Trevor Noah's 'Daily Show': How's He Doing?
Trevor Noah has now been the anchor of The Daily Show for a month and a half, ample time to settle in, and to have an emergency appendectomy. Does anyone remember Jon Stewart? Noah does. He’s kept the same theme music, he’s kept some of the same correspondents, he’s kept the same framing structure built by Stewart: a seated opening monologue, a wackier second segment usually commandeered by some of the correspondents, and finally, an interview. So how’s Noah doing?
He’s nailing the opening monologue, most nights. Especially in an election cycle, I thought the critiquing of Presidential hopefuls was the area in which I’d miss Stewart the most, but then I remembered that one immediate plus with Noah in the chair is that I’d never have to hear Stewart’s over-used Chris Christie or Donald Trump as a Mafia-thug-voice again (both impersonations were pretty interchangeable). Noah has done a fine job of grappling with the contradictions of, for example, Ben Carson’s quixotic campaign.
The host has deployed his South African background in a comedically artful way, using it as a set-up to express shrewdly feigned perplexity at the foolishness of American politics and customs. At the time the Iowa Presidential debate, there were lots of chuckles on various news shows about the wide variety of fatty foods being offered at state fairs. Noah’s take? “I’m from South Africa; the last thing I would make fun of is people having food.”
Speaking of the Iowa debate, the show hit accidental gold — and the biggest publicity coup it’s managed since Stewart’s departure — when The Daily Show was denied press access because, as one Iowa official put it, “We were afraid they were going to make fun of Iowa.”
Among new contributors, I find Roy Wood, Jr., to be the most consistently funny thus far. I am especially fond of this team-up of Wood with Stewart vet Jordan Klepper on the subject of police sensitivity training:
So, all in all, Noah’s doing just fine. Still, for sheer laugh-power, he can’t beat Stephen Colbert, who, even as a mild-mannered CBS late-night show and no longer the blusterer of The Colbert Report, is still doing some of the best political humor.
I mean, you can’t go wrong with Jeb Bush and “baby Hitler,” especially if you frame it as adroitly as Colbert did.
The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11 p.m. on Comedy Central.
