The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 194: Jon Stewart Owes Me $20!

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

Ever wonder what The Daily Show would have looked like if Mike Rowe had been hired to host it? Well, guess what – he was! And then he wasn't. And then, he was! And then…he wasn't. The question is, does Jon Stewart really owe Mike Rowe $20?

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Hey guys, it's Mike Rowe. This is episode number 194 of the way I heard it, and it's called John Stewart owes me $20. John Stewart owes me $20. We start with the true story of a devoted son, who was determined to redeem his irredeemable father, what the cost. It's a look also at the men behind bars, those who deserve to be there and those who don't. That's followed by a brief rumination on the difference between truth and authenticity,

a recurring theme on this podcast, and what that difference means here in the age of fake news. Who do we trust, in other words? And why do we trust them? Why, for instance, was John Stewart, a fake newscaster, more trusted than Dan Rather? And, and, and, Anderson Cooper and Brian Williams. Well, we know with Brian Williams, but you get the idea. He was, John Stewart, was the most trusted newsman back in 2008. And he wasn't even a newsman. For that matter, why do financial reporters keep asking me, Mike Rowe, to weigh in on economic

issues that I'm not really qualified to discuss? I don't have the answers, but I have a theory. And I talked to a director named Paul Penelino. who might have something interesting to add to the conversation. Paul's been working over at the Daily Show for the last 20 years, and he had a front row seat to what happened to John Stewart when America started trusting a comedian to tell them the truth more than they did professional journalists.

It's a fun conversation. We'll reflect on what might have happened had I hosted the Daily Show instead of dirty jobs, which, spoiler alert, very nearly happened. It's episode 194 of the way I heard it. John Stewart owes me $20, and it all starts right now. Chapter 16, The Men Behind Bars. Jimmy ran a very successful business for a very large company and a very competitive industry. After just two years, his revenues were in the tens of millions of dollars,

and his customers were hopelessly addicted. The boss was pleased, very pleased. But on February 12, 1985, Nikki turned up dead, and things got complicated. Nikki wasn't the biggest earner on Jimmy's crew, but he was, in many ways, the most important. He wasn't just an earner. He was the heart and soul of Jimmy's operation, and his death left a big hole, a hole that had to be filled immediately. But who could fill it? Jimmy set out to find a replacement for that which had been irreplaceable. At the same time, halfway across the country, an Indiana farm boy wrestled with a very different kind of challenge.

Tracy's dad had been arrested for murder and sentenced to life in prison. Clearly, the conviction was a bum rap. The state had spent millions of dollars prosecuting Tracy's dad, while the defense had spent less than $7,000 defending him. Plus, the wise guy who'd allegedly hired the boy's dad to murder a judge had been released in some kind of plea bargain. To top it all off, the judge who had condemned Tracy's father to a life behind bars had been one of the victim's pallbearers.

The whole setup stunk. Tracy was determined to get his dad an appeal. Of course, that would require the same. services of a real lawyer, something that would cost real money. So, the 24-year-old farm boy from Indiana did what he felt he had to do. He assumed a new identity and went looking for the kind of job that paid the kind of money he needed. Tracy had no experience in this line of work, but he knew a few people who could possibly arrange a few introductions, and one of those people knew a guy who introduced him to another guy who arranged for a meeting with Jimmy.

It was a pivotal moment for the kid from Indiana. There was no denying his nervousness when he walked into Jimmy's bar for a sit-down. You know who I am? Tracy nodded. Yes, sir. You're Jimmy, though I'm not sure if that's what I should call you, sir. Jimmy smiled. The kid had an openness about him, an undeniable Midwestern-like ability that could be useful, assuming he possessed other necessary qualities that could make up for the loss of Nicky's unique set of talents. Jimmy and Tracy talked at length. Then Jimmy introduced him to his crew. It was important that everyone be comfortable with Nikki's potential replacement, essential, in fact. Jimmy even asked Tracy to have a brief conversation with a few of his best customers, including a

psychiatrist, to get a better sense of how he might cope with the pressures and challenges of Jimmy's operation. It was a leap of faith, sure, but decisions like that often are. So, Jimmy hired the kid from Indiana to fill Nikki's shoes, and to everyone's relief, Tracy fit right in. Not only did the work come naturally, the money was even better than he'd imagined, a lot better. Before long, he had enough to hire the best attorneys in the country and set them to work, reviewing the dubious case that had landed his dad in a maximum security prison. Tracy would spend many years and many millions of dollars trying to get his father a second chance, but it was all for naught. Even the brilliant Alan Dershowitz, with his

