IT'S NOT THE FAKE NEWS IF YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE YOURSELF THE REAL NEWS: I was a little puzzled by the headlines on the Interwebs this morning about how Jon Stewart's interview with Jim Cramer was THE SMACKDOWN OF THE CENTURY!!!!!!, so I was happy to see Fienberg's nice piece sensibly pointing out that it was neither a fair nor a particularly useful fight.
I like Stewart a lot, but I'm not a fan of the Jon Stewart who decides that the best way to get his point across is to conduct these smug interviews where the question, and not the answer, is the important part, and where he plays his "you're-serious-I'm-just-a-comedian" card. The clip segments this week leading up to the interview (at least the ones I saw) were good examples of how Stewart can both make his point and make his point entertaining. When he resorts to his interview/debates, though, he tends to stop trying to be funny, which unsurprisingly renders him not funny. At that point, the show starts to recall those Jay Leno monologues where the goal is applause, not laughter, and one good rule of comedy is that if Jay Leno does it, you should try something else.
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