October 27, 2004

There was a time when Jon Stewart actually might have been excited to be on 60 Minutes

First he had to follow a full half-hour on Emmett Till, possibly a somewhat tougher act to follow than Shorties Watchin' Shorties. A less sensitive soul might say it was the most awkward double bill since Hendrix opened for the Monkees.

And now this. Wasn't Sunday night when the torch was passed, in terms of public trust? I say Stewart was doing them a favor by lending them his legitimacy for a whole 12 minutes. If CBS wants to get the show's credibility back, they should just let him and his team take over. Rob Corddry to Morley Safer: "Hey, More. Believe me, man, this is not how I pictured us meeting. [Silence] Well, I brought some boxes, so... if you could get all your stuff out of here by noon? That would be great."

Posted by Jim Treacher at October 27, 2004 02:45 PM
Comments

"That would be great" says it all. I would love to see some new blood on 60 Minutes....

(assume Andy Rooney voice for the rest)

Wouldn't it be great if, just once, we could all see a classic television program change for the better? Instead, things always seem to get worse, like when Buck Rogers left Earth and went through space on that stupid-looking ship and met a guy with a feathered skullcap, or they stay the same, like that guy Fred with his cardigans and loafers and that frightening woman in the Museum-go-Round. Didn't that woman scare enough children for enough years? And that cat in the clock saying "Meow meow this" and "Meow meow that"? What's the deal with that?

Posted by: jon at October 27, 2004 11:39 AM

jon,

You forgot to add the palsied-hands-waving-around-random-visual-aids HTML tag.

Posted by: Hubris at October 27, 2004 12:44 PM

I really feel badly for the decline of the CBS news organization.

I grew up watching Douglas Edwards with my father, I remember the broadcast "Harvest of Shame." I remember Walter Cronkite taking the anchor position in 1962, crying on the air in 1963 when Kennedy was shot, almost leaping out of his seat in 1969 when we landed on the moon.

I remember him quoting Robert Heinlein's "Green Hills of Earth," when Apollo 13 was preparing for re-entry.

Now I got no kisses for Unka' Walt. He has become the crazy uncle Mom says, "Don't be alone in a room with."

But I really miss the cohesion and unity of perceptions that a somewhat honest broker of the news provided our culture.

Feh.

Posted by: Beryl Gray at October 27, 2004 07:55 PM

Slightly off-topic, but still interesting, is this New York Magazine article about Jon Stewart.

It's a nice even-handed break from a lot of the hagiography going around about Stewart, including:

"There is such free-floating goodwill toward Stewart at the moment that no one wants to point out that, while the first ten minutes of The Daily Show—Stewart’s news-desk take on the day’s events—contain reliably dandy yuks, the rest of the show is increasingly wobbly. It’s full of half-baked taped bits relying on hoodwinking-the-rubes interviews that condescend to a big chunk of the citizenry Stewart would like to mobilize (to judge from serious comments he’s made) as well as to entertain."

"the essential question: What, exactly, are you trying to accomplish, young man?"

Posted by: jeremy in NYC at October 28, 2004 10:12 AM

Oh, the web address for the article:

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/arts/tv/10180/index.html

Posted by: jeremy in NYC at October 28, 2004 10:13 AM