TWO Daily Show milestones go unnoticed :-(
July 22, 2016 -- The Daily Show's 20TH ANNIVERSARY celebration! On July 22, 1996, Craig Kilborn first appeared on television screens in a new parody show of evening news called The Daily Show, and life was never the same. AT THE VERY LEAST, this SHOULD have been an extended one hour show that brought together original Daily Show Craig Kilborn with current Daily Show host Trevor Noah, had the FIRST Five Questions segment in 16 years, featured guest appearances by Stephen Colbert, Mo Rocca, Beth Littleford, and a retrospective rant by Lewis Black. Instead, The Daily Show writers apparently DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE the anniversary and it was a routine show covering the final night of the RNC coverage and Donald Trump's nomination. Wow, Comedy Central REALLY dropped the ball here. Sure, the Daily Show hasn't been cutting edge or must-see television in years, but neither has Saturday Night Live, and that didn't stop THEM from honoring the 40th anniversary and bringing back the ORIGINAL cast members that made the show the breakout hit it was in its earliest years. The ONLY positive I can say here is the current show's clueless failure to miss the 20th anniversary is nowhere as bad as the previous host's DELIBERATE attempt to turn the "10TH ANNIVERSARY" show into a tribute to HIMSELF and to deliberately snub/ignore EVERYTHING that made the show great to BEGIN with.
September 28, 2016 -- Trevor Noah's ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY as Daily Show host! On September 28, 2015 -- for the first time in over 15 years, audiences were finally FREED from Jon Stewart's DISGRACEFUL hijacking of The Daily Show. Obviously not as huge as milestone as the 20th anniversary of the entire show, but a milestone never-the-less. Trevor should have looked back on the fact he is no longer the "new guy" at the chair and played a clip from his very first show with Kevin Hart -- maybe even invite Kevin back after a year and try to have a much better interview segment the second time around to show how things have changed. At the very least, this was important because the Jon Stewart fans have been "predicting" that Trevor "wouldn't last a year" in the chair and that The Daily Show would be "cancelled" after "one season" without Stewart at the helm. Trevor has weathered the storm, and needed to celebrate it. Instead, no one on staff even seemed to notice it was Trevor's first anniversary hosting the show -- we instead got some routine episode about Donald Trump's fallout from making fun of Miss Universe's weight. BORING. Again, huge MISSED opportunity.
The Daily Show's inability to even ACKNOWLEDGE these milestones represents a huge blunder at Comedy Central, in my opinion. Whether they care that Noah's been there a year or that the show debuted 20 years ago, both were excellent opportunities to have a special "event" episode and boost the ratings. Both also presented an opportunity to do something fun and unique that would break the show out of its predictable Trump-bashing (and Trump certainly deserves to be mocked, its about 100X better than Stewart's creepy obsession with Fox News, but its gets old fast and there is a desperate need for new material).
This might be even worse than Paramount's failure to cash-in on Star Trek's 50th Anniversary this year. If you didn't know it from Star Trek fans, you would have never known that Star Trek Beyond was released to coincide with the 50th anniversary.
Some franchises, like Star Wars and The Tonight Show, know how to milk their "legacies" like crazy and cash-in for nostaglia for when they were bigger and better. Other franchises have no clue.
Comedy Central, GET A CLUE!
The Daily Show: 1996-1998, 2015-Present