Funny and interesting videos of the best daily show - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I try to find the best episodes, not only for you, but for me as well. And now there is the whole archive. Let's digg!
Barack Obama drains 3-point jumper on first try in Kuwait during his numerous travels
Obama elected president of USA
Let's see what change he might bring. There are already lot of speculation. Will Obama get rid of daylight saving time? If you go deeper, you find that he probably never said that. Two scientist only mentioned that it might be good idea and it would be compliant with Obama's environmental policy. But another blog writes:
In order to conserve energy, President-elect Barak Obama wants to eliminate daylight saving time
I turns out that he never said it. The author of the green blog realized it and now it reads:
In order to conserve energy, President-elect Barak Obama should eliminate daylight saving time.
That's more like it. Anyway, I think it would be a good move.
John Hodgeman just published a new book, which he announced at The Daily Show. Kind of. You could call it an meta-introduction of the book: he mocked every book-introducing by Jon Stewart, especially his "fascination" by every book he is presenting.
I love John's interviews. They are so offensive and terrible, you can't but laugh, laught at him, at the interviewee and at the media in whole. I wonder whether they are somehow staged or not. Or if it's mostly creative aftercut? Anyway, this interview with ambassador of Quatar is probably even better, the principle is similar, though.
If you don't have time to see the full debates, Jon is nice enough to summ it up for us.
Perception analyzer, you say? Jon keeps one of these in his skull. And so should we. What about the debates: almost no solutions, only words. McCain apparently kept repeating that "senator Obama doesn't understand" blank. And Obama, on the other hand, kept repeating that his oponent is right. Of course, this is somewht "biased summ-up", but probably no more biased than anything else :-)
I understand that presidential candidates have it tough now. But still, some of the gestures they do seem very dumb to me. Or shortsighted, at least. Like McCain encouraging the crowd of Harley Davidson motorbikes owners to greet him with roaring of oil-consuming machines. Like Stewart said: "That is not freedom, that is pointless sending money to Saudi Arabia."
Obama or McCain? Who will it be? If you are an American citizen, it is up to you. Sort of. Kinda. Anyway, you are often asked to give opinion on that, aren't you. If you don't have one and you couldn't care less about politics, The Onion will help you:
Dan Carlyle and his advice - Political Non-Opinions
At this point, there's hardly a difference between the two parties anyway.
Politics today has too many labels.
We take voting for granted. A lot of the world doesn't even get to pick their leaders.
I'm an independent.
Or you can try to become member of this group: No values voters or even Citizen for Bleaker America
Apparently in Japan it is forbidden to smoke on the street. But not because of second-hand smoking or health-related issues. No. It's because they are so crowded people would get burned. So they banned it. David Sedaris talks with Jon about how to stop smoking by moving to Japan, and has some interesting facts about Japanese policies on smoking.
Aparently, republican party ("party of status quo") decided to change their slogan. Not only is that slogan kind of inappropriate since their president is serving his eighth year, but also it seems they are not the first one to have this slogan. "The change you deserve" is already taken by Effexor - antidepressant, medicament against stress.
Also, let's rememer that Jon Stewart promised that, should he ever start a war, he would stop playing squash and abandon his yacht. Also, he reminds that Philip Morris Companies renamed to Altria Group - and that way they can keep killing people.
I stumbled upon this video on YouTube and I cannot but share it with you. I love Matt Perry and Jennifer Aniston (or Chandler and Rachel) and so I enjoyed this weird video and even laughed few times. More info about this 1995 video here on IMDB.
Lame jokes prevail, but there are some good moments. Matthew Perry and Jenifer Aniston are doing their best to exploit their Chandler and Rachel characters.
Perry: Oh, and no messy DOS build-up! Assistant: What is this, a paper towel commercial?
Part 1
Microsoft was obviously trying to get the attention of the youth. I don't know how they did, but I guess today they are both hated and used by the majority of the planet.
Part 2
This video provides some interesting historic insight into how people perceived Microsoft Windows 95. Those features we find boring today were amazing by then.
Part 3
Explained in this video: drag and drop, plug and play, taskbar, printer installation wizard (Perry:better than installation ogre), email, multitasking, Pinball, video from CD (remember video being something unusual on the computer?), File Explorer, fax sending, audio player, and of course, the mysterious red button.
Part 4
I'm really sorry Bill Gates didn't show up himself. He probably realized he doesn't need to make this kind of fool of himself:-)
Not long time ago, I didn't even know you can book hotels on-line. But recently I got aware of it and realized that booking hotel or hostel is sometimes quite handy.
Booking hotel on-line systems
Many travelers appreciate the convenience of booking their hotel room on-line, and paying on-line for it using e.g. credit cards. There is vast amount of services like this. Some, like Booking.com, Hotels.com or Quikbook.com offer large amount (thousands) of hotels in different areas all around the world.