Harvard Law School professorship and the team of legal eagles that he had assembled failed to get an appeal through the courts. Maybe it was because it wasn't the first time that Tracy's father had been charged with murder, nor was it the second time. The truth is, Tracy's dad really was a hitman, a natural-born killer, and even though the circumstances surrounding his final conviction were undeniably squishy, the totality of his life was not exactly consistent with that of a model citizen. That was why he was denied his appeal. That's why he died behind bars, 22 years after his son walked into one to interview for the job that changed his career. It's worth noting, though, that although Tracy worked at Jimmy's

bar every day, he kept his dad's personal drama to himself. He knew that Jimmy's customers didn't want to hear a sad story about some kid from Indiana whose dad had turned out to be a murderer. They just wanted to relax in a friendly place where they all knew one another. Tracy also knew that Jim Burroughs had given him more than a chance to pour beer in America's favorite bar. he'd given him a chance to become America's favorite bartender, just as his predecessor, Nikki had been. Nikki Colissanto, the actor, who'd given us a lovable character named Coach. That's how Charles Void Harrelson wound up behind bars in a cold and lonely place where everybody

knew his name. And that's how his son, Woodrow, Tracy Harrelson became Woody Boyd, a man who spent eight years in a much friendlier joint, working behind the bar in a place called Cheers. To live outside the law, you must be honest. That is a direct quote from Bob Dylan, and it came to mind while I was sitting at the bar in Grumpies writing the story you've just heard. Was Charles Harrelson an honest man?

Was he honest with his fellow criminals? Was he honest with his son? With himself? The bartender at Grumpies had no answers, but wanted me to know that Bob Dylan was his favorite artist of all time. An absolute genius, he said. Why don't you write a story about him? Did you know he won a Nobel Prize?

I swallowed some anchor steam and nodded. I heard about that, I said. Maybe I will. I never did write that story. But if I had, I'd have called it the big lie, because Bob Dylan was not what you'd call a slave to the truth. It's true. Bob Dylan lied his way through countless press conferences. He swiped melodies, arrangements, and lyrics from friends and forbears alike.

His own memoir contains multiple lines lifted from various sources, and his Nobel Prize lecture in 2017 contained 20, passages pilfered from the Sparks Notes summary of Moby Dick. Even the quote I've just attributed to him is another way of saying, honor among thieves. That concept was first discussed in Plato's Republic, then by Shakespeare and Henry the Fourth, and then in every movie ever made about the mob and the importance of not being a rat, which begs a bigger question, why the hell would anyone ever believe, anything Bob Dylan says. And that question reminds me of my good friend John Stewart. Long before fake news became a real problem for genuine journalists, there was a real show about

genuine news with fake journalists, The Daily Show. On that show, John Stewart lampooned every single pretense of news production, the overly dramatic music, the movie trailer voiceovers, the ridiculous graphics, the desperate attempts by achingly earnest anchorman to make us believe they weren't reading someone else's words off a teleprompter. That was all perfect fodder for satire. But a funny thing happened to my friend, John Stewart. The less earnest he appeared to be, the more trusted he became. And the more trusted he became, the more seriously he was taken. It was fascinating to watch, especially when people disagreed with him. Hey, folks, he said, what's the problem here?

I'm just a guy telling jokes. But now that everyone trusted him, no one believed him. Poor John, he simply couldn't have it both ways. Suddenly, millions of people were turning to the Daily Show for actual news. John Stewart was more trusted than every actual anchorman out there and Comedy Central was more credible than Fox and CNN. Is it any wonder, fake news became a real thing? Speaking of lies, let's assume for a moment that no one on television tells the truth ever.

Trust me on this one, it's not a stretch. One day, I appear on your TV screen and say, Hi, I'm Mike Rowe, and I'm lying to you. Would that statement be true? It couldn't be, right? Because by definition, everyone on TV lies all of the time. But if I confess that I'm lying in a place where no one ever tells the truth, wouldn't that make my confession fundamentally honest?

