How Jon Stewart Does It

Charlie Rose: What's the barometer you use, in your comedy writing? Do you know the sensibilities of your audience?

Jon Stewart: We actually don't think about them, in any way, shape, or form, until they're in the audience either yelling at us or clapping. We go by a sort of internal barometer and intuition that we all have as people who've done comedy for a long time. And that's all we've ever gone by.

Rose: All you can do is say, "Does this make me laugh or not"?

Stewart: Does this make me laugh? Do I feel creepy saying it? Is it the right target? Do we feel like we're choosing our point without being didactic? Is there enough balance in the show? You know, silliness, versus something that might be more pointed? Will it be interesting to watch? Are we changing the pace? Those are the things that we'll think about sometimes. But not - we don't ever think, "How's that gonna play at Theta Delta Ki?"

Rose: It's always instinctive in terms of what you think.

Stewart: I believe so. It's a bit like music in the sense that you're always listening for sour notes. And sometimes you hear 'em, and sometimes you don't.


The interview clip is here. I'm discovering that one of the best things you can learn as a writer is not to let too many people tell you what to say. At some point you just have to say, "this is what I want to write, and how I want to write it." Otherwise, what's the point?

Oh, and I love a man who can use "didactic" in a sentence. Don't you?