Stewart started as a stand-up comedian, but branched into television as host of Short Attention Span Theater for Comedy Central. He went on to host his own show on MTV, called The Jon Stewart Show, and then hosted another show on MTV called You Wrote It, You Watch It. He has also had several film roles as an actor. Stewart became the host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central in early 1999. He is also a writer and co-executive-producer of the show. After Stewart joined, The Daily Show steadily gained popularity and critical acclaim, resulting in his sixteen Emmy Awards.
Stewart has gained acclaim as an acerbic, satirical critic of personality-driven media shows, in particular those of the US media networks such as CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. Critics say Stewart benefits from a double standard: he critiques other news shows from the safe, removed position of his "fake news" desk. Stewart agrees, saying that neither his show nor his channel purports to be anything other than satire and comedy. In spite of its self-professed entertainment mandate, The Daily Show has been nominated for news and journalism awards. Stewart hosted the 78th and 80th Academy Awards. He is the co-author of America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, which was one of the best-selling books in the U.S. in 2004 and Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race released in 2010.
Stewart was born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz in New York City, to a Jewish family. He and his older brother, Larry, who is currently Chief Operating Officer of NYSE Euronext (parent company of the New York Stock Exchange),[12] grew up in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, where they attended Lawrence High School.[6] Jon's mother, Marian (née Laskin), is an educational consultant and teacher. His father, Donald, was a professor of physics at The College of New Jersey from 2001 through 2008; he now teaches an online course at Thomas Edison State College. Jon's parents were divorced when Stewart was eleven years old, and Stewart no longer has any contact with his father.
Stewart has said that he was subjected to anti-Semitic bullying as a child. He describes himself in high school as "very into Eugene Debs and a bit of a leftist.
Later in 1993, Stewart developed The Jon Stewart Show, a talk show on MTV. Despite the quick cancellation of his previous MTV show, the network was still eager to work with him.[citation needed] The Jon Stewart Show was the first talk show on that network and was an instant hit, becoming the second-highest rated MTV show behind Beavis and Butt-head. In 1994, Paramount pulled the plug on The Arsenio Hall Show and, with new corporate sibling MTV (through MTV parent Viacom's acquisition of the studio), launched an hour-long syndicated late-night version of The Jon Stewart Show. Many local affiliates had moved Hall's show to 2 a.m. during its decline and Stewart's show inherited such early morning time slots in many cities. Ratings were dismal and the show was canceled in June 1995.
Amongst the fans of the show was David Letterman, who was the final guest of The Jon Stewart Show. Letterman signed Stewart with his production company, Worldwide Pants. Stewart then became a frequent guest host for Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show, which was produced by Letterman and aired after Late Show on CBS. This led to much speculation that Stewart would soon replace Snyder permanently, but Stewart was instead offered the time slot after Snyder, which he turned down.
In 1999, Stewart began hosting The Daily Show on Comedy Central when Craig Kilborn left the show to replace Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show. The show, which has been popular and successful in cable television since Stewart became the host, blends humor with the day's top news stories, usually in politics, while simultaneously poking fun at politicians and many newsmakers as well as the news media itself. In an interview on The O'Reilly Factor, Stewart denies the show has any intentional political agenda, saying the goal was "schnicks and giggles." "The same weakness that drove me into comedy also informs my show," meaning that he was uncomfortable talking without hearing the audience laugh.
Stewart has since hosted almost all airings of the program, except for a few occasions when correspondents such as Stephen Colbert, Rob Corddry, and Steve Carell subbed for him. Stewart has won a total of sixteen Emmys for The Daily Show as either a writer or producer. In 2005, The Daily Show and Jon Stewart also received a Best Comedy Album Grammy Award for the audio book edition of America (The Book). In 2000 and 2004, the show won two Peabody Awards for its coverage of the presidential elections relevant to those years, called "Indecision 2000" and "Indecision 2004", respectively.
His first film role was a minor part in The First Wives Club but his scene was deleted. In 1995, Stewart signed a three-year deal with Miramax. He played romantic leads in the films Playing by Heart and Wishful Thinking. He also had supporting roles in the romantic comedy Since You've Been Gone and in the horror film The Faculty. Other films were planned for Stewart to write and star in, but they were never produced. Stewart has since maintained a relationship with Miramax founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein and continues to appear in films they have produced including Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Doogal and the documentary Wordplay.
He also appeared in Half Baked as an "enhancement smoker" and in Big Daddy as Adam Sandler's roommate; he has joked on the Daily Show and in the documentary The Aristocrats that to get the role he slept with Sandler. Stewart often makes fun of his appearances in the high-profile flop Death to Smoochy,[55] in which he played a treacherous television executive, and the animated film Doogal, where he played a blue spring named Zeebad that shot a freeze ray from his mustache. In 2007, Stewart made a cameo appearance as himself in Evan Almighty, which starred former Daily Show correspondent Steve Carell. In the movie, Stewart was seen on a television screen in a fictional Daily Show episode poking fun at Carell's character for building an ark.