Others, like Splendia.com or ArtOfTravel.eu focus on smaller number of hotels, which are selective, hand-picked, sometimes exclusive. Most of these services allow the customer to see when the room will be free, what would be the price and some offer extra information about the hotel and travel destination. That is something I like about Art Of Travel - they keep their site clean, yet they add new info. Even if you don't use them to buy a room, you can find useful information for your trip.
Disclaimer: I realize this looks like an PR article. I still hope you might find it useful.
OK, this shows how Hilary thinks about voters. "Come on, are we going to count that state? If we were Republicans, I'd have already won..."
Luckily here's my favorite Brit to show us the paradox of primaries in Pennsylvania: one day everyone cares about the state, the other day the state is forgotten....
I guess it shouldn't have surprised me, but somehow I thought they wouldn't go for it so blatantly. Of course military wants to have some influence on what is reported, but the Iraq war shows us the extremes. Message Force Multipliers, that is rich.
In presidential race, we often lose perspective on importance. But there are some things that are beyond any doubts the core essence of the true politician: sport skills. So media are doing fair job informing us about possible flaws in our potential future leaders' abilities to rule the country.
Seriously, why does that even matter? Perhaps The Daily Show has the answer - Presidents first pitch.
Well, Jon Stewart himself tried it once as well, so he probably isn't all that independent to report on importance of sport exhibition.
Five years? This war gets longer and longer. Jon points out some paradox quotes and declarations made by president Bush and puts them in retrospective so they make some sense...
John Hodgman talked about similarly it in his Keys to Success:
You surely know John Hodgman, American humorist and one of the best Daily Show correspondents, in my opinion. But first, I encountered him in hilarious commercials from Apple Computers. I'm sure you know them: Hello, I'm a Mac... And I'm a PC. Here is one of the best collections of "Get a Mac" ads:
But John Hodgeman is a man of many occupations. I decided to review them. I enjoyed putting this together, so I hope you'll enjoy it as well. If you love John Hodgman, you will know most of them by now, but a comprehensive collection never hurts.
John Hodgman - Computer Expert (Net Neutrality)
John Hodgman - Historian (When to judge Bush)
John Hodgman - Astronom (Is Pluto a Planet?) In Prague Atronoms decided that Pluto is not a planet. Why? Because it is roughly the size of a glass eye.
John Hodgeman - Meteorologist How do experts predict the future weather? John Hodgman majored in hurricanes, his minor were Crisp Fall Days :-)
John Hodgman - Physician, Medical Expert Talking about Human Growth Hormone.
John Hodgeman - Martial Arts Expert
John Hodgman - Motivational Speaker This is my favorite: John explains is system 8 keys to success.
There are several more occupations, but that would be for another spot. Thanks for watching, if you liked this, keep an eye on Best videos of Daily Show blog :-)
The Writers strike is over and here are three videos to summarize it. For me, it was kind of fun, watching Jon Stewart and his correspondents working without the staff, and I think they did very well. Mayby the writers came back because they just missed the fun:-)
This is how The Daily show came back as A Daily Show in the middle of strike January 7 2008.
Even Jon Oliver went to strike, as a writer, not as a correspondent, though :-)
What was the strike about? Money, of course.
This is what the writers did during the strike:
And here is the first Daily Show after the writers came back. I just love the introduction!
"Can electronic vote be trusted?" asks the Wall Street Journal article back from November 2006. Despite my zeal for virtually anything electronic, I must say that I was quite concerned about this kind of questions. If the system is owned by a private company, you can't really tell what is happening with your vote, and you have no way to check it, given there is no palpable evidence of how you voted.
But as John Hodgman explains, that doesn't matter. You can just imagine that "things" happen inside the computer. And while we're at it, have a look at this (well known and old, but hilarious nonetheless) video of how that might eventually work... Electronic voting: Kerry and Bush
President Bush had his final annual speech State of the Union. Surprisingly, he stated that the Union remains strong. "Despite everything Mr. president did, that is," adds Jon Stewart. And what did Bush do for us? Six years ago, he passed the No child left behind act. "And that was it!"
I loved the link to the Kyoto protocol, which the USA failed to sign, despite their declared effort to stop the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan politicion and activist, was killed this Christmas (December 27 2007). On The Daily Show, Jon talks to Mark Siegel, who wrote a book about Democracy in Islam. The book was finished a week before the murder occured. This interview is quite serious, and I am glad it got this prime time.
This is Jon's interview with Musharraf, president of Pakistan, who refused to give her propper support and protection after the first attempt to assassinate her. She watched the interview and allegedly thought of it positively, as Siegel recounts.
To lighten it up, here is John Hodgeman with his perception of nuclear weaponry.
After seeing Bowling for Columbine, I was well aware of the fact Americans are too gun-oriented. I know there are historical reasons, for it, and there is some peak point at wich having a gun might be a felt neccessity. But still - if someone points their gun at you, are you going to risk that after you pull your, you will be shot? Isn't it better to be the one who is not armed, thus not being able to do an irreversible mistake, and also not giving the other person to do such mistake? I sure might change my perspective when I have to protect my kids, but I don't feel it is healthy to have guns around.
