Why didn’t Stewart go to HBO or them to him? You’d think a double block of Jon John would be a slam dunk. Apple was a dumb idea from the start. The last thing I associate with Stewart is a corporation like Apple.
Good. Bill Maher is taking the Elonshitification strategy to his show and I need a reason to stay subscribed. They cancelled Doom Patrol and Titans. They’re cancelling shows for being “woke”. Definitely not reading the audience.
Yeah - Maher used to be somewhat tolerable depending on his guests & topics for the week, but for the past year+ he’s been unwatchable lately with his obsession over cancel culture.
I luckily get HBO for free via an old mobile plan, but if that ends I don’t think I’ll be renewing my subscription. Have to find another way to watch John.
Oh fuck, thanks for sharing. I never knew that about him. I mostly remember watching when he was raising money for the Obama campaign and generally criticized Republican fuckery.
But now it seems like he’s reverting to an earlier version of himself that I wasn’t around for.
Let me rephrase - he was always on the “cancel culture” bandwagon, and I give him a pass for the early parts of it due to the cancellation of his other show after his 9/11 remarks.
The problem I had was when people like Rogan really got on board, and it became the new buzzword/cultural explosion, and Maher went all in, discussing it incessantly like it was the worst possible crisis to ever happen in the history of anything. Meanwhile, Trump was doing all kinds of, well, Trump shit that had real impacts on a global scale, and Bill is whining about whoever the current asshole of the week was who said something stupid and had to face consequences for it. Every fucking week, a rant about that same topic. Then the anti-vax shit and how Covid wasn’t really that bad, you just have to eat like him and not be overweight or whatever and you’ll be fine!
Now he’s giving a platform to people like Elon and going full IDW…or whatever that’s morphed into these days.
i gotta wonder: how much longer will he keep doing this show? he’s been at it for almost 10 years at this point, and, by the end, it will be 13+ years. I mean, i’m thrilled to have him keep going, but i’m afraid he’ll get tired of it. Jon Stewart bowed out of TDS after a little over 15 years…
In Conan’s interview with John Oliver, they go into it a bit.
Long story short: the weekly show takes a lot of the pressure off and HBO was willing to pay the same amount to Oliver for less shows because he promised the quality would go up.
It did.
Conan discussed how doing a nightly show nearly killed him because it’s just so much you have to do for each episode. It’s why he loves the fact that he moved 100% to podcasts.
He’s been doing a podcast for a few years now. If you’re a fan it’s worth tuning in. Heck, even if you’re not a fan, find an episode with someone you are a fan of as a guest and give it a listen. I am not a TV watcher, but throughly enjoy the podcast.
Stewart bowed out, but didn’t really stop. He left The Daily Show in early 2015, and had a 4 year deal with HBO by late 2015. He wanted to try some new things, but still news satire. The deal fizzled ultimately. He ended up making a political satire film. Then he got the Apple deal.
I think he just wanted more freedom and he got it.
By all accounts John Oliver has that. He got to be Zazu.
Nice thing about having a weekly show with lots of hiatuses. He has a team of writers and Researchers.
I’m not saying he doesn’t work hard, but there’s no way he works Daily Show full time host hard. I don’t doubt Oliver’s work ethic, but if Bill Maher doesn’t get burnt out doing a weekly show with his diva like personality, no way Oliver will.
I agree his show has a much higher quality quotient than the daily show, but again, 1 show vs 5 shows of unique content a week is a massively different undertaking.
lol, right, obviously. i guess i got hung up differentiating between “works as hard” and “works as much”, as I imagine a weekly show affords more time off, but i’m certain they still work just as hard when they do work.
i think the real effort in his show’s writing is riding that razor’s edge between the show’s often incredibly-depressing social commentary and the humor they try to imbue it with. They cover some really horrible subjects that are, for the most part lately, just a massive dump of bad news, yet try to do so satirically. That must be so much harder than just making jokes about the crazy shit going on.
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