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    Jon Stewart Extends ‘Daily Show’ Run Through 2025

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    Stewart, who returned to the show in February as a host on Monday nights, originally planned to work through the presidential election.Jon Stewart is sticking around. After nearly nine months with Stewart back at the desk of “The Daily Show,” Comedy Central announced on Monday that he would continue to host the show on Monday nights through 2025.Stewart, who regularly won Emmys while hosting the Comedy Central show full-time from 1999 to 2015, was originally expected to host through the 2024 presidential election.“I’ve truly enjoyed being back working with the incredible team at ‘The Daily Show’ and Comedy Central,” Stewart, 61, said in a statement. “I was really hoping they’d allow me to do every other Monday, but I’ll just have to suck it up.”In addition to continuing his hosting duties one night a week, Stewart will also continue to serve as an executive producer.“Jon’s incisive intellect and sharp wit make him one of the most important voices in political and cultural commentary today,” Chris McCarthy, a senior executive at Paramount, Comedy Central’s parent company, said in the statement. “His ability to cut through the noise and deliver cleareyed insights is exactly what we need.”In September, “The Daily Show” won an Emmy for best talk series. “You have made an old man very happy,” Stewart said in the acceptance speech. “It has really made my Mondays.”A rotating lineup of hosts — including Desi Lydic, Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta and Jordan Klepper — will continue to anchor the rest of the week. “The Daily Show” has been without a permanent host since Trevor Noah stepped down in late 2022. More

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      Jon Stewart Returns to ‘The Daily Show’ Telling Jokes You Might Not Want to Hear

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      The comedian returned to “The Daily Show,” claiming the prerogative to tell his audience jokes they don’t want to hear.“Why am I back?” asked Jon Stewart, returning to “The Daily Show” chair as Monday night host after leaving the program in 2015. It was a fair question.He was there in part because Comedy Central ended a yearlong search unable to pick a full-time replacement for Trevor Noah. He was there because his Apple TV+ show “The Problem” ended, after Apple discovered that when you hire a famous political comedian, he’ll want to talk about topics that upset people.And he was there because his fans — including a studio audience that greeted him with a standing ovation — have spent eight years and change wondering what he would have said about all the hell that broke loose since he left.His timing was so sharp, his comic exasperation so familiar, you’d think he’d been away for a long weekend instead of more than two presidential terms. Now he was back to tell us that the two likely candidates for president are super, super old.It was not exactly the most daring, outside-the-box topic. Stewart, who has adopted a plant-based diet, apparently has a particular taste for low-hanging fruit.More interesting, however, was the implicit message his first new monologue built to. You may have spent years wishing that Stewart would come back to dunk on your antagonists, but he considers himself free — and maybe obligated — to joke about things you wish he wouldn’t.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jon Stewart Returns to His Old ‘Daily Show’ Seat

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      On Monday night, the longtime host of the Comedy Central news satire kicked off his new tenure in classic form.Jon Stewart returned on Monday night as host of “The Daily Show,” the Comedy Central news satire he turned into a cultural force before leaving in August 2015. It was the beginning of a plan, announced in January, that will bring Stewart back to the show on Mondays through the presidential election. He will also serve as an executive producer.“Why am I back?” he said. “I have committed a lot of crimes. From what I understand, talk show hosts are granted immunity — it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but take it up with the founders.”Stewart’s first night back found him grayer — at one point he used his own wizened face as a prop in a joke about the presidential candidates’ ages. But he was otherwise in classic form.Opening with “Now where was I,” Stewart mixed silliness and absurd, often self-deprecating, jokes with righteous indignation as he kicked off the 2024 edition of one of the show’s signature franchises, its “Indecision” election coverage. Proposed titles, he said, included “Indecision 2024: American Demockracy”; “Indecision 2024: Electile Dysfunction”; and “Indecision 2024: Antiques Roadshow.” He riffed, from his familiar left-leaning perspective, on the Super Bowl and the Taylor Swift conspiracy theories that surrounded it.“It’s almost like the right’s ridiculous obsession with politicizing every aspect of American life ruins everything,” he said.Later he anchored a bit that found the show’s correspondents Ronny Chieng, Desi Lydic, Michael Kosta and Dulce Sloan reporting from the same diner, a goof on the campaign coverage trope. They and Jordan Klepper, who did a desk bit, will take turns hosting the show Tuesdays through Thursdays. The guest was Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor in chief of The Economist.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jon Stewart Will Return to Host ‘The Daily Show’ on Mondays

