Jon Stewart's DAILY SHOW interviews as they air are only about six minutes. That's about right for a lot of guests, too long for a few, and for more than a few but fewer than a lot, it's not long enough. Take John O'Hara, for instance, who wrote a book about the U.S. Tea Party movement. Stewart spent so much time hemming and hawing about wanting to find common ground with his guest and the Tea Party movement that O'Hara really only had a couple of minutes in which to talk about his book and the movement. (The interview is available online in two parts; part one is 3 minutes, 11 seconds, and part two is 5 minutes, 17 seconds.)
Stewart especially has this problem with guests who lean conservative: he wants to assure them that he's trying to meet them halfway, and in the process he sucks the air out of the room, and eats up all the allotted time. I've noticed this problem in his relatively frequent chats with William Kristol, and in his interview (or have there been two in the past few years?) with Bill O'Reilly.
Producing and hosting THE DAILY SHOW (and producing THE COLBERT REPORT) have got to be hard, and it's amazing how good the show has been for so long (I've been watching since 2005 or so). That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, though. Let your interviews speak for themselves, Jon. Except for those with Hollywood stars who aren't DS alums, flogging their latest movies -- for those, kill as much time as you can being funny, because your guests aren't up to that task.
(As for why I exempt DAILY SHOW alums, take a look at the return of Steve Carell.)
No comments:
Post a Comment