Jon Stewart: The Playboy Interview (50 Years of the Playboy Interview) Read online

  Playboy: Can the media reverse course or are we stuck with this national soap opera?

  Stewart: I hope it’s cyclical, but once you break through certain barriers, it’s hard to reel that back in. The problem is the competitive nature of news. There’s too much fear of being scooped. The news has always had a detrimental effect—Hearst did it during the Spanish-American War—but the march of technology has made it ubiquitous. And has exposed it. I remember after Columbine there was a press release about the network that claimed to have broken the story—as though how fast it broke was what really mattered. Fortunately, the network evening news isn’t as slash-and-burn as what you see on a local level. The real disaster is the all-news channels. They have to fill 24 hours. They have enormous machines; tragedy and sensationalized material are their life raft. Without them, most of the time, they would drown in 24 hours of nothing. So: O.J., Menendez, Lewinsky, Columbine, JFK Jr., etc. They milk it.

  Playboy: Aren’t they just trying to attract viewers?

  Stewart: Yes. If TV thought that showing a naked girl jiggling car keys would do it—and they could get away with it—you’d see it tonight. TV news today subverts how I think news organizations should behave. Reporting news is a huge responsibility. It has to be taken more seriously. Bobcat Goldthwait had a great joke about the guy who videotaped the Rodney King beating. His joke was: “Put down the camera and help him!” He’s right. News isn’t a Discovery Channel documentary where you’re not supposed to feed the apes because that would be messing with the journalistic credibility of your documentary. It’s real life. News shows do, at times, affect the real news with their coverage.

  An obvious example is when Bill Clinton, in his first hundred days, tried to do health care reform, among other things. But all we heard about was gays in the military. Was that his flagship issue? Did he say, “Health care reform? That can wait, as long as I get through my agenda of making sure that gay people are allowed into the military.” No, but that’s how it came out because that was the most inflammatory story and the most conflict would come from it.

  Same with the penis thing, the Lewinsky story. I still don’t understand where the abuse of power was. You mean because he’s an older guy and he’s kind of her boss and she blew him? Like that abuse of power? Is that an abuse of the Constitution? Did he invoke some obscure article to get a blow job? The way it was characterized, you would have thought that getting a blow job from an intern was a crime against humanity, that even Adolf Eichmann would have said, “He did what? A blow job from an intern? Is he insane? My God. Think of the imbalance between their positions!” And there were the news media, over and over, trotting out the pomp and circumstance of “He lied to the American people.” Don’t they understand that we have memories? When Clarence Thomas was accused of sexual harassment, we could see that Republicans went out of their way to talk about how it wasn’t important and how Democrats went out of their way to talk about the crucial nature of proving these claims: How could any man serve on the Supreme Court when he had mentioned pubic hair and Coke? Pubic hair and Coke? He’s a judge! Judges aren’t human! Then, a few years later, it switches around. Democrats are defending sexual harassment and Republicans are talking about the moral imperative of treating women as equals. Don’t these people—news media and politicians alike—know that we sit home, watch this and go, “You only have situational ethics. You have no credibility with us.”

  Playboy: So politicians are complicit in this?

  Stewart: I think politicians look at these incidents with glee. They don’t go, “Oh, I can help rid the country of perjury, lying and sexual misconduct.” They think, I can use this to give my party an advantage.

  Playboy: What a surprise.

  Stewart: Our elected officials hold themselves above the people and what’s best. I don’t believe for a second that Henry Hyde was appalled by Clinton’s behavior. I don’t believe Bob Barr was appalled by the conduct. Newt Gingrich? Newt Gingrich was fucking a woman-not-his-wife while he was attacking the president for Lewinsky. It doesn’t get any clearer than that. These guys are all just acting. You know that after Congress let out for the night they all went for a beer at some bar on the Potomac and giggled their fucking heads off. They’re all in cahoots to keep their privileged places. Yet they and the media said, “Of course the American people care. Look at how the ratings go up.” Big surprise: They were talking about the president’s dick. Who’s not going to watch that? “Hmm. Should I watch a rerun of The Nanny or a guy on TV talking about the president’s dick and a cigar in a girl’s vagina?”

  Playboy: For a guy the press has called “the Stravinsky of self-deprecation,” you’re pretty outspoken in print.

  Stewart: It’s how I feel. [sighs, exhausted] I also think I have to be outrageous here because I’m competing with naked women.

  Playboy: Seriously?

  Stewart: Yeah. I’m not sure how long I can keep the readers from looking at the girl with no pants on, sitting on a llama. At some point you have to say something incredibly inflammatory, like “I fuck raccoons.” Take Jesse Ventura’s interview. It was tremendous. That was the key. I’m going for that little box with the bold print.

  Playboy: So what do you want as your quote?

  Stewart: How about: “Please, please, just hang in there. Keep reading. You’re only four pages away.” I don’t mind begging. “You can’t masturbate forever. Everybody has to rest sometime. Don’t hate yourself. We all do it. Just thank God you didn’t flip to this page right before you came.” You never want that image in your head: someone flipping the pages and seeing your picture at just that magic moment. That happened to me once with Gilbert Gottfried. Just as I was about to finish, I flipped the page and saw his face. It was like, “Oh boy, I got to work with this guy.”