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      Stewart, who hosted the Comedy Central show from 1999 to 2015, will also be an executive producer.Jon Stewart is returning to late night.Mr. Stewart will take the reins of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” the show he hosted to huge success from 1999 to 2015, for one night a week through the 2024 presidential election, the network said in a surprise announcement on Wednesday. Mr. Stewart’s first show will be on Feb. 12.“The Daily Show” has been without a permanent host since Trevor Noah stepped down in late 2022. Stewart will also be a producer on all episodes of “The Daily Show.” Other episodes of the show will be hosted by a rotating lineup of the show’s news team.“We are honored to have him return to Comedy Central’s ‘The Daily Show’ to help us all make sense of the insanity and division roiling the country as we enter the election season,” said Chris McCarthy, a senior executive at Paramount, Comedy Central’s parent.Mr. Stewart appeared to acknowledge his return to “The Daily Show” in a social media post shortly after the news was announced. “Excited for the future!” he said while making a joke about college football.Mr. Stewart’s relentless focus on politics over his 16-year “Daily Show” run, unusual for late night at the time, transformed him from a promising comedian into one of the nation’s foremost political and media critics. Mr. Stewart had his detractors, and the viewership of “The Daily Show” lagged others at the time but his influence was outsize — and long lasting.Stephen Colbert and John Oliver, two “Daily Show” correspondents who catapulted to fame during Mr. Stewart’s tenure, landed their own late night shows, which they still host. And like Mr. Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” their shows also have a laser focus on current events — nearly always with a left-leaning bias — and helped reorder the late-night landscape in the process.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Zombie TV Has Come for Cable

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      Many of the most popular channels have largely ditched original dramas and comedies, morphing into vessels for endless reruns.In 2015, the USA cable network was a force in original programming. Dramas like “Suits,” “Mr. Robot” and “Royal Pains” either won awards or attracted big audiences.What a difference a few years make.Viewership is way down, and USA’s original programming department is gone. The channel has had just one original scripted show this year, and it is not exclusive to the network — it also airs on another channel. During one 46-hour stretch last week, USA showed repeats of NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” for all but two hours, when it showed reruns of CBS’s “NCIS” and “NCIS: Los Angeles.”Instead of standing out among its peers, USA is emblematic of cable television’s transformation. Many of the most popular channels — TBS, Comedy Central, MTV — have quickly morphed into zombie versions of their former selves.Networks that were once rich with original scripted programming are now vessels for endless marathons of reruns, along with occasional reality shows and live sports. While the network call letters and logos are the same as before, that is effectively where the overlap stops.The transformation could accelerate even more, remaking the cable landscape. Advertisers have begun to pull money from cable at high rates, analysts say, and leaders at cable providers have started to question what their consumers are paying for. In a dispute with Disney this year, executives who oversee the Spectrum cable service said media companies were letting their cable “programming house burn to the ground.”“It’s kind of like when you drive by a store and you can see they’re not keeping it up, and it looks kind of sad,” said Linda Ong, a consultant who works with many entertainment companies and used to run marketing at the Oxygen cable network. “It feels like they don’t have the attention. And they don’t — they’re being stripped for parts.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      What if ‘The Daily Show’ Used Guest Hosts Permanently?

