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PGage

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Jun 15, 2021, 9:44:24 AM6/15/21
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M-D November

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Jun 15, 2021, 1:35:11 PM6/15/21
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I'm surprised that the set is (apparently) the same; I would have thought this would have been a good time for a refresh.  Also, I see they've decided to one-up WWE and make a LITERAL Thunderdome of at-home viewers...

Jon Delfin

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Jun 15, 2021, 1:39:11 PM6/15/21
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They did rearrange the bandstand ....

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Bob Jersey

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Jun 15, 2021, 1:44:34 PM6/15/21
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Are you sure? SC said that was a slightly different version of the crew mural he used in one of the storage-area shows (ISTR showing a reduced version of the original here) 

Stew-baby killed...     B

M-D November, to PGage, June 15th:

Bob Jersey

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Jun 15, 2021, 1:49:46 PM6/15/21
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Aaaaand I was right... https://groups.google.com/g/tvornottv/c/IDcFMvUusMw/m/LygNeuSdBAAJ (link)     B

Moi, to M-D November, June 15th:

Stan S

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Jun 15, 2021, 6:00:43 PM6/15/21
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In the past, LSSC would put the complete interview online the next day. As of right now only the aired version (with the edit just after the return from break) is on the CBS app. 

-Stan

M-D November

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Jun 15, 2021, 6:02:35 PM6/15/21
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Gotcha. I hadn't seen the episode yet, so from the image linked above, it looked very Thunderdome-ish.

On Tuesday, June 15, 2021 at 1:49:46 PM UTC-4 Bob Jersey wrote:

Dave Sikula

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Jun 16, 2021, 1:00:02 AM6/16/21
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I'd imagine no one will be surprised to learn I thought the return show was a dismal failure, since it never recovered from whatever the hell Carvey was doing. I know he and Colbert go way back, and that a lot of comedians who find him influential (but then they also feel that way about Farley, Sandler, and Spade). I've always been baffled that anyone could find him anything less than annoying, and last night was a prime example. On top of that, Stewart's morphing into Maher -- or at least into a first-class crank -- is now complete, what with his unending COVID rant.

I imagined there would be glitches going back to live shows, but didn't think it would be this bad. I just don't think Colbert quite knows what to do without the former guy to bitch about.

--Dave Sikula

On Tuesday, June 15, 2021 at 6:44:24 AM UTC-7 PGage wrote:

M-D November

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Jun 16, 2021, 12:34:24 PM6/16/21
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Not making excuses for Colbert & company, but given that H.E.R. was promoted in the logline for Monday's show, I wonder if they didn't have to make some last minute changes which threw everyone off?  I'm also sort of curious to know what got edited out of the Jon/Stephen segments that might have provided some context to that whole Wuhan rant.  (Although the closing bit about Jews aging like avocados made me properly laugh out loud.)

Truth be told, I'd rather have seen Jon go on his rant for an extra segment than sit through Carvey's Biden impression again.  Even by modern SNL standards, it was terrible.  (Which could have been forgiven if it was well written, which...no.)

Jim Ellwanger

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Jun 16, 2021, 12:59:14 PM6/16/21
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I didn’t see the episode, but I’ve seen people on Twitter opining that Jon Stewart’s rant was supposed to be satire, along the lines of him doing Stephen Colbert’s “Colbert Report” character at the current incarnation of Colbert. (Presumably, it wasn’t particularly successful, given that Dave thought it was Maher-esque, as opposed to Colbert-ish.)


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Jon Delfin

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Jun 16, 2021, 2:47:59 PM6/16/21
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That was my feeling: unsuccessful satire. The premise stunned the audience (and Colbert), and Stewart never found his footing.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/71A35ECB-07A1-44CE-9365-893DEFC88A65%40ellwanger.tv.

daves...@gmail.com

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Jun 16, 2021, 8:10:35 PM6/16/21
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I can see where, given his past popularity, people might want to defend Stewart that way, but for me, the opposing evidence is that 1) Stewart doesn't do character work that way Colbert did, 2) Colbert was apparently unprepared for it and couldn't react to it in any effective way (either by reining him in or responding comedically), and 3) Stewart's proclivity for calling out what he sees as bullshit in an emphatic way.

My feeling was that Stewart thinks there's some kind of coverup (and there may well be, but we don't know) and wanted to call attention to it in the only way he could. That he came off as an obsessive lunatic is an unfortunate side-effect. It was a Q-level rant.

