It's close to 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 7, and in a small TV studio on the far west side of Manhattan, Comedy Central's The Daily Show With Jon Stewart is going live for only the fourth time -- tonight to cover the absurdist political theater known as the California recall election. After two days of Ah-nuld mockery and poll monitoring (''Can you imagine if this f -- -in' thing doesn't go through? Can you imagine the disappointment we'll all feel?'' Stewart says), something unexpected happens: Schwarzenegger is quickly declared the winner and coexec producer Ben Karlin informs Stewart by slipping him a postcard during a commercial break. (''It's exactly how they do it at ABC,'' the anchor cracks.) Back on the air, Stewart ad-libs a few lines announcing the victor, which leaves almost no time to interview former gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington. The host apologizes to her during the next break: ''We're running so short on time because on a fake program like ours, it's difficult to cram real news in.''
The newscast may be phony, but the show made real headlines at this year's Emmys. Two weeks before Daily's live recall broadcast, Stewart accepted the award for best variety show, breaking Late Show With David Letterman's five-year streak. (The clincher, says Stewart: ''I think it was my interview with the girl from Felicity.'') His series, which airs against local news Mondays-Thursdays at 11 p.m., satirizes both Washington and the media with Stewart's sit-down stand-up act, his correspondents' bitingly funny reports, celebrity/newsmaker interviews (''The weakest part of the show, through no fault of anyone's but mine,'' admits Stewart), and a final, surrealist video clip dubbed the ''Moment of Zen'' (e.g., footage of Schwarzenegger air-jamming with Twisted Sister's Dee Snider on ''We're Not Gonna Take It'').
In a year of heartbreak (the war in Iraq) and the downright bizarre (Gary Coleman for governor!), The Daily Show has defined itself as the most relevant comedy act around. (Take that, ''Weekend Update''!) At its center is Stewart, 40, the kind of guy who's smarter than you, but doesn't rub it in your face; the kind of guy who drops references to Wilford Brimley and The Breakfast Club into conversation, yet talks intelligently with Henry Kissinger; and the kind of guy who's become the media elite's It Boy (take that, George Stephanopoulos!), but still identifies with Revenge of the Nerds. Viewers are beginning to notice: Daily Show ratings are up 15 percent over 2002 to 900,000 viewers (large by late-night-cable standards), and the show beats CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News among young adults at 11 p.m. (Daily also airs a weekly edition on CNN International, which reaches some 200 countries.) ''People were criticized for saying anything against the war,'' says Daily correspondent Stephen Colbert. ''For some reason, we weren't. It made us stand out.''
Some of those outstanding moments included Stewart sweet-talking France (''C'mon...don't be an invada hata''), skewering Geraldo Rivera (''The only three other people the U.S. military has asked to leave Iraq are Saddam Hussein and his two sons''), and staging a ''debate'' in which candidate Gov. George W. Bush (in sound bites from 2000) opposes President Bush's justifications for the war. (President Bush: ''We will help you to build a new Iraq.'' Governor Bush: ''I don't think our troops oughta be used for what's called 'nation building.''') Deadpans Stewart, ''We're really hoping the U.S. attacks Syria, because I'd love to follow up the Emmys with another win.''