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      Fill-ins for Trevor Noah have shown how exciting the lack of a permanent replacement could be. It’s an option with an illustrious history in television.For two months, Comedy Central has conducted something of a public audition. Nine different guest hosts have each taken over “The Daily Show” for a week, including Chelsea Handler, Wanda Sykes, Leslie Jones, Hasan Minhaj, Sarah Silverman and, currently, the former Democratic Senator Al Franken. Who should get the job?I’m a mere critic, not a network pinhead, as David Letterman referred to executives who made these kinds of decisions, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream up cockamamie ideas. My original preference was for a veteran correspondent like Roy Wood Jr. to fill the shoes of former hosts like Trevor Noah, who stepped down in December, or Jon Stewart before him. But after watching this lively parade of hosts, and surveying the shrinking late-night landscape, a more radical rethinking seems worth considering: Why not make temporary guest hosts permanent?My proposal rests in part on the reality that the success of “The Daily Show” has already made it less unique. “Late Night With Seth Meyers” has shrewdly filled the role that Stewart’s desk pieces once played by providing funny, progressive-leaning deadline comedy on the big news of the day. As for the prickly interviews that Stewart made famous on Comedy Central, you can now see them on his Apple TV+ series or, more likely, social media, where they go viral.“The Daily Show” remains a beloved institution with strong comedic bones primed for exploitation. It has always featured one of the best supporting casts in comedy, with its team of correspondents, many of them stalwarts of the New York standup scene, and nimble writers, whose skill and professionalism has only become more evident from watching these guest hosts.Even though each fill-in brought a distinct style, what stands out is the consistency of their desk monologues. Handler spits out jokes with a sneaky swagger, deftly skewering the machismo of President Biden announcing he shot down the Chinese balloon and offering a setup that you would never hear from a veteran host. “I’m going to be honest,” she said. “I have never watched the State of the Union before because I have a life.”Sykes dug deeper into wonky policy, offering a surgical breakdown of how over-ticketing by police punish the poor before suggesting we learn from Finland, which adjusts fines according to wealth: “$30 for a rich person is not a punishment,” she said. “Rich people don’t even know money goes that low.”Of the guest hosts so far, Hasan Minhaj turned in the most impressive week.Matt Wilson/Comedy Central’s The Daily ShowMinhaj brought a more flamboyant theatrical streak, turning a bit on giving up Twitter into a virtuoso and hilarious one-man show. Jones, who added elevated lewdness to analyzing a new Martin Luther King Jr. statue, may not have had the precision delivery of Silverman. Kal Penn was more likely to gush, while D.L. Hughley adopted a skeptical eye. The most impressive accomplishment is how everyone, with the benefit of typical “Daily Show” video and script, is, at least, fine.It’s evidence that this vehicle, more than a quarter century old, has become a smooth-running, user-friendly machine, a strength and a weakness. You saw both sides in the Trevor Noah era, which was competent, charming if a little dull. The current guest-host shows are not that. They display passion, unpredictability and the looming possibility of disaster, particularly in the interviews.As you might expect, these hosts, some of whom have publicly lobbied for the job, are trying to impress, calling in favors. Penn, who has called “Daily Show” host his dream job in the press, got a (mostly wasted) interview with Biden, and Marlon Wayans not only talked to Mayor Eric Adams, but also did it in the character of a kid name Quan. Was it a little cringey? Sure, but that made for fun TV.Not surprisingly, considering his experience as a correspondent and a host of his own show, Minhaj has put on the most impressive week so far, staging a confrontational interview about FTX with the businessman Kevin O’Leary from “Shark Tank” that was bracing in its tension. Franken also tried to introduce some much-needed tension into the talk-show interview by booking Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. It didn’t generate sparks but it was a worthy idea. Stewart once decried “Crossfire”-style talking-heads debate shows, but the relative dearth of debate that we have now is worse.A full-time guest host might seem like a desperate move, but in fact it celebrates one of the most venerable television traditions. David Letterman, Jay Leno and Joan Rivers earned full-time