--Dave Sikula

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PGage

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Jun 16, 2021, 8:37:20 PM6/16/21
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I mostly agree with Dave’s take here. I dont think there is any chance he was doing a riff on Colbert’s old character. Mostly because if he was riffing on anyone he was riffing on himself.

I am less sure Stewart is endorsing the cover up conspiracy, and he was in a mode of using hyperbole to make his point comically. But I do think his point is that science is as much a source of problems as solutions. This to me is reminiscent of his views on the causes of, and perhaps treatment for, Autism, which were at least at times decidedly inconsistent with and hostile to received scientific views.

Stewart was extremely critical of George W Bush, but has never been anywhere near as liberal as either Colbert or Oliver. Calling him a Maher is perhaps a bit too cruel, but he has long been closer to him in spirit than his two TDS collaborators.

PGage

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Jun 16, 2021, 8:49:28 PM6/16/21
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I am going to defend Carvey a little:

1. His Biden was 1000% better than Jim Carrey’s

2. Carvey has repeatedly said that his approach to impressions is more to find a phrase and a gesture to exaggerate than to imitate their sound. In many ways I thought he did a good job of capturing some of Biden’s idiosyncrasies, but the choice to focus on him as being super mellow to calm Trump-rattled nerves sidesteps other aspects of his presentation. And in this case Carvey seems to have completely ignored trying to sound like his target.

3. Carvey is vastly overrated by those who love him, but that doesn’t mean he is horrible. For me he is the Derek Jeter of comedians- not the #1 best of all time, but even if he is only the 75th best player of all time he still deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.


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David Bruggeman

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Jun 16, 2021, 9:16:22 PM6/16/21
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Yeah, this topic is a tough needle to thread even if you aren't trying to do it with any level of humor, much less satire.  Too many different investigations/examinations of the matter with differing thresholds for conclusions to expect even a sober public to follow it all.  And the public's been drunk for years.

What coverage I've seen of the bit (I can't really call it press, given the outlets involved) reinforces the notion that *if* Stewart was trying to make a point in character or through hyperbole, it didn't work.

As for Carvey, his Biden remains as half-baked as it was when he talked about it with Stephen earlier in the year.  The first five seconds were much more like his Bush (41) than the current occupant.

David


Tom Wolper

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Jun 17, 2021, 7:20:18 PM6/17/21
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On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 9:16 PM 'David Bruggeman' via TVorNotTV <tvor...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Yeah, this topic is a tough needle to thread even if you aren't trying to do it with any level of humor, much less satire.  Too many different investigations/examinations of the matter with differing thresholds for conclusions to expect even a sober public to follow it all.  And the public's been drunk for years.

What coverage I've seen of the bit (I can't really call it press, given the outlets involved) reinforces the notion that *if* Stewart was trying to make a point in character or through hyperbole, it didn't work.

As for Carvey, his Biden remains as half-baked as it was when he talked about it with Stephen earlier in the year.  The first five seconds were much more like his Bush (41) than the current occupant.

As I watched the Stewart rant I thought his problem is he hasn't done standup in front of an audience for years and his performance was off. He wasn't clear about the point he was making - I think his point was if you say "trust the science" it doesn't mean trust only the science you agree with. As he built his rant his beats were off and as he got up and walked to the audience he didn't pause to see if the audience was still with him. If he spaced the buildup more it would have come out more like satire and less like a right wing talk radio rant.

As for Carvey, he must be some kind of acquired taste. So many people I respect in comedy talk about what a genius he is and every time I watch an appearance I don't find him funny.

PGage

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Jun 17, 2021, 10:40:58 PM6/17/21
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Again, I really don’t think this was satire. I don’t think Stewart is an anti-science Trumper, but I think he is genuinely worried about the dangers he sees in science- driven elitism, and wants to set some other authority (humanism perhaps?) above science. This is not an uncommon position among certain kinds of liberals (e.g., those still losing sleep over genetically modified crops).

What we needed was a transition from his comic bit (however successful or not it was) and at least a few minutes of serious discussion.

On Thu, 17 Jun 2021 at 4:20 PM Tom Wolper <two...@gmail.com> wrote:
.

As I watched the Stewart rant I thought his problem is he hasn't done standup in front of an audience for years and his performance was off. He wasn't clear about the point he was making - I think his point was if you say "trust the science" it doesn't mean trust only the science you agree with. As he built his rant his beats were off and as he got up and walked to the audience he didn't pause to see if the audience was still with him. If he spaced the buildup more it would have come out more like satire and less like a right wing talk radio rant.

As for Carvey, he must be some kind of acquired taste. So many people I respect in comedy talk about what a genius he is and every time I watch an appearance I don't find him funny.