Stewart had a recurring role in The Larry Sanders Show in which he played himself as an occasional substitute and possible successor to late-night talk show host Larry Sanders (played by Garry Shandling). In 1998, Stewart hosted the television special, Elmopalooza, celebrating 30 years of Sesame Street. He has guest-starred on other sitcoms such as The Nanny, Dr Katz, Professional Therapist, Spin City, NewsRadio, American Dad, and The Simpsons. He has also made guest-appearances on the children's television series Between the Lions, Sesame Street and Jack's Big Music Show.
For years, Stewart has regularly accused Fox News of distorting the news to fit a conservative agenda, at one point ridiculing the network as "the meanest sorority in the world. In November 2009, Stewart called out Fox News for using some footage from a previous Tea Party rally during its report of a more recent one, making the later rally appear larger than it was. The show's anchor, Sean Hannity, apologized the following night.A month later, Stewart criticized Fox & Friends cohost Gretchen Carlson – a former Miss America and Stanford graduate – for claiming that she googled words such as "ignoramus" and "czar." Stewart said that Carlson was dumbing herself down for "an audience who sees intellect as an elitist flaw.
Stewart stepped up his criticism of Fox News in 2010; as of April 24, The Daily Show had 24 segments criticizing Fox News' coverage. Bill O'Reilly, host of The O'Reilly Factor, countered that The Daily Show was a "key component of left-wing television" and that Stewart was a fan of Fox News because the network was so interesting to watch.
He supported the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, commenting on The Daily Show episode just before the strike in a sarcastic manner about how Comedy Central had made available all of the episodes for free on their website, but without advertising, and said 'go support our advertisers'. The show went on hiatus when the strike began, as did other late night talk shows. Upon Stewart's return to the show on January 7, 2008, he refused to use the title The Daily Show, stating that "The Daily Show" was the show made with all of the people responsible for the broadcast, including his writers. During the strike, he referred to his show as A Daily Show with Jon Stewart until the strike ended on February 13, 2008. Stewart, as well as several other late night talk shows, returned to TV early in January even though the strike was not over, because their stage crews and production teams were suffering much more than the writers from the financial crunch, and by that point had been out of work for two months.
The Writers Guild Strike of 2007–2008 was also responsible for a notable mock feud between Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Conan O'Brien in early 2008. Without writers to help fuel their banter, the three comedians concocted a crossover/rivalry in order to garner more viewers during the ratings slump. Colbert made the claim that because of "the Colbert bump", he was responsible for Mike Huckabee's success in the 2008 presidential race. O'Brien claimed that he was responsible for Huckabee's success because not only had he made mention of him on his show, but also that he was responsible for Chuck Norris' success (Norris backed Huckabee). In response, Stewart claimed that he was responsible for the success of O'Brien, since Stewart had featured him on The Jon Stewart Show, and in turn the success of Huckabee. This resulted in a three-part comedic battle between the three pundits, with all three appearing on each other's shows. The feud ended on Late Night with Conan O'Brien with a mock brawl involving the three hosts.
Stewart and the rest of the members of The Daily Show have received two Peabody Awards for "Indecision 2000" and "Indecision 2004", covering the 2000 presidential election and the 2004 presidential election, respectively.
Stewart's The Daily Show received the Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program Emmy Award in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2009, and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series every year from 2003 to 2011.
Stewart won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album in 2005 for his recording, America (The Audiobook): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction.
In the December 2003 New Year's edition of Newsweek, Stewart was named the "Who's Next?" person for the coming year of 2004, with the magazine predicting he would emerge as an absolute sensation in that year. (The magazine said they were right at the end of that year.)
Entertainment Weekly named Stewart as its "Entertainer of the Year" for 2004.
In 2004, Stewart spoke at the commencement ceremonies at his alma mater, William and Mary, and received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree. Stewart was also the Class Day keynote speaker at Princeton University in 2004, and the 2008 Sacerdote Great Names speaker at Hamilton College.
In 2000, Stewart married Tracey McShane, his girlfriend of four years. The couple met on a blind date set up by a production assistant on Stewart's film, Wishful Thinking. On June 19, 2001, Stewart and his wife filed a joint name change application and legally changed both of their surnames to "Stewart. He proposed to his future wife through a personalized crossword puzzle created with the help of Will Shortz, the crossword editor at The New York Times. The couple had their first child, Nathan Thomas Stewart (named after Stewart's grandfather), in July 2004. Their second child, a daughter, Maggie Rose Stewart, was born in February 2006. They also have a cat named Stanley and two pit bull terriers, Monkey and Shamsky (named after former Major League Baseball player Art Shamsky).
In 2000, when he was labeled a Democrat, Stewart generally agreed but described his political affiliation as "more socialist or independent" than Democratic. Esquire magazine also calls him a humanist.
Stewart is an avid fan of both the New York Giants and the New York Mets and occasionally brings this up on his show. He gave an impassioned rant to open his show on February 4, 2008, immediately after the Giants had defeated the Patriots in the Super Bowl, about the Giants victory, noting his satisfaction in having bragging rights over Patriot and Red Sox sports fans who worked with him and had tormented him for years. Additionally he has mentioned his fandom on his show during interviews with Tiki Barber and David Wright.
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