If so, would it not therefore be more accurate to say that the only way to be completely authentic in a place where everybody lies is to never tell the truth? The answer, my friend, is blown in the wind. But I take comfort in something my father used to say. A promise made is a debt unpaid. When it comes to trustworthiness, that strikes me as a sensible statement. But down here at Grumpies, where I like to go after explaining how the universe works to my trillions of viewers,

my ethics tend to be a bit more situational. So I'm going to have one more anchor steam and think seriously about the pros and cons. of plagiarizing the next chapter and dedicating it to my good friend, Bob Dylan. Well, are you sick of it yet? Are you sick of AI hogging up all the headlines and sucking up all the bandwidth? You find yourself wishing we lived in a simpler time? Do you miss the rotary phone? Well, get over it.

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And while you're there, pick up their free business guide, demystifying AI. It's filled with super useful information. And again, it's free at netsuite.com slash mike. That's netsuite.com. Netsweet. slash Mike. Okay, so Mike, I noticed something about this previous chapter that we've just heard. and that is you seem to be,

you seem to be stretching the truth just a little bit. Trillions of fans, your friends with John Stewart? These are things I didn't know. Well, yeah, John and I met once or twice. We're friendly. Trillions of fans might be gilding the lily just a tad, but Bob Dylan is a liar.

100%. 100% guaranteed on that. No, look, this was, it's kind of a confusing chapter. It's almost worth listening to twice. In fact, I had to. But I wrote it the way I wrote it because this is where the book, for me anyway, starts to talk to itself. And the big idea in the chapter is to juxtapose the differences between truth and authenticity. You can be incorrect and still be authentic.

And learning that has always been kind of interesting for me. So, yeah, I drop Bob Dylan's name because many people still consider him to be one of the most authentic musicians of all time. but he plagiarizes all over the place, always has. And he makes no apologies for it. The other thing about this chapter, too, is you mentioned John Stewart and you mentioned the Daily Show. And you and John Stewart, I would say, share a bit of interesting real estate in the American zeitgeist because you guys both were on hit shows about the same time, about the same age.

And you both as a result of that got to be known as very trustworthy. for the people. Isn't that true? Well, I mean, opinions vary, obviously, but if you look at the lists and the polls and the surveys, yeah, that caught my eye years ago. John Stewart in 2008 was more trusted in the journalism business than Brian Williams, Anderson Cooper, Dan Rather, all of them. Crazy. He was rated the number four most trusted journalist, I think, of all time. And he's not even a journalist. And he's not a journalist, right? And so that same year, Forbes rated me the number four most trusted celebrity.

Now, you know, why? Why in the world did that happen? Partly because Discovery is a great brand and people trust them. And partly because Ford is a great brand and I was working closely with them. So I got a little of that on me, you know? Partly, I think you see a guy crawling through a sewer covered in other people's crap. He's probably not lying to you. I mean, why would he?

You know, he's in a sewer, for God's sakes. But the bigger question is not what happens to the host of a show that gets very popular. When a show gets popular, the host becomes a celebrity. That's the point that I wanted to make. That you were a celebrity, made a celebrity by Dirty Jobs in the same way that John Stewart was made a celebrity by The Daily Show. And when someone becomes a celebrity, you expect a celebrity. do you expect a certain type of thing to happen? As your buddy, for a long time, what I noticed,

the greatest thing was is that we never had to pay for beers anymore wherever we went, because people always wanted to buy you beers and they would buy me a beer because I was there with you. You're welcome. And that was great. I appreciate that. But things got really strange when financial reporters started to call you and ask you what you thought about the latest jobs numbers or, you know, a bill about skilled workers or the unemployment rate. And then things just went off the hook when Congress asked you to testify before them. I mean, you're just a host of a TV show. And Congress wants to know what you think about all those things.

And all this takes place because you're on a medium where you've just informed us that everybody lies. That's right. But that doesn't mean everybody's inauthentic. and somewhere in that rumination is, I think, maybe something interesting to talk about. And we're going to talk in a minute to a guy named Paul Penelino, who's currently the director on the Daily Show, new John Stewart for years.

And we have one degree of interesting separation. I'll get to in a second. But to your main question, yeah, it's not really about what happens to a host who becomes a celebrity. It's about what happens to that person when society changes. Right. It's not about being attached to a hit show

is always going to get you free stuff. But when the show becomes a platform or a benchmark for something else, now, suddenly the apprentice on dirty jobs, the 48-year-old smart aleck who crawls through sewers and gets paid for working on a show is suddenly launching a foundation. And that foundation is getting its own attention.