And while we are at this, how exactly did this happen? I mean, sure, we Czechs are incompetent big time (although not very often, because we have hard time spelling that word), but not in such scale...
There is another reason why I love watching The Daily Show. It makes me feel better about how the politics looks here in Czech Republic. I wish we had something similar to The Daily Show, some show that could stand the comparison to the briliancy of Jon Stewart and his team. Right now there is presidential election here in Czech Republic. Unlike in USA, only the lawmakers can vote the president here, so the election is indirect. Upside to it is that the whole process is a lot shorter (not like in USA where it takes more than a year). The downside is that all the scandals and embaressment you experience during the whole year we have to watch condensated into two-day ellection. We already saw alleged bribe attempt, tedious wars wether the election should be public or private, two lawmakers drop ill... So far, that is. I wondered if there were some clips about Czech Republic in the vast Daily Show video archive. Well, there was one.
And eventhough it is just a short movie and the clip doesn't say much about us, the message is clear: we are better than America :-) I wonder if Jon will mention the Czech Presidential election in his show... He could, couldn't he?
Have you seen the movie An Inconvenient Truth? Al Gore makes some serious and disturbing points here. I think he helps people understand how serious the situation might get if we won't act responsibly. But I also like when he talks on the lighter side. In interview with Jon Stewart, Al Gore provides some solemn points.
Put he was brave and cocky enough to play in Futurama, morover, he used part of Futurama in his now-famous slideshow presentation.
And this is one of the trailers for The Inconvenient Truth. It is definitely a movie worth seeing.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
Our salary doesn't depend on it. Our future might. Will we go with the responsible choice or with the lazy one?
Jon reviews how the coverage of so called Super Tuesday promissed fascinating numbers and amazing results, as well as erudite commentaries such as: "I think it is interesting that these numbers show that people want to vote for people they like." Wow!
Well, they needed to kill six hours. The results: Obama and Hillary almost side by side with Hillary slightly ahead, amongst republicans McCain had best outcomes, followed by Huckabee, who did well in the South. "Do you see me as a number?" Jon asks the anchors. "Because I don't see you as numbers. I see you as human beings, each and every one of you, individually wasting my time!"
Do you buy books based on internet videos? I do now, since dollar is going down, I'm daily visitor of amazon.com and ebay.com. For example, I bought the book Happier after I saw this interview with Harvard professor Tal Ben Shahar. Jon Stewart studied psychology, so he doesn't fall for this kind of stuff easily.
The book is called Happier and the reviews are not bad. I am in the middle of it and I love some of the ideas, for example that you should write three or five nice things that happened to you each day. Honestly, I didn't think it would have such an impact, but it has. You tend to notice the fun and the blessings of the regular day and thus, you are happier. Try it.
The Daily Show is not always about fun. Once the archive of all the videos were out, one of the first episodes I looked up was the one right after the attacks in 2001. Here it is:
It is another reason why I like the show and why I admire Jon Stewart - he was able to continue the fun while taking it very seriously. You could see his heart was in it. I respect his wit and intelligence, and after seeing this clip after September 2001, I can respect him for his tact and sincerity. And perhaps this was another thing that helped me, a European, realize how terrible a day it was for Americans.
Oliver and Wilmore investigative masterpieces are my favorite treasures in the archive. As in the Qatar clip, sometimes it is hard to tell whether it is fake or real. Either way it is quite funny.
By the way, I don't think you could persuade people, the less the society, to stop being racist by baning a word. On the other hand, this kind of proposals bring new attention to something general public might consider solved. If someone cares, it is probably worth caring, or at least listening to their opinions and take them into consideration.
I have to admit this is probably the clip that made me watch The Daily Show regularly. John Oliver, british comedian, member of The Daily Show (and writer as well, luckily not on strike) interviews the ambassador of Qatar (Quatar, Katar, I used to misspell the name before I had to google for this video quite often to show it to friends). It is so funny I could't believe it is not a fake.
It was not until I saw his other clips that I realized it is not fake. John Oliver just exploits the power he has as a journalist to make people uncomfortable. I wouldn't like to be interviewed by him, I guess. Here is the YouTube version.
The clip begins with: The American lack of knowledge about other countries... So, do you guys know where Czech Republic is? Just asking, no reason :-)
I first saw John Hodgman in the Mac - PC commercials, and I loved him. It kind of made me feel better about my choice of PC in fact. So I was amazed to actually see him in my new-discovered and soon-favorite show - The Daily Show. Here he talks about the Net Neutrality act.
John Stewart comments on how different news stations handle the "Super Tuesday". I love the part with fire extinquisher. Well, I don't blame him, I hate how the news anchors invent new and new ways how to exaggerate.
And I sure hope he will do some other jokes with that again. Not soon, maybe in a month or so. Or they could bring the Even Stephen back. Those two guys were fantastic!
Student of journalism, fan of good humor and fervent viewer of The Daily Show and other videos. It helps me learn some English and hopefully you will enjoy the videos. Clearly I'm not the creator, I'm just filtrating them for us...