talk show jobs by guest hosting for Johnny Carson, who was a fill-in on Jack Paar’s “Tonight” show. John Oliver got his current job, on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” based on a “Daily Show” guest-host stint replacing Stewart, who himself was one of many guest hosts of the longtime NBC show “Later.” That program pioneered the permanent guest host in the late 1990s, using everyone from Martin Mull to Cindy Crawford and even Joe Rogan (who interviewed a UFC fighter on network television long before he did on a podcast). Since “Later” aired in the early-morning hours, no one noticed, which The Onion giddily mocked with an article headlined, “Police Seek Suspect in Series of Random ‘Later’ Hostings.”There’s a long tradition of guest hosts in late-night talk shows. Joan Rivers, here interviewing Oprah Winfrey, filled in for Johnny Carson. Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal, via Getty ImagesAfter Leno took over “The Tonight Show” and Letterman started “The Late Show,” these major combatants in the late-night wars of the 1990s stopped using guest hosts. (Conan O’Brien never used one either.) “Our attitude and Letterman’s was to ‘never give up the chair,’” the longtime Letterman producer Robert Morton told me in an email. Among the few times they did, in 2003, “The Late Show” offered Jimmy Fallon his first late-night hosting gig. Watching it now reveals an altogether different Fallon, more sarcastic wiseacre than chipper enthusiast. It’s clear he loved and was influenced by Letterman’s early comedy, and one of the fun aspects of guest hosts is seeing comics working out their personas.Jimmy Kimmel has done more than anyone to bring back guest hosts, using them during his vacations. Some of the comics who substituted for him, like Handler, Franken and Sykes, have gone on to weeks on “The Daily Show,” creating something of a modern guest-host circuit.The most successful model with a permanent guest host is of course “Saturday Night Live.” There are many decisions Lorne Michaels made that have resulted in a singularly enduring show, but this foundational idea is at the top of the list. It keeps the comedy staple in the news, builds anticipation and injects star power. In style and cadence, “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show” are very different machines, but both have an experienced staff, well-honed style and a deep bench of talent.Imagine monthly stints with alumni Samantha Bee or Larry Wilmore. Give Josh Gad some time to plan a musical version with former “Daily Show” producer and musical maker David Javerbaum. If Eric André wants to promote a movie, let him smash up the set for a week.If there is one conspicuous absence in the lineup of guest hosts so far, it’s youth. Many hungry young stand-ups would surely love the opportunity. The 24-year-old Leo Reich, the self-described “youngest comedian ever,” just finished a very funny downtown show about Generation Z called “Literally Who Cares?!” and represents the opposite of the engaged righteousness of Iraq war-era Jon Stewart. What mess would Reich make?“The Daily Show” producers are probably cursing my name right now. Getting new talent up to speed is not easy. And sacrificing the advantages of consistency and experience should not be underestimated. But considering the dwindling ratings of late-night talk shows, their future is not secure. That James Corden’s show is not being replaced with a talk program is an ominous sign.The late-night talk show is one of the most illustrious, essential genres in television history, one that many of us hope remains artistically vital. But that will require risk and reinvention.The current plan is to keep rotating guest hosts through the spring and then restart “The Daily Show” in the fall. Every great late-night talk show starts with excitement and experimentation before settling into routine, but the utopian goal of a permanent guest host would be to build innovation into the DNA, to make it the point.Could it produce train wrecks? For sure. But people like to gawk at those. More important: Better to fail interestingly than slowly fade into irrelevance. More

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      Trevor Noah’s Optimism Set His Version of ‘The Daily Show’ Apart