And simply because of what I did on the show, I'm being asked to weigh in on the changing face of the modern day proletariat, vis-a-vis the digital divide, my thoughts on the skills gap and currency to valuation and all these things. I'm so completely out of my lane that I have to admit it. But in admitting it, nobody threw me out of the room. It makes you more credible. So I think what I want to say is that in 2000, 2008, John Stewart was suddenly being looked at as a serious journalist.

Right. And now I'm being looked at as a serious and credible spokesman for closing America's skills gap. And look, I don't want any credit or blame. I just think that the odds that dirty jobs just got rebooted is relevant, I think, to the fact that the Daily Show is still on the air. People still watch the Daily Show to get their news. And that says as much about the news industry, I think, as it does about anything else. But John and I both got caught up in something much larger than our individual shows or careers. And that's what I wanted to talk about.

Yes. And you share a little bit more than just the fact that you both are viewed by the public as trustworthy people. You share a little bit of Twilight Zone World material on the Venn diagram. Am I right? You can't make it up, man. I mean, the truth is I could have hosted The Daily Show. And I don't say that as if, boy, I really think I could have. I mean, I was hired to host the Daily Show twice. Twice. And I haven't talked about this a lot. I have in the past just to sort of, articulate what rejection feels like in this industry because it was the absolute epitome of rejection for me. But in 1996, Madeline Smithberg, who was hired by Doug Herzog to to create a new show, embarked on a giant talent search. She saw everybody, everybody in L.A. and in New York.

And I was living in both places back and forth at the time. So I auditioned for her twice. And then I got called back. And then she offered me the job. It's yours, Mike. We're going to make a great show together. We want your point of view and we want your sense of humor. And this is going to be an entirely new thing. And I was very excited. And she invited me to come in to meet the writers on a Monday. This was on a Friday we had this conversation. She said, come in Monday, meet the writers and let's get started. So I was very excited. And I walked in on Monday into the writer's room and there were no writers in the writer's room. There was just Madeline Smithburg sitting there looking very much like an unfunny person, you know, and I said, what's up? And she said, well, over the weekend, my boss,

Doug Herzog, got Craig Kilbourne out of his contract at ESPN. Don't! They had always wanted Craig. And ESPN finally let him out of it. And Craig took the job. So he was in. I was out. They offered me a correspondent role. I passed because Dick Clark was sniffing around. I thought it'd be better to host a game show than be a correspondent on a show that had never even aired yet. And so I moved to L.A. And I thought that was that. And it stung.

It wasn't devastating. It was disappointing. But then... Then what happened? Oh, my God, dude. So three years later, Craig Kilbourne now has a show. And Comedy Central has a hit. And they got a little heat behind them.

And Tom Snyder retires from CBS. and David Letterman hires Craig Kilbourne to replace him. And just like that, the Daily Show needs a host. And I mean, they need them fast. They are without a host. This is late December 99. And so they don't have time for a talent search. Now they got to go to a proven entity or somebody that they always kind of liked.

So Madeline Smithburg calls me. Says, Mike, you know, Craig is out. this job is yours. We all love you. We still have your old audition. We'd like you to come in and just do another screen test, but the job's basically yours. So I go in, I do like a whole half hour, you know,

and everybody looks at it. They're like, you crushed it. This is going to be great because now the show's already a hit. You're just going to take it and make it your own. Now I'm really excited, dude. I mean, I'm really, this is it. 40 years old, you know, paid my dudes. I'm ready to go.

And she says, the only way things could possibly go the other way is if her words, this cheap ass network comes up with a big pile of money for Norm MacDonald or Dennis Miller or Dana Carvey or somebody like that. And so what happened, Mike? Well, his name was John Stewart. As I recall, that was a $4 million deal. Nobody in a million years thought Comedy Central would do a deal like that. did. They sure did. And I was out again. Now, that one hurt. I was going to say, how did that feel?