But don't think that Daily's very, very good year is going to Stewart's head. ''Are we better than Letterman? No. The man is a genius and an icon for the ages.'' And how about Wayne Brady, the guy who beat Stewart for the best-variety-performer Emmy? ''That name is not to be mentioned!'' Stewart cries. ''I can't disagree. The man sings, dances, and does jokes. I sit at a desk and smirk. If the category was Ease of Facial Expression Following Clip, I could've taken that.'' ''You know, my years in j-school...that's journalism school. I wasn't sure if anybody would think that was Jew school.'' Jonathan Stewart Leibowitz (he dropped his surname after comedy-club emcees kept mispronouncing it) grew up in suburban Lawrence, N.J., the son of a physicist father and a special-education-teacher mother who divorced when he was 10. It's no shocker that Stewart cops to being a smart-ass. ''You can imagine the problems I had,'' he says. '''Oh, right, don't be a ridiculous dick to the man much larger than you in sixth grade. He will pummel you.'... I realized maybe I should just shut my f -- -in' mouth and wait for someone in power to do something I don't like and see if I can use it on them.'' After graduating Virginia's College of William & Mary in 1984, he moved back to Jersey and worked odd jobs, including bartending and doing puppet shows about the disabled for schoolkids. At 23, Stewart sold his car and moved to Manhattan, where he waited tables and started his stand-up career. ''It was grueling and hilarious,'' he says. ''I remember walking home at three in the morning going, If it doesn't get any better than this, it's still better than I ever thought it'd be.'' He landed hosting gigs at MTV and the Comedy Channel (which later became Comedy Central). His first brush with late-night glory came in '93, when he was a finalist to replace Letterman on NBC's Late Night but lost out to Conan O'Brien. The comic rebounded by taking his self-titled MTV talk show into syndication in 1994, but got canned after one low-rated season. What followed was ''as productive a three-year period as I've ever had,'' says Stewart. ''I got a lot of stuff out of my system, like the fact that I'm not a very good actor.'' Case in point: an episode of The Nanny in which Stewart played Fran Drescher's kissing cousin (''an exercise in not being able to say no to people's faces,'' he says). He also penned an acclaimed book of comic essays, Naked Pictures of Famous People, and recurred on The Larry Sanders Show as the heir apparent to Garry Shandling's fictional late-night host. That scenario almost played out in real life when Stewart signed a development deal with Letterman's Worldwide Pants and started guest-hosting for Tom Snyder on CBS' The Late Late Show. But the job later went to then-Daily Show anchor Craig Kilborn. ''They got the person they wanted and I got the show I wanted.'' Yeah, yeah, yeah, enough about his rise from obscurity. What about the throngs of women who regard the 5'7'', prematurely graying Stewart as a sex god? ''I thought you were going to say, Every woman I told I was doing this story said, 'That man gave me herpes.''' For Stewart, who lives in Manhattan with wife Tracey, the hunk suit has never quite fit. In high school, ''girls seemed nice but my head was the size it is now but my body was half the size, so they weren't quite as interested.'' Today, every now and again ''the receptionist will faint when I come by,'' says Stewart, ''but other than that it's pretty mellow.''
''We have four minutes in one segment and three in the other, and it's not like I'll trick Hillary Clinton into saying 'They were right -- Travelgate was a farce!' All we're trying to do is get a human moment out of the people that we have been spending the last year and a half writing about.'' The day after the recall election Stewart is in the studio rehearsing a promo: ''Our guest tonight is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton,'' he says. ''We'll get the real story on why the hell she agreed to do our show.'' It's easy to understand why the former First Lady chose to plug her book on The Daily Show. ''When the publisher suggested it, we were struck by the buzz around Jon among both his young audience as well as seasoned political professionals,'' says press secretary Philippe Reines. Stewart downplays Daily's influence, but the show has become a must-stop destination for New York, Washington, and L.A.'s political and media elite: Recurring guests include Wolf Blitzer, Madeleine Albright, and Bob Dole. ''Stewart is an essential character in the national political landscape,'' says fan Peter Jennings. ''There's nothing mean about him. And in a society where there's so much mean talk, someone who punctures the balloons with grace and elegance and humor is just a blessing.'' Demurs Stewart: ''Any time you're doing a show based on an industry, it's flattering to that industry. My guess is a lot of plastic surgeons watch Nip/Tuck.'' The downside of being a media darling is the charge that Daily has a liberal agenda, a claim supported by the show's guest list, including big-name Democrats like Joe Lieberman, Al Gore, and John Edwards, who made good on a pledge to announce his presidential candidacy on the show. But Stewart denies Daily is in bed with the left. ''The point of view of this show is we're passionately opposed to bulls -- -,'' he says. ''Is that liberal or conservative?'' The program's swipes at Democrats are pretty brutal: Its 2004 election coverage is titled ''Race From the White House,'' and when Stewart riffed on news clips at this year's Emmys, ''those 10 seconds he showed of Howard Dean trying to smile did more damage to Dean than any of the other candidates have,'' says recent Daily guest Michael Moore. In fact, it gets pretty interesting when you get Stewart, rumored to be a good New York liberal, talking about his own political views. Governor Schwarzenegger? ''It was clear that was going to be the only satisfying ending. I think he will probably prove himself to be relatively capable.'' Republican billionaire-turned-mayor Michael Bloomberg? ''I think he's done a good job. He's got this low approval rating -- I don't see what he's done that's so wrong, and he seems to be managing things in a relatively unobtrusive way.'' Politics became The Daily Show's bread and butter only after Stewart took over in '99. When Daily debuted three years earlier with ex-ESPN anchor Kilborn, typical field segments mocked ordinary Americans who believed in Bigfoot or alien abductions. ''I never enjoyed that aspect of the show,'' says correspondent Colbert, who joined in 1997. ''I have no desire to club the equivalent of baby seals.'' Although Daily became one of Comedy Central's signature shows (and Kilborn one of its first breakout stars), ''we all felt like we had made a pact with the devil,'' says supervising producer Kahane Corn.
