I'd watch the news with my dad, and he'd quietly mock the anchors. An anchorman might say, 'Police are searching for...' and my dad would say in the anchorman's voice, 'the man who gave me this haircut.' This was in the real Ron Burgundy '70s. And I would laugh and start doing it myself.
There has to be news at a place called Fox News.
The longer I spent time on 'The Daily Show,' standing in front of a green screen pretending to report from war zones and hot spots around the world - most often from somewhere in the Middle East - the more I began to realize that 'The Daily Show' was radicalizing me.
Apparently it's cool to watch The Daily Show.
I think, with these shows, with 'Last Week Tonight,' with 'Full Frontal,' I think, as these shows have evolved, we all have research departments now.
Fox News has changed its slogan from 'Fair and Balanced' to 'See, I told you so!'
Journalism is straying into entertainment. The lines between serious news segments, news entertainment, and news comedy are blurring.
The one show that I will continue to be a guest on is 'The Daily Show' with Jon Stewart, if he'll have me. It's not competitive with CNN and it's too much fun.
At first the difference will be in whatever atmosphere I bring into it. It's not going to be like, 'I really want to do The Daily Show and I'd love to turn it into an abstract musical.' I like the format and the chance to satirize the news.
That's the thing about 'The Daily Show' - we're doing four shows a week, so we can't be too precious about what's going on.
I get all of my comedy from CNN.
'Weekend Update' can be presented as a full 20-minute sketch, and there's a lot of room there.
'The Daily Show,' which was created by women, Lizz Winstead and Madeleine Smithberg, has earned quite a bit of ink for the fact that it's written mostly by men.
In general, when I watch cable news during the day, it's frustrating because it reminds me of a game show. If I want to watch 'The Price is Right,' I'll watch 'The Price is Right.'
I guess my favorite Web site would be theonion.com. I used to read that paper all the time in New York, and it still cracks me up. It's actually my homepage on my computer.
What passes for news is just morbid speculation or cartoonish screaming, followed by diaper commercials.
Not every programme dealing with issues of global significance has to be fronted by last week's winner of Have I Got News For You-but I suppose you might be wrong.
Jon Stewart is a dude who grew up in Jersey, hosted the show for 17 years, and created this new way of doing satirical news.
One day I was watching some pundits screaming at each other on a news show. It suddenly reminded me of this painting on my wall, of balloons with goofy faces rising - pundits screaming at each other and arguing off into the ether.
The beautiful thing about faking a news show is the topicality is delayed.
I figured if I could put together being funny about stuff and actual events, maybe I could do something that wasn't being done much. Because the reporters that I met out there were funny, and they had hilarious stories that just didn't fit in the AP/UPI/New York Times foreign-correspondent style. They couldn't use the things they had. But I could.
To me, that's where a lot of satire lies. News used to hold itself to a higher plane and slowly it has dissolved into, well, me.
I feel like my comedy voice is to take the news and everything that's happening and put a funny spin on it or to pick out the things I find funny about it.
'The Daily Show,' at its core, is the answer to the nightly news.
I record the following shows on a daily basis and watch them when I have the time/inclination: 'The Daily Show,' Rachel Maddow, 'Hardball,' 'The Colbert Report,' 'The O'Reilly Factor,' David Letterman.