That one hurt because I knew that I didn't, it, it wasn't just a job I had missed out on. I knew I had missed out on a potential platform that could be bigger than me. You know, all my jobs in the old days, remember, I touched everything like it was hot. I didn't care. You know, I didn't care about the gig. this gig I cared about and I didn't get it. And you got a very, a very famous letter from Madeline, the creator, Madeline, yeah, which you posted it on Facebook. And I think is mentioned by Paul Penalino in the interview. And speaking of which, we should get to that now. I just wanted people to understand that the chapter in the book is there because when I was writing it, what really became self-evident to me was this difference between trustworthiness

truth, authenticity. You know, the advent of fake news really began back in 2007, 2008. And when you look at where we are today, and when you look at the levels of skepticism, and when you look at what's going on with the canceling of the culture, you know, this is not a political conversation you're about to listen to, but it is a conversation, I think, about a couple of guys who found themselves attached to shows that turned out to be relevant in ways that nobody anticipated. And what happened to them as a result?

You really can't script this kind of thing. And so we didn't. I'm really glad to hear that, yeah, since we did. His name's Paul Penelino. He's about 60 years old. He's been directing great shows for decades. He has some smart stuff to say. It was a great conversation.

I hope you dig it. So I'm sitting here on Zoom, looking at my screen, at the one and only Paul Penelino. And Paul, you're in Arizona, no? I am in Tucson, Arizona. Everything as it should be in the great city of Tucson. Everything is as it should be, Mr. Roe. We're in early April, and it's 94 here today,

which is unseasonably toasty. And you don't want to be here in July and August. No, I've been there in July and August, and I said those very words out loud. By the way, it's Mr. Mike Roe. Okay, I think I'm going over there. the years. Apologies.

What just happened in the book was that I kind of lied a little bit and described John Stewart as my good friend. I've been on the Daily Show. I met John once, but I was trying to make this larger point about certain shows that come along at certain times that wind up making people weirdly credible. And John Stewart became incredibly credible, incredibly fast. and the fact that he was considered, I forget what year it was,

but he was more trusted than any major anchor on any major news show. And the Daily Show had become a more trusted source of news than ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, I mean, all of them. And it was such a crazy time. And you were there at that point, you would have been an associate director. And at the same time,

I'm hosting dirty jobs. And dirty jobs is getting rated through the roof as well. And I'm being described as weirdly credible, in part, I think, because I was the Ford guy at the time, but I was also working for discovery and a lot of people love that network. And so, you know, I'm not comparing myself to John, but I am looking at it and saying, from your perspective, what was going on at the Daily Show that made it so unique and special circa 2007, 2008 and beyond? Well, I think 9-11 changed everything.

And I think it changed the genre that I work in, certainly. You know, John was, was and is extremely bright person. And I think he evolved into the role and into the time. And also, I think part of it. it was the news was doing such a terrible job. I don't think that John's mission was to go out and be more credible than Peter Jennings or Brian Williams at the time. It just happened through the events of the world. News evolving into what I like to call the squabble culture. Follow the money, right the 24-hour news networks i feel are the the the worst thing to happen to

america yet what did you think when john went on what was it a crossfire and it was uh it was it was Tucker and uh paul bagalio i think yeah yeah that was a big deal i mean a lot a lot of people watched that and uh it felt like it brought a lot more attention to the daily show i think that was i was talking to chuck about that a couple of weeks ago and i think that was that was that was a pivotal moment. And in his defense, you would often hear him say, hey, guys, I'm, I'm just a comedian. Yeah. Right.

But it, the, the beast changed all that. You know, when he, when he, when he went on Crossfire and as you hear him tell the story now in subsequent interviews, he said, I was just having a bad blood sugar day that day. and he was ornery. And I believe a little bit of that, but I think he was also, in order to do the job of the daily show host, you had to consume all of that psychological bilge

on MSNBC, on Fox, CNN, on the squabble culture channels. And I think when he went on Crossfire, he had told them, I think I'm quoting, he said, you're ruining America. And at the time, I remember sitting,

I wasn't watching it at home, but everybody the next day at the office was talking about it. And I thought, that's a heck of a thing to say, especially when you're in somebody else's house. Yeah, he was a guest on that show. Yeah. My guest today, Tom, Albany's, is an American giant. And I'll tell you why.

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You're investing in a local supply chain. You're supporting communities from the Carolinas to California. And you're getting a piece of clothing that won't just survive the wash. you're getting a garment that'll get better with age. Check out their high-quality staples, hoodies, teas, denim, built to be worn year after year at American-giant.com slash mike. It's quality you can feel and a true American success story that you can be proud to support.