Stewart's transition wasn't especially smooth, as some employees resisted the new host's efforts to class up the joint. ''I can't tell you my first year here was particularly pleasant,'' says Stewart. ''I can't say there weren't days of knock-down, drag-'em-out yelling.'' Over time, Stewart's crew grew more comfortable with aiming their comedic ammunition against powerful targets. Says Stewart: ''We don't feel covered in s -- - and oil when we go home.'' It was during the 2000 presidential race that Daily started to register with politicians (and voters). Aboard his campaign bus, a good-humored John McCain repeatedly played correspondent Steve Carell's ''gotcha'' interview (in which the faux journo nailed the candidate with a question about ''unauthorized appropriations,'' then let him off the hook: ''I'm just kidding -- I don't even know what that means!''). ''In 2000, we showed politicians that we weren't out to make fools of them,'' says coexecutive producer Stewart Bailey. ''We were making fun of ourselves and the media.'' Those campaign reports have been a valuable showcase for Daily correspondents, most notably Second City alums Colbert (who now does GM's ''Mr. Goodwrench'' ads) and Carell (who just wrapped Woody Allen's next film). ''I immediately got two jobs where I play newscasters [in Bruce Almighty and Will Ferrell's upcoming Anchorman],'' says Carell. ''So I think there's a direct correlation.'' Now Daily's biggest challenge is finding a fresh angle on the 2004 presidential campaign. ''In 2000, nobody knew who we were,'' says Carell, who recently covered a Dean rally in Washington, D.C. ''The crowd was yelling 'Dean, Dean, Dean!' and then a bunch of people saw me and started yelling 'Daily Show, Daily Show, Daily Show!' It's hard because you're not as faceless.'' With nine Democratic contenders, the campaign should provide plenty of comic fodder. But like real journalists who just want a good story, the Daily jokers are mostly hoping for a close race. ''If it's a fait accompli that Bush is going to win,'' says Colbert, ''if [Rep. Dennis] Kucinich somehow, through black-magic goat sacrifice, manages to wrangle the nomination, I might go back to law school.'' ''You won't see me on Behind the Music: The Hammer Story where I go, 'Uh, I carved a house into the side of a volcano and I plated it in gold and then suddenly, I couldn't pay the mortgage.''' After a long week's -- okay, four days' -- work, Stewart kicks back in his office. The suit he wore at tonight's taping is draped across a couch, and he's changed into a T-shirt and jeans. Near his newspaper-cluttered desk, an Emmy sits under plastic wrap (he cut his hand carrying one of the sharp-winged statuettes home from L.A.). With the TV Academy's career-boosting approval and his $2 million-plus-a-year contract with Comedy Central expiring after next year's elections, what does he see in his future? ''I want to breed a race of ninjas.'' But seriously, says Stewart, ''I should start thinking about that, only because it's going to be here before I know it.''
Other power brokers are already pondering Stewart's next move. ''It's a very small group of people who can do late-night shows well, and Jon Stewart is in that club,'' says a network late-night exec. ''In the next couple of years, it's no secret there are likely to be a number of changes.'' Translation: O'Brien's deal comes due soon, and Kilborn and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel aren't putting up the kind of numbers that ensure long-term job security. ''We hope Jon stays forever,'' says Comedy Central exec Rich Korson. Stewart would jump to a broadcast network only if he kept the near-complete creative control he now has. ''Would I like a late-night show? Um, if it was The Alan Thicke Show, no. If it were an amalgam of what we're doing here and some other ideas I have -- maybe.'' It's getting late, and Stewart prepares to head home for a typically quiet evening. ''We usually have a nice dinner, play with the dog, watch whatever's on, do a crossword puzzle together, and go to bed,'' he says. ''I hate to say it: I feel content. And driven at the same time. Hopefully, that's a combination that will work for a while, until I go into the next phase -- which is, of course, fear of death.'' (Additional reporting by Dan Snierson) ''Any time you're doing a show based on an industry, it's [BOX]''Any time you're doing a show based on an industry, it's flattering to that industry,'' says Stewart. ''My guess is a lot of plastic surgeons watch Nip/Tuck.'' ''It's not like I'll trick Hillary Clinton into saying 'They were right -- Travelgate was a farce!' All we're trying to do is get a human moment.'' ''The point of view of this show is we're passionately opposed to bulls -- -,'' Stewart says. ''Is that liberal or conservative?''