Six Degrees: An interview with Lizz Winstead
By
From Arlington Connection:
The Politics Of Comedy
The creator of “The Daily Show” mines the headlines for laughs in her stand-up act.
By David Schultz
May 15, 2007For Lizz Winstead, there is no such thing as political comedy. In her world, politics and comedy are one and the same.
Winstead was one of the founders of the Comedy Central program “The Daily Show” in its original 1996 inception, when Craig Kilborn was its host.
Winstead departed the show before its current host, Jon Stewart, signed on and turned it into the cultural vanguard of satire that it is today. But she is still an avid “Daily Show” fan and has a deep respect for the show and its popular spin-off, “The Colbert Report.”
. . .
AC: How did you get involved in “The Daily Show”?
LW: ["Daily Show" co-creator] Madeline Smithberg and I went to Comedy Central and said, “We want to do a topical show.” And that was it. And I thought, “Oh my God, this is fabulous.” My act had sort of evolved into talking about some political stuff and social commentary. [So] from the way it looked to the way the correspondents worked to the way the anchor sat in the chair and the way we made unimportant things important and vice versa, we put it out there. And we were lucky enough to not have to pilot it and we were given a year to make mistakes. That was really cool.AC: It seems like Stephen Colbert has taken “The Daily Show’s” style and taken it to a whole other level. What do you think of him?
LW: Anybody that doesn’t like Stephen Colbert should be jailed at Abu Grahib. Couldn’t be funnier, couldn’t be nicer. I mean, he’s just awesome. It’s a great companion. It’s so great that he was able to develop “The Daily Show” following and turn it into an hour of sanity.AC: It’s really amazing because he’s always in a character whereas Jon breaks character.
LW: That’s the big difference between when I was there and when Jon took over. Everybody when I was there was in character, including Craig. When Jon took over he sort of became the voice of reason for all of the other nut bags that were on the show. It’s a great way to take it, especially with Stephen doing a character thing right after him. It’s a really brilliant compliment and really brilliant evolution to the show.
Related posts
4 Comments
May 15th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I saw her perform last night!
She’s pretty awesome.
Reply
May 15th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Oh man, were you at Lolita? That sounded great! I often wish I lived in NY . . .
Reply
May 15th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Yes, I was there–right in the front. :)
NYC is pretty sweet.
Reply
May 15th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I initially couldn’t stand Jon when he started in ‘98, and I couldn’t quite put a finger on why until just now. That’s it–Craig was always in character, and Jon didn’t even try. I find that appealing now, but it was strange then.
Reply