Lisa Rogak - Angry Optimist

Once he got past the first year, Stewart said it helped to think of the show as doing a twenty-two-minute stand-up routine, where the goal was to fit twenty good jokes into each episode. He admits that’s what makes it relatively easy. “The concept is to come up with a wisecrack every forty-five seconds, [which is] the only thing that I’ve been trained for.”

After producing the show for a couple of years, Stewart had relaxed into a rhythm—perhaps a little too much. Many guests—not just politicians—were often caught off guard by how unprepared Stewart was. When author David Halberstam appeared on the show, Stewart revealed his hand when he was wrapping up the segment. “It’s a beautiful read, and, as always, great to see you.”

The problem: just two minutes earlier, Stewart told the author that he hadn’t even cracked open the book. Plus it was Halberstam’s first appearance on the show, and the first time he and Stewart had met.

“But we’ve never met before!” said Halberstam, at first slightly shocked but then dissolving into laughter.

Stewart later admitted that he felt bad about the interview, but not that much.

In fact, Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence teased him about his sloppy interviewing techniques when she appeared on the show in the fall of 2013.

“Your producers and everyone involved in the show tell everyone, ‘He’s not really gonna know a lot about the movie or about you,’” Lawrence humorously scolded him on the November 21 show when he admitted he wasn’t very familiar with her current film, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire .

“Normally you have like a pre-interview and you kinda go over like bullet points of things we want to touch on,” she said. “The producers are like, ‘No, no, you guys are just gonna talk. He’s just probably not gonna ask you anything about the movie. He might not ask you anything.’”

True to form, Stewart admitted as much on the air, though he was visibly surprised at being called out by the young actress during taping. “I don’t prepare for these very well,” he said.

But despite the Halberstam incident, Stewart does try to read the books of the authors whom he hosts on the show. “Some weeks we have four books [on the show] and they can be thick ones and [sometimes] historical nonfiction,” he said. “But I read pretty quickly, and I try and read as much of the books as I possibly can. I have a pretty good ability of getting through it and retaining a good deal of its information for a four- to six-hour period.”

Despite the fact that Stewart typically treats non-politician guests in a lighthearted manner, occasionally he turns the tide and becomes outwardly hostile toward a guest. Sometimes the parts don’t make the final edited broadcast—and only hit the news when Stewart later makes an offhanded remark about a past guest—but sometimes they do.

Take Hugh Grant, whom Stewart has referred to as the worst guest he’s ever hosted, adding “and we’ve had dictators on the show.” Grant appeared on the show to promote his movie Did You Hear About the Morgans?, and from the moment he set foot in the studio, the actor became extremely demanding and complained pretty much nonstop. “He’s giving everyone shit the whole time, and he’s a big pain in the ass,” said Stewart. When Grant openly grumbled to some staffers about the movie snippet that would appear during the segment, saying, “What is that clip? It’s a terrible clip!” Stewart let him have it.

“Well, then, make a better fucking movie,” he replied.

The exchange was understandably cut from the final broadcast, but made headlines later on when a reporter asked Stewart about his all-time least favorite guest. And then Grant himself commented on their exchange, actually admitting via Twitter that Stewart wasn’t too far off the mark. “Turns out my inner crab got the better of me with TV producer in 09,” he tweeted. “Unforgivable. J Stewart correct to give me kicking.”

The offices of The Daily Show on the west side of Manhattan were at 513 West 54th Street, before they moved to the new studios at 733 Third Avenue between 51st and 52nd Streets in 2005 because The Colbert Report had taken over the 54th Street facilities. The environment could best be described as a utilitarian office setting with a comedic, almost frat-boy feel to it. A visitor once described it as “a narrow, carpeted hallway with a series of small offices that could be singles and doubles in a freshman dorm.” The doors to each office are typically covered with a variety of small bulletin boards, games, and dolls and cartoon characters, along with a smattering of newspaper stories.

Competition was fierce to get a job on The Daily Show —producers regularly reviewed résumés and clips from writers, comedians, and administrative staff whether they were sent cold or via another staff member—but perhaps it was even more breakneck among college students to land an internship on the show. After all, they were the Show ’s most loyal audience. Thousands of applications poured in for the six internships offered each summer on the show.

As a broadcast journalism major at the Edward R. Murrow School of Communications at Washington State University, John Obrien won an internship to the show in the summer of 2002. Most interns came from a comedy background; he felt that his application stood out because of his journalism major. Though he was thrilled at winning the position, he was also warned that his days would be filled with lots of gofer tasks like making copies, messengering tapes, and running all over Manhattan getting props for the show; indeed, on his first day, even though he was unfamiliar with New York, a production coordinator asked him to go to Spanish Harlem to buy a bright orange tank top in size 7-XL at a hole-in-the-wall convenience store. He was also informed that he would have very little contact—if any—with Stewart or the correspondents.

At the time, there were about forty people working at The Daily Show, and Obrien described the working environment as incredibly relaxed. “It wasn’t a pressure cooker at all,” he said. “People brought their dogs to work, there were frequent office parties, and overall, it was very loose,” he said.

Seth Zimmerman interned with Obrien at The Daily Show in the summer of 2002, and he remembers watching Colbert and Carell review a script for their “Even Stepvhen” debate, where each correspondent takes an opposing side of a timely and often controversial subject. Sometimes they’d rehearse it in the interview room, other times they’d go over it backstage.

“It was cool to see the two of them go over an ‘Even Stepvhen’ scene because they made it look like they’d been doing this forever,” said Zimmerman. “They seemed so natural but also so iconic. They were always hitting a button of some kind, and they’d always laugh. Once they got on camera, of course, they’d be totally professional, but beforehand they’d both turn it on and off at will as they tinkered with the sketch. Then backstage, right before they went out, they’d toss a football back and forth.”

Every day, the interns rotated within several departments, ranging from general production to post-production audience, to working even with the writers or in accounting. Mandy Ganis was a Daily Show intern in the summer of 2003. “We were all working in such small quarters, so we got to see everyone all the time and talk with everyone,” she said. “They weren’t big names, they were friendly and laid-back.”

The humor on the show naturally extended throughout the rest of the office, including the intracorporate documents, a weekly newsletter, and the bible for new interns: The Intern’s Guide to The Daily Show. The handbook gave them everything they needed to know for their tenure, and was written with typical Daily Show humor. A job description for each staff member was listed, along with the location of his/her office. For instance, Jon Stewart’s office was located on the second floor, and this was his job description: “Hosts, writes, consults, manages the Bennigan’s off of exit 7 on the Jersey Turnpike.”