  Playboy: Does it bother you that, unlike Chris Rock or Dennis Miller, your voice is not the dominant sensibility of The Daily Show?

  Stewart: My job is not to tell you what I think. My job is to tell you what I think is funny—which they do, too, by the way. If it’s not funny it’s not anything. Our show had its sensibility before I got here. But I also know that when I’m out there saying stuff on the air, I’d better be OK with it, so the editorial viewpoint is influenced by me. I like the balance. If the show’s smart and funny, whether I have anything to do with it or not every night, I win.

  Playboy: Any advice from former host Craig Kilborn when you appeared as a guest during his final week?

  Stewart: Not really. I congratulated him and tried to find out if I could use the bathroom. That sort of thing.

  Playboy: The feeling was that you, not Kilborn, would succeed Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show because you were under contract to the producers, David Letterman’s company, Worldwide Pants. Instead, you replaced the guy who got the Snyder gig. What happened?

  Stewart: My deal with Worldwide Pants was like a Vegas marriage. They were drunk, I was drunk. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Getting together was just an impulse thing. We both woke up the next morning, mouths a little dry, feeling a little cottony, eyes a little bloodshot. We looked at each other and went, “Man, you sure looked better last night when I was drunk.” But not in a bad way. That’s just how shit happens sometimes in this business.

  Playboy: Were you disappointed?

  Stewart: No. I wasn’t ready and Worldwide Pants wasn’t ready. I don’t think it was a priority for them to develop a show for me, which, originally, was talked about as for 1:30 in the morning. The whole thing was serendipity. I did a spot on Letterman’s show; at the same time, I’d been offered the gig hosting NBC’s Later, which Bob Costas and Greg Kinnear did. Letterman’s people knew about it and said, “Hey, what would you think about...?” I said, “You know, I’m sort of into this thing over at NBC.” I think their reaction was, “Well, we don’t want them to fuck this girl. We’d rather fuck her.”

>   Playboy: So you were seduced.

  Stewart: I’ve got major admiration for Dave Letterman. To hear from him that he would somehow like to have his name associated with mine, in however peripheral a manner, was powerful candy. My sit-down with him was like an audience with the Pope. So even though a contract was signed and money exchanged hands, we committed without really committing. Thank God, because it never would have worked. A show of that magnitude, five nights a week, becomes your life. I’ve done it before, and not that successfully, even though I thought we did a nice job of it.

  Playboy: Were you concerned that doing The Late Late Show might look like failed-talk-show-host-can’t-give-up?

  Stewart: No. It’s not as if I had a dart board at home with my face next to Pat Sajak’s and Rick Dees’.

  Playboy: What’s the difference between Letterman on-screen and off-screen?

  Stewart: On-screen is a performance. His interviews are like a sketch. He plays like he’s actually interested in what I did for Thanksgiving and I play like something funny actually happened. Off camera, he’s incredibly human. There is no game, no act. He was a very smart, funny man talking to me about his vision for late-night and his interest in me. I was impressed.

  Playboy: Did Letterman ever say that Snyder would soon retire, or that he wanted him to?

  Stewart: That was never explicit.

  Playboy: Did you and Snyder ever talk about this when you guest-hosted The Late Late Show?

  Stewart: We had one sort-of conversation in which I said, “Hey, I just want you to know I have the utmost respect.”

  Playboy: Give us the short course on the fine art of sitting in.

  Stewart: If there’s a drawer that is locked, don’t jimmy it with a butter knife. They’ll know. Also, you can only pull that fill-up-the-vodka-bottle-with-water gag once.

  Playboy: You also tried out for the job that Conan O’Brien got.

  Stewart: It was pre-MTV. I had no experience outside a couple of writing gigs and doing shows above the karaoke bar. I lived on the road, staying in comedy condos that had huge holes in the walls because the last comic there didn’t have as pleasant a time as he’d expected. I tried out because the juxtaposition of my life with the idea of maybe replacing David Letterman on Late Night was so great I almost couldn’t get my head around it. I thought of it as a lifeline. And the weird thing is that I got far enough in the auditions to believe for a second that I might get it. The audition was in a stand-up club. We each did ten minutes. Among the “contestants” were Allan Havey, Drew Carey, Paul Provenza. It was like being in the Miss America finals. I knew I wasn’t going to get it when, after two minutes, Lorne Michaels—who produces the show—stood up and said, “No!” That’s when I thought, Oh, I should have turned the mike to “funny.”

  Playboy: Do you now feel like you’ve had the last laugh?

  Stewart: Not really. On the other hand, the prophecy I’d created for myself—one room without a bathroom, miserable old guy who will never love or be loved—didn’t happen either. Some of us are optimists, some are pessimists. Some see the glass half full, some see the glass half empty. And some are sitting on shards of glass and trying to pick them out of their ass.