Use code Mike. Get 20% off your order at American-giant.com slash Mike. American Giant, American Made. They were really taken aback. And looking at it through the rearview mirror of that many years, there was something prophetic about that statement, you know? Well, I mean, it wasn't, I don't think anybody really pushed back against the idea that that level of squabbling was counterintuitive or maybe even counterproductive.

I think the thing for John that was interesting was that he appeared to verge out of his lane. Right. And I say this is a guy who gets accused of doing the same thing from time to time. He's a comedian and he's writing jokes and he's always been quick to point that out whenever things get heated or controversial. But at the same token, he's a man with an opinion and a platform. and he was there. He had a front row seat as the country was becoming more and more heated and more and more divided.

And he could see it happening. And, you know, it's not to me a question of whether he was right or wrong to say what he said. The pushback came because where does a comedian get off weighing in on something so consequential? What does he really want to be? What does he really want to do with this platform? And I only pointed out because the same thing is happening now everywhere. You know, I run a foundation.

And if I say something about infrastructure or about education or about the skills gap or any number of other things, well, I get a certain amount of permission to do that because of the foundation. But, you know, not a week goes by where somebody doesn't look back into my curriculum, Viette and say, wait a second, the dirty jobs guy sang opera. How is that possible? You know, this advocate for the trades was on a home shopping channel. How was that possible? It can't be possible. He must be a fraud because two people, you know, one person can't be two things at the same time. So that's a long way of saying.

I was sympathetic for John when all of a sudden he was getting a lot of pressure to speak about things that really had nothing to do with jokes. And that must have been interesting to watch. up close. It was interesting to watch, but I think he found himself in this chair. And initially, you remember the mission of the show was not just to satirize the news. And this is where I thought Madeline Smithburg was brilliant the way she created it and fleshed it out. It also, and you pointed this out in the chapter, it also satirized the manner in which news people did their thing. the way they, the way graphics were presented.

If you look at Colbert in those early days, his character, and this is coming from him, not me, he based it on Stone Phillips. But I think, I think John just found himself, the beast evolved around him rather than the other way around. And I'd have to ask him this. I don't know if he ever struggled internally with, well, wait a second, I'm no longer a comedian in the classic sense of the word. And I feel like, well, good for him. You know, he read the way the wind was blowing and adjusted accordingly. Yeah. And I think, and again, this would be a question for him rather than me, but I feel like I was there long enough and through a lot of, you know, presidential. cycles and national events. I think he's a very passionate person.

And I think, you know, once the Iraq war started, that's when things might have changed where it perhaps became more of a mission-oriented broadcast with a taste of comedy here and there. I just think it's fascinating. Once you realize you've got millions of people watching you for. To be informed, not just to be entertained, but to be informed, right? You either pivot or you don't. You either stay in your lane or you don't.

And on the other hand, sometimes, and this is why I put it in the book too, you know, Dirty Jobs was a silly little show where an apprentice would try and keep up with the work going on around him. That's all it was. Now, it did have an underlying mission, but it wasn't, until the economy tanked in 2008, that the show became relevant in ways that no one had thought. And most recently, with the lockdown and essential work in the headlines, we're rebooting it. Because once again, the climate and the culture made it relevant in ways that no one imagined.

The daily show was the same thing. It was just a little piece of fluff on a network that wasn't getting a whole lot of ratings. They were trying to get a toe hold. And they got on the air and Kilbourne had a little heat. And then he kind of ate their lunch. And then I came into audition. And then I didn't get it. And neither did David Allen Greer. And neither did Michael Keaton. And neither did a bunch of other guys who gave it a shot. John did. He built it into something. But again, something larger changed. Something shifted. And whatever that shift was, a suspicion of the establishment, a suspicion of fake news, a belief that we were being sold something, a lack of authenticity, right?