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      Though his final episode made the mysterious reason for his departure a running joke, his specials and memoir suggest he was always comfortable with uncertainty.A talk-show host’s final episode is typically a celebration of their tenure, but in his last time at “The Daily Show” desk, Trevor Noah put the spotlight on others, giving sizable segments to each of his correspondents, doing a gushing interview with the comic Neal Brennan and expressing gratitude to everyone from the executives who hired him to the Black women who raised him to those who hate-watched.In a persistently sunny hour, Noah even had a kind word for Donald J. Trump, quieting his crowd by praising what the former president did for prison reform.Noah has always invited others to see him as an outsider because of his background as a South African comic, but his equanimity and preternatural calm also distinguished him. He’s got to be the only political comic alive who could emerge from seven years of regularly joking about the Trump administration and a global pandemic exuding optimism.“The Daily Show” is famous for its topical jokes, but Noah told very few on his final episode. He took a broader perspective. Outlining lessons learned, which included that people were friendlier than they appear on social media, he struck post-partisan notes and said, “Politics turns people’s brains to mush.”He told a story about Jon Stewart calling to offer him the job and saying, “I see you in me.” Noah seemed shocked, and honestly, why wouldn’t he be?Trevor Noah’s 7 Years on “The Daily Show”The host, who took the reins of the show from Jon Stewart in 2015, exposed America’s many blind spots through witty and passionate commentary.Time to Depart: Trevor Noah announced that he would be stepping down in September, citing a desire for a better work-life balance.Saying Goodbye: In his final episode of “The Daily Show,” Mr. Noah told viewers not to be sad and called the night “a celebration.”An Outsider: The talk-show host, who grew up in South Africa and represented a part of the world often neglected by American news, helped his audience see through his eyes.His Best Moments: Noah’s comic perspective set him apart from other late-night hosts. Here are the highlights.Whereas Stewart’s humor ran hot and righteous, Noah always maintained a cool composure. Stewart was at his best in antagonistic interviews, interrogating ideas and calling out nonsense. Noah always seemed eager to get above the fray and treated guests with deference and awe.One running joke on his last show was the mystery of why he was leaving. Discovering that he doesn’t have another job lined up, the correspondent Dulcé Sloan quipped about Noah, who has a Black mother and white father, “Wow, you really are half-white.”You get a hint about why Noah might have gotten restless from his comment that it might be better to wait before developing a take on something you see in the news. But you can learn more about the reason he left from his stand-up. Noah never stopped performing, putting out three Netflix specials during his “Daily Show” tenure, including one last month called “I Wish You Would.”He’s not an entirely different performer in his stand-up — his twinkly-eyed charm is a constant — but the distinctions are revealing. While his specials dig into politics, it’s not the main subject. That would be the slipperiness and meaning of language. Noah is clearly not just obsessed, but tickled by the way people talk and the eccentricity of languages (he speaks eight). His gift for impressions is the centerpiece of many bits.In fact, a premise often seems like just an excuse for him to show off verbal gymnastics, whether it’s pointing out the similarity between the ways Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama speak or showing that to be president you need a strange voice (cue a lineup of impressions). Even my favorite Noah joke, about how trap music sounds like a toddler complaining (from his special “Son of Patricia”), is a virtuosic display that turns ordinary human sounds into a kind of music.Noah’s stand-up aesthetic is also more subtle and wry than his talk-show punch lines. In a joke from his recent special comparing Will Smith’s character in “Independence Day” to his slap at the Oscars, he displays such a light touch that the actor might not have even noticed the jab. (In fact, Smith gave one of his first interviews after the awards to Noah, a booking coup.) There’s a wit to his voice that recalls an earlier era. I would not be shocked to see him become a regular humor writer for The New Yorker.Noah hit his stride on “The Daily Show” when he started speaking more off the cuff. The segments, released online, in which he did crowd work during commercial breaks were often long monologues culminating in metaphors. They showcased his gift for thinking aloud and in real time. What they don’t have is a ruthless appetite for getting belly laughs or winning an argument. The dearth of that hunger is also part of his legacy at “The Daily Show.”On “I Wish You Would,” you get a sense of his temperament when he talks about why people were so angry during the pandemic. His theory is not that Americans were hopelessly divided, but that we were scared. “As humans, we get so comfortable knowing,” he