show" host, Stewart was handed a comedy gift: the controversial 2000 presidential election and the never-ending Florida recount.
• Sept. 20, 2001: An emotional Jon Stewart reflects on the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks
"Good evening and welcome to 'The Daily Show.' We are back. This is our first show since the tragedy in New York City," he began. "There is no other way really to start this show than to ask you at home the question that we’ve asked the audience here tonight and that we’ve asked everybody that we know here in New York since September 11th, and that is, 'Are you OK?' And we pray that you are and that your family is."
• April 28, 2003: Bush vs. Bush
In an epic montage of presidential soundbytes, George W. Bush debates ... himself. “When George Bush debated himself, it was beyond epically brilliant," Lizz Winstead, "Daily Show" co-creator, told New York magazine recently. "The whole concept, it just showed what the show can do, how fabulous the researchers are, how hilarious it was, they just captured it all.”
• Oct. 15, 2004: Stewart kills CNN's 'Crossfire'
Some of the most memorable moments of Stewart's run on "The Daily Show" weren't on "The Daily Show" at all — they were on the shows he often skewered. In October 2004, he appeared on CNN's "Crossfire," and tore into the show and its hosts, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson, for reducing socio-political issues to made-for-cable-news soundbytes.
"It’s hurting America,” he told the hosts. “Stop hurting America.”
Less than three months later, CNN canceled the show. "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise," Jonathan Klein, then the network's president, told the New York Times.
• March 12, 2009: Stewart's showdown with CNBC's Jim Cramer
During the height of the financial crisis in March 2009, the "Mad Money" host appeared as a guest on "The Daily Show," and was promptly, and thoroughly, castigated.
“Listen, you knew what the banks were doing, yet were touting it for months and months,” Stewart said said. “The entire network was. For now to pretend that this was some sort of crazy, once-in-a-lifetime tsunami that nobody could have seen coming is disingenuous at best and criminal at worst.”
• June 22, 2009: 'Persians of Interest' becomes international incident
“Daily Show” correspondent Jason Jones traveled to Iran where he interviewed three men, including Maziar Bahari, a journalist whose work "had made him a thorn in the side of the Iranian regime," the Times said. A day before the interview aired, Bahari was arrested in Tehran under suspicion of being a spy and spent months in prison. Bahari's subsequent memoir, “Then They Came for Me,” was later adapted for the 2014 film “Rosewater," Stewart's directorial debut.
• Oct. 27, 2010: Obama becomes the first sitting president to appear
Overall, Barack Obama appeared seven times on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" — including three times as president — leading some conservatives to label Stewart a propagandist for the president. (This was Stewart's response.)
• April 7, 2011: Stewart devotes an entire show to Glenn Beck’s exit from Fox News
"The Daily Show" host broke out a chalkboard and thick-rimmed glasses to mock Beck's departure, warning the audience of impending doom as "signified by changes in seating, lighting and camera angles."
• May 16, 2011: Stewart spars with Bill O'Reilly (again)
The comedian's frequent on-air bouts with the top-rated Fox News host were almost always memorable, but this one — on "The O'Reilly Factor" in 2011 — sums up Stewart's problem with Fox News' approach perfectly.
“There is a selective outrage machine here at Fox that pettifogs only when it suits the narrative that suits them,” Stewart told O'Reilly.
• Sept. 19, 2012: 'Chaos on Bulls--- Mountain'
In the wake of Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" comments were leaked in an online, Stewart skewered Fox News anchors who defended the Republican nominee.
• June 10, 2013: John Oliver fills in for Stewart
With Stewart on leave to shoot "Rosewater," Oliver, a frequent "Daily Show" correspondent, got his chance behind the anchor desk. And Oliver was so good he got his own HBO show, "Last Week Tonight," which was subsequently nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Talk Series. Also nominated in that category: "The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart."
• Dec. 3, 2014: Grand jury's decision in Eric Garner case leaves Stewart speechless
Like many of his fellow New Yorkers, Stewart was left speechless by the grand jury's decision not to indict a white NYPD officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man during a videotaped arrest.
"I honestly don't know what to say," he told the audience. "If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more f---ing time, but I would really settle for less f---ing tragedy."
• April 28, 2015: The not-so-curious case of the Baltimore riots
Stewart skewers the media's tone-deaf coverage of the violent, racially-charged protests in Baltimore, including CNN's Wolf Blitzer for his assertion it was "hard to believe."
• April 30, 2015: Stewart grills Judith Miller
In April, Stewart tore into former New York Times investigative reporter Judith Miller for her role in the lead-up to the war in Iraq.
"I believe that you helped the administration take us to, like, the most devastating mistake in foreign policy that we've made in, like, 100 years," Stewart said at the start of the interview. "But you seem lovely."
Stewart has said his only regret during his "Daily Show" tenure was not pushing the former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld harder when he had the chance. In 2011, Rumsfeld dodged the comedian's questions about faulty U.S. intelligence leading up to the Iraq War.
"He just went into the general gobbledegook,” Stewart told The Guardian earlier this year. "'Mnah mnah mnah, well, you have to remember, it was 9/11 mnah mnah.' I should have pushed, but he’s very adept at deflecting."
• June 18, 2015: South Carolina church shooting leaves Stewart jokeless
"I have one job, and it's a pretty simple job," Stewart told the audience the day after a white supremacist gunman opened fire inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, killing nine people. "I come in in the morning, look at the news, and write jokes about it. But I didn't do my job today, so I apologize. I've got nothing for you."
Stewart then launched into yet another passionate monologue:
What blows my mind is the disparity of response between when we think people that are foreign are going to kill us, and us killing ourselves. If this had been what we thought was Islamic terrorism, it would fit into our, 'We invaded two countries and spent trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives and now fly unmanned death machines over five or six different countries, all to keep Americans safe. We got to do whatever we can. We'll torture people. We gotta do whatever we can to keep Americans safe.' Nine people shot in a church. What about that? "Hey, what are you gonna do? Crazy is as crazy is, right?" That’s the part that I cannot, for the life of me, wrap my head around.