I think you nailed it right there. I think that was essentially what it was. It was what are they putting in our cereal? What are these ingredients that I can't recognize? and they're making me fat and sick. I think that was when something changed in him because his mind was, and is so analytical that I think part of it was, like I said,

it became certainly mission oriented, but I think the bounty was right in front of him. And he made it his own. Can I ask you a couple of questions about the Sure. Okay. I'm wondering if you have it, is there any amount of money I can pay for the video of you that night in the tuxedo playing Mr. Bojangles? No, there's no one. Do you ever go down this path where you think, well, what if I had gotten the Daily Show and where would I have taken it? I can tell you what I think about the likelihood of what would have happened had I gotten the gig on the Daily Show. I'm no less interested in what John Stewart would have done on dirty jobs.

And I think because we're different people, you know, we have different opinions. We certainly come from different backgrounds. He could have turned dirty jobs into something more entertaining and fundamentally different, simply because he would have written his own stuff. Would I have made the Daily Show better? No, no way. Would I have made it different? Sure.

because I wouldn't have simply read what somebody put in front of me. But look, I mean, didn't he butt heads early on? Wasn't there real problems with the existing writers to some degree? I mean, that must have been a thing. That was a sea change. There was a lot of, well, that's not how we do it. Right. And I think for a while, admittedly, he was, oh, okay.

and you can't as people that do what you do and what what he does, your writers, your storytellers, your performers, he could no longer ignore that. You got to be who you are. Dan Rather used to say that if you're in front of the camera long enough, you are who you are.

That's who you are. Or it will define you. Yes. Yeah. If you don't know who you are, the camera will decide for you. And the audience, will absolutely confirm it.

That's the crazy power, right? Yeah, and I'm not in front of the camera, but I am interested in what makes you guys tick because you're both alike in the sense that you're not going to play a part that somebody else is written. You have to be who you are and listen to your own voice. But look, I mean, this is interesting because I think John did a great impersonation of a host and a pretty good impersonation of an actor for a long time before he wound up in that chair.

And I say this as a guy who spent 20 years impersonating a host. I hit the mark. I said the lines. I never owned it. You know, I touched everything like it was hot and I was very happy with the trajectory of my career because I didn't give a damn about anything I was working on. It wasn't until my mother's gave me a hard time to do a show that looked like work for my pop. It wasn't until things got very, very personal that all of a sudden things started to matter to me that never mattered before. Remember, I came out of infomercials, home shopping. I really didn't care. It just, it didn't matter to me too much about the quality of the project. The quality of my work mattered. But the project itself didn't.

Totally understand what you're saying. This to me is the seminal thing. Dirty jobs all of a sudden mattered to me more than my performance in it. And that was a first. And I felt like when I watched the Daily Show, looking at John, he understood that this thing suddenly had a bigger audience. It had a bigger mission. And the stakes were suddenly higher. And that's when you have to break some eggs.

In John's case, it sounds like he fired some writers and he pushed back against the network. You know, I had to do something similar. I stopped shooting second takes. I insisted a behind the scenes camera include the crew. I didn't want the viewer to think we were producing a show. I wanted them to feel like they were out in the field and along for the ride. And that was heretical. That was a very, very tough sell at the time.

But I felt like it mattered. And, you know, some hills you climb, some you die on. Yeah. I think you probably had a, that dynamic was in place for you. But I would venture to say that to your point earlier that this was a tiny network, Comedy Central. Nobody was watching it. So once John started to register a little blip on the EKG meter, I think Doug Herzog's a smart guy.

And Doug said, oh, let's let's let this guy run with the line. But I think it was probably easier, for lack of a better word, for John, to go that path than yours. You probably had a tougher fight than he did. I did, but only for a time, you know, and then there was a lot of push and pull. You know, you have a different kind of conversation when you're trying to get a show on the air, when you're trying to develop a hit than you do when you're trying to protect your flank. And remember, for Dirty Jobs, that show was wildly off-brand. The Discovery Channel, when that first went on the air, they were not delighted when it rated well.

They weren't affirmatively rooting against it. They just didn't see it as a thing that was consistent with their brand. And when it became clear that people really wanted to see the show, then there was an existential crisis. because wait a second, what do you do when you realize that your customers don't like the thing you want them to like? What did the GOP do when they realize that of the 17 candidates on the stage in 2016, the one that people were most interested in was the only one they didn't want them to be interested in? Right. So that kind of cognitive dissonance is really interesting.

And I don't think it happened at Comedy Central because, Comedy Central is a place where they want funny content. And the daily show was funny. And you could argue over the nuances and direction. But Dirty Jobs was an outlier and a free radical. And there were no other shows like that. So to get a show that was off brand on the air and then ultimately see 30 or 35 shows evolve from it, right? Nobody gets credit for that, including me.