  Playboy: One magazine writer described you as the “celebrity equivalent of lint: He pops up in interesting and unlikely places.” Another example of your waiting in the wings was when you appeared as yourself on the last season of The Larry Sanders Show, filling in for Larry. Rumors quickly circulated that you’d actually take over as faux host when Shandling left. Was that ever in the cards?

  Stewart: That’s the beauty of the show. They drew a bizarre line between fiction and reality. In reality, my becoming the host would be like saying, “Hey, Michelangelo’s David could really use a mustache and mutton chops.” It’s like MASH and After MASH. Are people really interested in what Klinger and Radar are doing in Iowa?

  Playboy: How did you get involved with Garry Shandling?

  Stewart: I met Garry through the personal ads in The Advocate. Or maybe it was through the 4-H circular. I can’t remember. But his ad was charming and I thought we had a lot in common. Except his ass is bigger than mine. By the way, I’ve only eyeballed his ass. I don’t know firsthand. You have to draw the line somewhere in a working relationship. Now when we hang out, it’s not exactly dating because only light petting is involved.

  Playboy: How about the real story?

  Stewart: When I hosted my own talk show, Garry did a walk-on for the last three minutes, the night Jeff Tambor played my sidekick. Of course, I knew who he was. I had a TV. I liked It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and his stand-up. I’d been aware of him for many years, from afar. The beauty of Garry is, when you think the joke is over, it’s not over. Most of us run out of steam on punch lines. You get to that point where you’ve tagged your last tag and there’s nowhere else to go. That’s when Garry comes up with five more tags. I can’t quite figure out how he does it; I just think his brain is wired more efficiently.

  Playboy: You’re known for being lightning quick and dead-on yourself. Did you two ever trade professional secrets?

  Stewart: No. I’ve spoken to some of his representatives and they have agreed with me, but I’ve never spoken to Garry directly. He was kept in a plastic bubble when we worked together.

  Playboy: Can comedians really be friends with other comedians? What’s the rule?

  Stewart: They have it up in the bathroom at the Improv, but I can’t remember it. No, no, that’s “Wash your hands before you leave.” [pauses] Most people have this impression that among comedians it’s like Diner, a bunch of guys doing shtick over French fries; or that all we do is analyze comedy; or that we’re all neurotic and crazy. Well, maybe that last bit is true. But some of the best conversations I’ve had with other comics at three a.m. sitting in a diner were not about comedy.

  Playboy: Are you the kind of guy you imagined becomes a comedian?

  Stewart: Preconceived notions are invalid. With accountants the big gag is that they’re boring. But I’m sure there’s a hang-gliding accountant out there who knows how to play the drums and fucks like a champ. I’m sure there’s an accountant somewhere who comes home late at night drunk, sticks his dick in the butter, laughs his ass off and goes, “If they only knew.”

  Playboy: What’s the most important thing to you about comedy?

  Stewart: Nothing. It’s silly. You want something important? Learn to take a guy’s heart out of his chest, restart it and put it back in.

  Playboy: Isn’t humor also curative? A way of enhancing the human spirit?

  Stewart: Oh boy. Most comedians are incredibly cynical, and the last thing they’re doing is enhancing the human spirit. [pauses] Most are feeding their own gratuity machine, ingesting something they need and popping it out on the other side. If it happens to have a positive effect on people, that’s great. But I believe very few comedians got into it because the children need to laugh. They do it to feed something in themselves. Somewhere in their brains a neuron fires happily and a need is eased, like a drug. It’s almost self-medication.

  Playboy: Even so, the public gets something out of it.

  Stewart: Yeah, but there’s no Mother Teresa of comedy saying, “I’m going to go to Calcutta and live there for years in poverty and entertain the children.” There are no development deals for martyrs. We’re out there getting our swerve on.

  Playboy: Why did you want to become a comedian?

  Stewart: Like most of the comedians I know, I was uncomfortable in other settings. Before I found comedy, nothing fit my receptors. But this felt right. As bad as I was when I started, it still felt better than anything else I’d ever done. It soothed a need, and that was good enough for me.

  Playboy: You did kids’ puppet shows before stand-up; why didn’t that feed the need?

  Stewart: T
his is actually a great example that illustrates my point. Kids on the Block was a performance program in which half the puppets were disabled and half the puppets weren’t. They interacted in a way that helped children understand people with disabilities and how to interact with them. It was a truly good and decent thing to do for people; an enlightened, wonderful performance. Yet I thought to myself, Fuck this. I need stand-up.

  Playboy: Like Larry Sanders, you wrote a book. But instead of an autobiography, yours has comic essays in which you take on Bill Gates, Hitler, the Kennedys, Hanson, Leonardo Da Vinci, chat rooms, Judaism, sitcoms, local news and more. What did you leave out?

  Stewart: [Laughs] There was one piece called Les Marlboros. It was a parody of Les Miserables where the revolution was smokers versus nonsmokers. It actually included Jean Valjean, who didn’t understand the whole thing, but he was French and he liked to smoke, so he decided to lead the band of rebels. It was long and boring.