said, emphasizing that last word in his volume and timing, “that we forget how uncertain life is.”This is not just a more existential thought than is usually expressed on a talk show. It’s existentially fatal to a certain kind of talk show. Because as true as it may be, and it is, the job of daily commentator on political events is a lot easier if he at least keeps up the illusion of having a sure-minded, commanding take. Hamlet could never host “The Daily Show.”Noah is startlingly good at appearing confident and assured, which made him a natural at the job. But talent can be its own obstacle. What you’re gifted at is not necessarily what you should be doing. Watching his stand-up, and especially reading his excellent memoir, “Born a Crime,” you sense that he is most comfortable in the moments of not knowing.Talk shows are far more collaborative than they appear. And “The Daily Show” is a machine that can work with different hosts. We first learned that not with Noah but with John Oliver, who had considerable success filling in when Stewart took a summer hiatus in 2013. The years that followed were a catastrophic period for Comedy Central, when it lost a tremendous amount of funny correspondents, including Oliver, Stephen Colbert and Samantha Bee. Noah deserves credit for rebuilding an impressive roster with a more diverse cast.“The Daily Show” will now use temporary hosts, including Sarah Silverman, Al Franken and the former correspondent Hasan Minhaj. As for the permanent replacement, the understandable temptation is to aim for the shiny new toy, but clearly, overlooking your stable of talent has its own risks.Dulcé Sloan has enough spiky charm for a bigger platform. Jordan Klepper displays a bulletproof deadpan. And in their stand-up as well as on the show, Roy Wood Jr. and Ronny Chieng are cagey, argumentative and prolific joke writers who share a delight in the comic kill that would represent its own departure. To my eyes, they should be the favorites. But would either want this grind?In his goodbye to Noah, Chieng set up a joke by appearing to get emotional: “In all seriousness, on behalf of everyone watching right now and from the bottom of my heart, can I be the new host?” More

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      ‘Chappelle’s Show’ Returns to Netflix After Dave Chappelle Gets Paid

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Chappelle’s Show’ Returns to Netflix After Dave Chappelle Gets PaidThe comedian had asked fans to boycott his sketch show from the mid-2000s because of what he described as a “raw deal” from Comedy Central.“When you stopped watching it, they called me,” Chappelle said to his fans in a clip posted on Instagram on Friday. “And I got my name back, and I got my license back, and I got my show back.”Credit…Charles Sykes/Invision, via Associated PressFeb. 12, 2021Updated 1:14 p.m. ETLast fall, Dave Chappelle asked his fans to boycott his old Comedy Central sketch show, “Chappelle’s Show,” in order to put pressure on ViacomCBS to rectify his grievances over a contract he signed as a young comedian, and prominent streaming services agreed to pull the show at his request. The tactic seems to have worked.As a result of that public pressure, Chappelle, in a video posted early Friday on his Instagram, said he was paid “millions of dollars.” And “Chappelle’s Show” is now returning to Netflix and HBO Max.“When you stopped watching it, they called me,” Chappelle, 47, said in the clip. “And I got my name back, and I got my license back, and I got my show back, and they paid me millions of dollars. Thank you very much.”The issue arose in November, when Chappelle posted a video of a stand-up set in which he voiced his complaints against ViacomCBS, which owns Comedy Central. He said that the company had licensed “Chappelle’s Show” to Netflix and HBO Max without providing him any additional compensation or even informing him about the deal, something he understood to be legal under his contract but which he saw as unethical. Netflix then pulled the show at Chappelle’s request, followed by HBO Max.In the new video posted Friday, Chappelle thanked Ted Sarandos, the co-chief executive of Netflix, for having the “courage to take my show off its platform at financial detriment to his company, just because I asked him.” And he thanked Chris McCarthy, the president of ViacomCBS’s MTV Entertainment Group.In a statement, McCarthy said, “After speaking with Dave, I am happy we were able to make things right.”Officials at ViacomCBS did not disclose the details of the new arrangement. Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“Chappelle’s Show,” which had been broadcast on Comedy Central from 2003 to 2006, lasted for two full seasons before Chappelle, the show’s star and creator, walked away from it, sparking questions about how he could have abandoned what could have amounted to a $50 million deal. In 2006, after his departure, Chappelle told Oprah Winfrey in an interview that he had left the show in part because of stress and in part because he felt conflicted about the material he was producing, saying, “I was doing sketches that were funny, but were socially irresponsible.”Chappelle said that he had been a broke, expectant father when he signed the contract with Comedy Central, describing it as a “raw deal.” He framed his experience as emblematic of an immoral corporate entertainment system that mistreats artists.Now, Chappelle seems to have forgiven the company.“Finally after all these years,” Chappelle said, “I can finally say to Comedy Central, ‘It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.’”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      'Chappelle's Show' Off Netflix as Comedian Fights ViacomCBS

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      The comedian Dave Chappelle said that he was a broke 28-year-old expectant father when he signed a contract with Comedy Central about two decades ago.“I was desperate, I needed a way out,” Chappelle recalled in a clip of a stand-up set that he posted on Instagram on Tuesday.It was that signature, Chappelle said, that laid the groundwork for his current tension with ViacomCBS. He said that the company had licensed his old Comedy Central sketch show, “Chappelle’s Show,” to both Netflix and HBO Max without providing additional compensation — or even informing him about the deal.“Perfectly legal because I signed the contract,” he said in the video. “But is that right? I didn’t think so either.”In response, Chappelle went to Netflix, the home of several of his stand-up specials, and asked the service to stop streaming “Chappelle’s Show,” which had been broadcast on Comedy Central from 2003 to 2006. Netflix agreed, and pulled the show early on Tuesday morning after streaming it for less than a month. Hours later, Chappelle, 47, posted the 18-minute video on Instagram, which he described as “publicly flogging a network,” referring to ViacomCBS, which owns Comedy Central.A spokeswoman for Netflix confirmed that the service had removed the sketch show overnight at Chappelle’s request but declined to comment further. ViacomCBS and HBO did not immediately respond to requests for comment.“Chappelle’s Show” lasted for two full seasons before Chappelle, the show’s star and creator, walked away from it, sparking questions about how he could have abandoned what could have amounted to a $50 million deal. In 2006, Chappelle told Oprah Winfrey in the first interview after his departure that he had left the show in part because of stress and in part because he felt conflicted about the material he was producing, saying, “I was doing sketches that were funny, but were socially irresponsible.”The show often dealt with issues of race and sexuality in Chappelle’s notoriously uncensored, boundary-pushing style. In one famous sketch, Chappelle played a blind white supremacist who does not know he is Black.In his Instagram video, titled “Unforgiven,” Chappelle said he felt he was never properly paid for “Chappelle’s Show” after he left. At the time, Comedy Central released three episodes of an abbreviated third season from material it already had.Chappelle framed his experience as reflective of an unfair system that mistreats artists in comedy and television, comparing it to the abuses in the industry revealed by the #MeToo movement. While he praised Netflix for its decision to remove the show, he skewered Comedy Central for giving him a “raw deal” that he said made it difficult to recreate the show elsewhere.“If I do,” Chappelle said, “I can’t call it ‘Chappelle’s Show’ because my name and likeness is being used by them in perpetuity throughout the universe. It’s in the contract.”Chappelle also pointed out the irony that HBO had rejected his initial pitch for the sketch show, then ended up streaming it years later. “Chappelle’s Show” is still available to watch on Comedy Central, CBS All Access and HBO Max.Earlier this month, Chappelle mentioned the conflict in his “Saturday Night Live” monologue when he joked about how his great-grandfather, who was born enslaved, might react upon learning that a show bearing his name was being streamed, but that he was not being paid for it.All of Comedy Central’s actions seemed to be within the contract’s terms, according to Chappelle’s recounting, but it was those terms that the comedian was objecting to in the first place.Chappelle’s proposed solution was not legal action — it was harnessing the power of his fan base to send television executives a message.“Boycott ‘Chappelle’s Show,’” Chappelle said in the video posted Tuesday. “Do not watch it unless they pay me.” More