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David Bruggeman

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Jun 17, 2021, 11:22:29 PM6/17/21
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PGage's point reminded me of something I noted back when Stewart hosted The Daily Show.  J-Stew interviewed author Marilynne Robinson in 2010 about one of her books.  IMO, neither was particularly effective in articulating their points, but here's the interview:


Around 2:58 the conversation turns to what may still be Stewart's perspective, that at a certain level science seems to be relying on faith about as much as religion.  He cites the inability to see antimatter as being comparable to arguments that God created everything.  I don't know that it's exactly what PGage is driving at, but I think the way some appeals to scientific authority take shortcuts contributes to this skepticism of the reliability of scientific information.

For what its worth, Stewart didn't strike me at the time as willing to do the work to check these claims, or maybe even in a position to know that can be done.  I wrote about it here (as with any 11 year old internet thing, linkrot runs rampant in the post) - https://pascophronesis.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/failure-in-science-communication-jon-stewart/

David

daves...@gmail.com

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Jun 17, 2021, 11:51:08 PM6/17/21
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I frequently hear interviews -- Marc Maron falls into this category -- that talks about SNL in the 80s being a Golden Age because of Sandler, Spade, Farley, and Carvey, and for my money, a less amusing quartet would be hard to find.

--Dave Sikula

On Thursday, June 17, 2021, 4:20:20 PM PDT, Tom Wolper <two...@gmail.com> wrote:


As for Carvey, he must be some kind of acquired taste. So many people I respect in comedy talk about what a genius he is and every time I watch an appearance I don't find him funny.

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PGage

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Jun 18, 2021, 12:11:31 AM6/18/21
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Yes, that is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about. I agree 100% with what you wrote in your blog.

None of that is to say that there are not important critiques to be made about scientism, about a tendency to give scientists unearned authority over non empirical matters, and about human hubris. It’s also not to say that we won’t find out one day that the corona virus did originate in a lab. But there was nothing in Stewart’s bit that captured the spirit or essence of what those valid critiques would look like.

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David Bruggeman

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Jun 18, 2021, 12:53:23 AM6/18/21
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Yeah, scientism is a big issue for me, especially when people I think ought to know better (a particular vest-wearing astronomer comes to mind) partake in it.  But those valid critiques require some nuance and more than a little context.  Neither of which was present on Monday.

David

M-D November

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Jun 18, 2021, 12:53:56 PM6/18/21
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IIRC, Sandler/Spade/Farley's prominance on SNL wouldn't come until the early '90s (think season 16-17 or later).  Carvey, however, broke out with Nealon/Lovitz/Hooks/Hartman/etc. in the late 80s. 

Melissa P

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Jun 19, 2021, 7:46:26 PM6/19/21
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Perhaps I don't understand you, because I assume you know how science works.

Substitute "still unknown" or "still unproven" for "faith" and I'd be okay with what you wrote.  The beauty of science is what we don't know and hope one day to find out.

PGage

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Jun 19, 2021, 8:56:07 PM6/19/21
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So this getting a little complex, and I should probably let David clarify to avoid even more. But I think David is saying that Jon Stewart’s position is that science relies on faith as much as religion. I don't think that David was agreeing with him.

 I agree with you that one virtue of science, as opposed to religion, is that science is comfortable both with not knowing things and with discovering that what it once thought was so was wrong. 

But I dont think this is the part that is tripping up Stewart; it is more the ways in which mathematics, statistics and logic are employed by science to formulate conclusions that to lay people seems more like smoke and mirrors, or faith, than what they think of as evidence.

This is the aspect that leads so many fundamentalists not to just misunderstand Evolution, but reject it in the most confidently bewildered and demeaning ways. I don't think Stewart rejects Evolution, but his tone of voice Monday reminded me of the many Christian Evolution deniers I have known.

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David Bruggeman

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Jun 19, 2021, 9:31:30 PM6/19/21
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What I think Stewart was doing was assuming things like the existence of antimatter - something which has been created at accelerators for a few decades - were still unknown or still unproven when they aren't.  If we (or he) were talking about something a bit more theoretical - say superstrings or dark matter - I'd be a bit more charitable.

Put another way, I think because Jon didn't or couldn't understand something in bleeding edge physics he was inclined to think the scientific conclusion was at the very least overblown, if not equivalent to assertions about the existence of God.  He's not as critical of a thinker as some consider him to be.

David

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Kevin M.

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Jun 20, 2021, 10:11:46 PM6/20/21
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Dan Rather weighs in…


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