Under Kilborn the Daily Show satirized the institution of “the news”. For all his sound and fury and reputation - making waves on Crossfire, etc. - Stewart turned it into exactly what it once mocked: a self-important and self-satisfied institution that looks at the size of the audience it cultivated by trading access for attention with the powerful, and sees in it moral authority.

Which to all appearances is what the audience prefers, anyway.

Like I said, Kilborn was always the better Daily Show host anyway.

Unpo… wait, is this really even unpopular? It’s an opinion, at least:

Craig Kilborn was a better Daily Show host than Jon Stewart.

Under Kilborn, TDS was comedy mocking news shows.

Under Stewart, TDS is “comedy” “mocking” “news”.

I have no idea why Kilborn was the one who replaced Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show. Stewart was even the standard substitute host! And he was good at it! Stewart’s a solid interviewer, good at feeding someone questions to help them get out whatever they have worth saying.

But Kilborn’s good at doing interviews and making them about himself. Which was the point! I loved Five Questions. I loved when Your Moment of Zen was absurdist.

When Stewart came on, they updated the theme song to a cover by They Might Be Giants, that’s a perfect synecdoche for the transition.

He was pretty good in The Faculty though. That’s an underrated movie.