The Daily Show with John Stewart: Getting People Informed Through Comedy

On Thursday, April 10, 2014, Jennifer Garner guest appeared on the “The Daily Show with John Stewart” to promote her new movie, “Draft Day.” I do not usually watch “The Daily Show with John Stewart,” but this particular night’s episode was more appealing to me as it appeared to be less political than most episodes. The main focuses for this particular night’s show were reviewing the ending of basketball’s March Madness, the new movie “Draft Day,” Stephen Colbert, and a short interview with Jennifer Garner.

The episode starts off humorous with a field flash to Stephen Colbert ‘in London, England’ outside the Royal castle. He makes light humor of a Prince Charles ‘gay’ scandal by saying that “it’s not gay, but aristocratic,” and while he is saying this, he’s basically peeling and deep throat-eating a banana. Both Stephen Colbert and John Stewart break out into an uncontrolled laughter that you would not normally see while watching a nightly news report. John Stewart tells the exciting news of not needing a cable subscription to watch Stephen Colbert anymore because he is now taking over David Letterman’s host position on “The Late Show” featured on one of the Big 6 companies- CBS.  David Letterman is now going into a well-earned retirement after many years of hosting.

Next, John Stewart drops into the topic of sports and discusses the latest news in March Madness and college basketball as the season wraps up. One particular discussion about this is college basketball players not having enough money to afford food everyday. John Stewart argues that it does not make sense how this could be, seeing as many of them play on well-known college basketball teams and they should have parents, teammates, friends, or fans be willing to help them out with supporting and supplying food to poor college players. Stewart then goes on to say that it really does not make sense knowing that March Madness is for charity, yet some of the college basketball players could use the charity for basic needs such as food. The show cuts to clips of other news broadcasting shows stating that college sports bring in about $11 billion dollars of revenue each year. The college student players of course do not see any of this money. He then discusses how the latest news says that college football players now have the right to unionize seeing as how they are technically college employees. The show again cuts to clips of other news reports showing that football coaches are upset about the change of making the players become employees of the college because the coaches would rather be ‘educators’ than employers. Either way, they are getting paid so it really does not matter in the end. Then, just to be funny, John Stewart shows a montage of coaches ‘coaching’ players, but the ‘coaching’ is just a series of clips showing coaches scream at and push around the players.

Next, John Stewart discusses ad campaigns for the coming election season. Among this, Obama Care is discussed in a humorous fashion by showing one candidates, Wil Brooke’s, ad campaign of him exercising his to his second amendment and shooting a paper copy of the Obama Care report. Then, the show immediately makes fun of it in its own parody video with lighting a copy of the Obama Care report on fire.

Finally, Jennifer Garner guest appears on the show after showing a small clip of her new film, “Draft Day.” Jennifer Garner and John Stewart discuss the new film and joke about Stephen Colbert. Jennifer tells John how she used to babysit for Stephen Colbert. They talk and joke some more about the film and Jennifer’s career until the show comes to an end.

I believe that the format of entertaining, comedic new broadcasts is beneficial to society because it is more likely to increase the amount of people who are informed of what is going on in the world. I believe that it is very beneficial for people because the use of comedy makes news much easier to take in and understand. It opens up a whole new audience of people to get informed. Although some of the information may appear to come across as biased, I really do not believe it is biased because it is being presented in such a comedic tone that you cannot necessarily take everything John Stewart says to heart. Take for example the cartoon South Park, many of their episodes are based around current events and although they do it in a comedic vulgar manner, people watching may find something on the show interesting and look more deeply into it, thus creating a larger area of informed people. The same goes for “The Daily Show with John Stewart,” information is presented in a quick and comedic tone which over views other news broadcasts and reports them with commentary. The fact of the matter is that- yes, news from around the world is being shared and more people are indeed getting informed. 

Product Placement in Workaholics

In last week’s episode of Comedy Central’s sitcom “Workaholics,’ the guys competed in a TelAmeriCorp basketball tournament to win a chance to borrow the company car and drive to Reno for a night. The episode titled, “The One Where the Guys Play Basketball and Do the Friends Title Thing” was first aired on April 2, 2014. The scene opens with the guys (Anders, Blake, and Adam) arriving to work and interrupting a basketball game in the middle of the parking lot. The boss, Alice, tells the boys that the telemarketing company they work for (TelAmeriCorp) is doing a three on three basketball tournament to promote good health. The winners of the tournament get to borrow the company car and go to Reno for a night. During this scene, it’s noticeable that the type of basketball being played with is a Spalding ball. Throughout the rest of the show, it is never directly talked about being a “Spalding” ball or even held in a way that you read again besides that one time in the beginning, so I would not call this an example of product placement. I believe that it was just the way the ball happened to turned at one point that made it brand readable. Another example of what may or may not be product placement seen in the first scene is the fact that the company car is a Dodge Dart. The guys go crazy over the fact that it is a Dodge Dart. Adam says that he’s asking his parents for a Dodge Dart for Christmas and starts humping the car. This may not be a direct case of product placement, but they not only show the Dodge Dart, the mention it frequently as well. Personally, I think the Dodge Dart is a nice car, but it is not really, truly anything to get that excited about. Also, seeing how “Workaholics” is a comedy show, they get excited over things with a sometimes, mocking sense. The also mention Ander’s car as “the Volvo,” which isn’t too specific because it is just an old Volvo. This is not a case of product placement; it’s more of just a quick brand mention.

During another scene while the guys are collaborating ways to win the tournament, Blake is holding up and drinking out of a “Hardee’s” fast food cup. He never mentions the Hardee’s fast food chain during the scene though.

Adam gets the idea to inject steroids as a way to win the tournament, while Anders decides to focus on the competition. One the competing team’s members, Lynette, used to be a women’s basketball pro who almost made it onto the Olympic team. Lynette has a little bit of a temper, so Anders comes up with the idea to say something to make her angry and get her to punch him in the stomach. He tapes an iPad to his stomach and tells Blake that she’ll be sure to break her hand because iPad’s are made with “helicopter windshields.” Here, he not only mentions the durability of an iPad, but he also displays it on the show (taped to his chest). This is the only time that the iPad is mentioned, and it is not even a specific example of which generation iPad it is. They don’t really talk about it, except when he says about how durable it is. I wouldn't necessarily call this product placement, but it definitely gave the iPad a more humorous use. By the way, Lynette ending up punching Anders in the face instead of the gut, which still broke her hand. So Ander’s plan worked and the opposing team was left without their star athlete.

During one of the final scenes, which occurs at the TelAmeriCorp basketball tournament in the TelAmeriCorp warehouse, shows the three on three teams getting ready for the game. Blake decided to leave the team and Adam was taken to the hospital for overdosing on “steroids” (which actually turned out to be PCP and energy drinks), so that left Anders alone to create a make-shift team with their drug dealer friend Karl and one of Karl’s friends who is good at basketball. While the group is strategizing, they’re huddled in a corner of the warehouse where boxes of Dyson Ball vacuum cleaners and boxes of Oxy Clean are stacked.  They never once mention the boxes or the brands, so I don’t think this was a case of product placement. I’m not too certain that any products besides the Dodge Dart could be considered product placement because the branded items are either never mentioned or just made fun of.

In the end, Ander’s team won the basketball tournament and the three guys drove off to Reno in the Dodge Dart after stealing Adam from the hospital.