It just happened because in fits and starts, we all kept playing the cards we were dealt as best we could. And what came out the other end? Right now in 2021 is a reboot for crying out loud, 20 years after the thing went on the air. Amazing. Can't make it up. You know, and meanwhile, the Daily Show is still on, and I'm still not hosting it. Well, yeah. You know, the world has changed and it's changed very fast as it relates to the business we're in and comedy and news.

And I've been doing this a long time, both in, you know, network control rooms. And as I think I told you in my little thing, I wrote that I took this job because I was exhausted. I wanted normal hours. But I don't know where news is going. going. And I don't know where this satirical genre that I find myself currently in is going. And sometimes I wonder if in fact the market's saturated. Oh, sure, it's saturated. Yeah. Of course. Look, you could fill a book with what I don't know. But I do know this. I'm supposed to be somewhere at five o'clock. And the next time you talk to your interns, I would be grateful if you found my old Facebook post and

shared that story because you reminded me of it. Madeline Smithburg did write me a rejection letter for what at the time felt very much like my dream job. And those disappointments are real. They happen to everyone. Yes, they do. I joke about it, a cushy job in a studio, a daily show, a platform like John had. But the truth is, Paul, I wouldn't trade the run I've had or dirty jobs for anything. and that never would have happened had Doug Hurtzog not had the good sense to tell Madeline Smithburg to hire John Stewart. Yeah. I think about that story a lot and that letter and what that must have meant for you at the time.

And I remember how big a blow that must have felt like. When I was, you know, working three shifts as an AD all over town and you never wanted to say no because they'd stop calling you. I used to fill in a lot on The View, right, when it was a new show, Barbara Walters, Lisa Ling. It was actually got a lot of buzz back then when it first started. And the director was a guy named Mark Gentile. And he brought me in a lot to AD, most of the road stuff they were doing at the time they were going on the road. And it was really a good popular show.

It was new. And their regular AD had announced that he was leaving. I knew Mark liked me a lot. I'd been a good road warrior forum. Okay. I now have, after pounding the pavement for a decade and a half, I'm going to get this steady job. I'm going to know when I look at that yearly calendar, there's going to be 10 squares in July where I can go on vacation. Hadn't had that in 15 years.

Well, I showed up to do a two-week stint there. We had a camera meeting out in the studio, and Mark said, hey, Paul, stick around for a minute. Listen, you know, I know you thought you were getting Andy's job, but I decided to go with John Keegan. Okay, I will still use you from time to time, you know, when there's an opening. All right, I'll see you in the control room. And we were live back then. Yeah. And I got through the show and I, Mike, I was on the floor.

This is the end. This is it. I didn't get the job as the associate director on the view. It's all over. I was such a disaster, but if I had gotten that job, I probably wouldn't have stretched my wings as a director. And I don't know what's out there for me next. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if somewhere down the line you were doing something very similar on a daily basis with a show that you made your own. Well, look, it would be a terribly, terribly boring life if we could look into the future.

and see exactly how it all played out. But you've had a hell of a run. You're a terrific director. You're a gentleman and a scholar. Thanks for coming on our little podcast. I appreciate it. Next time you see John Stewart, tell him to forget about that 20 bucks he owes me.

We're all good. I will. And this is fantastic. Truly a delightful read. And you weave a yarn as good, if not better than Garrison Keeler. truly. That's some tall cotton, Paul.

Thanks again. I really appreciate it. You take care. You do the same. Pleasure. All right. Adios. All right. The book, incidentally, to which Paul so kindly refers, is the way I heard it, now available

at Audible and wherever people download books. If you can't wait another week for the next chapter, you can go ahead and download it now and enjoy. I'll be back, though, next week with another interview. In the meantime, if you enjoyed this one, and even if you didn't, do me a favor and give us five stars, won't you please? I hate to ask, but these reviews really, really help. And because the format of the podcast has changed, it's really useful now for people to know if people are digging it.

Feedback on my Facebook page has been terrific. But if you got a sec over at iTunes, give us five stars. It really does make a world of difference. And subscribe. Righto, says Chuck. Subscribe to the way I heard it. What do they do that, by the way? On Apple or wherever, whatever, whatever.

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