Standup Historians?

My FAVORITE show on TV is The Daily Show with moderately successful standup comic and comedic actor—Jon Stewart—and a cast of comic news reporters. I disagree with HNN about Jon Stewart's interview segment. He interviewed Erica Jong and the network (Comedy Central) pulled the plug and Comedy Central runs a lot of blue material. Erica started talking about her former husbands and the next thing I knew, the show was off and replaced by an informercial (as I recall). Jon Stewart also got his wrist slapped for a riff during an interview when Barbara Walters came up in the conversation. Stewart linked Barbara to the 6th Fleet in an uncomplimentary way. The next night, he alluded to the ABC Legal Division, so I think his ribald references drew ire.. I missed the interview with Michael Beschloss. Only Jon Stewart would be quick enough to bring up Doris Kearns Goodwin to defend LBJ's memory. I don't think Doris could do standup. Frederick Jackson Turner as a standup comic? Been out west long? Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see a woman? Charles Beard doing standup? The Founding Fathers were a bunch of mothers. If this be (fair & balanced) irreverence, so be it!

[x HNN]
HE COULD ALWAYS PLAY VEGAS

Among the few shows on television that are genuinely funny is Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," on Comedy Central. If you haven't seen it, the show is built around the premise that a fake news show that goes for laughs can be more revealing about the news than the real news shows are. But usually only the first segment is worthwhile. The second segment features interviews and these are generally dull--just like on real news shows. But recently MICHAEL BESCHLOSS was on and he was genuinely funny (and much funnier than HENRY KISSINGER, who was on the previous week). Stewart, making a pointed reference to the failures of the American occupation of Iraq, noted that Beschloss's latest book, The Commanders, is about reconstruction, too. Beschloss quickly shot back, Yes, except that my book is about the one that worked. Then he was on to his next laugh. Stewart asked him if history is interesting. Yes, it is, says Beschloss. But as LBJ said to an economist, "Economics is like pissing down your leg. It seems hot to you but not to anybody else." At the end of the show, Stewart ad libbed: "Join us tomorrow night at 11. Doris Kearns Goodwin will be our guest who will refute much of what Michael Beschloss said."

Now historians are so widely known that a comedian can interview one and crack a joke about another and the audience gets it. Historians, this isn't the world Charles Beard or Frederick Jackson Turner would recognize.

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