Jon Stewart would make an excellent roast candidate, don’t you think?

By Jake Kroeger | July 8, 2011 at 4:06 pm | 10 comments | Opinion | Tags: Comedy Central, jon stewart, roasts, television

Jon Stewart A few days ago Comedy Central unleashed the announcement that Charlie Sheen will be roasted in September and there has been plenty of buzz since. I recently posted about how roasts need more class, (i.e. roasting the ones we love), one can’t help but think of who should be roasted instead of Sheen.

I get the the sense that roasting one of the most hated men in America will translate to solid ratings. But does it make sense from a comedic standpoint?

Wouldn’t a roast of Jon Stewart not only be watched by a significant number of people, but also be funnier and more interesting? No doubt some of the best comics of Stewart’s generation would show up — Louis C.K., Marc Maron, Dave Attell, Greg Proops and more — as well as some of the world’s top TV journalists — Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Brian Williams, Diane Sawyer — and pundits — Bill O’Reilly, Nancy Grace, Glenn Beck — to throw well-written insults at American’s favorite fake news anchor.

Also, after each roaster finishes up their set, they could say something else besides, “Thanks for being a good sport” or feigning respect for the guy they just insulted for three minutes.

Also, the roastee, in our scenario, would be more than capable of leveling insults right back at the dais. Oh, you want more examples of a roastee for a “classier, old school” roast with not enough mass appeal to score high ratings? Tina Fey, Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin and Louis C.K.

Who do you want to see roasted? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

About the Author

Jake Kroeger

Jake Kroeger has dedicated his life, for better or probably worse, to comedy. Starting and continually running the Comedy Bureau, a voice for LA comedy, by himself, he also writes and performs stand-up comedy in LA and watches more live comedy than is probably humanly tolerable. He's been a daily contributor to Punchline Magazine, now Laughspin.com because he loves and believes in comedy so much. Said of Kroeger, "...without his dangerously insane, unhealthy work ethic, certain comics would not have any press at all."

Jasonbres

I’d really love to see Dane Cook, Robin Williams and Steve Martin get roasted.
Bec

Stephen Colbert!!
http://drewlandry.net Drew

I think it’d be the ultimate if they roasted Don Rickles
Pingback: jonstewart.ca: Canadian fan site of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show
http://scottking.tv Scott King

I could see him turning it down though because all the other CC ones have been so classless in terms of the roastee.
http://www.jeremywinslife.com Jeremy Nguyen

There was a collective groan among my group of comedian when we heard the news. It’d be way more interesting to go after someone like Jon Stewart rather than these “easy targets” of recent Roasts. And especially with this Charlie Sheen roast, all the jokes will feel so dated, with references to Warlocks and ‘winning’. I’m not excited at all.
Will

The issue with roasting anybody respectable is that Comedy Central doesn’t have faith in their audience to know enough about a respectable roastee to get the jokes, and rightfully so. A roast of Stewart is the best option, though a roast of an actual talented comedian would be stuff for the ages. Mainstream America will care more about the roast of some loser who lost his mind once in an interview though, than an actual comedian.
Lori Cerny

Jon Stewart already debases himself every night on his own program. He has never had an issue with self-ridicule, so having a roast for Mr. Stewart would be moot.
Eric Hansen

I understand your point, however I tuned in to the Joan Rivers Roast expecting it to be amazing, then saw it turn into hands down the weakest one Comedy Central aired as everyone kept saying how much they respected her. I think the trick for roasts (or at least the ones done on Comedy Central) is to get a roastee who is easy to make fun of but still (to some degree) liked and/or respected; which is why, in my opinion, the Shatner roast was by far the best; Pam Anderson, Trump and Bob Saget were strong for the same reason. When I first heard of the Hasselhoff roast, I had the same reaction that you’re having to Sheen (as he’s pretty much a walking punchline having stumbled into a big time career through garbage TV that nobody admits to watching) but, apart from the tired, gratuitous Nazi references (and the inexplicable inclusion of the unbelievably crass, humorless Whitney Cummings) was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Anyway, I think Sheen falls into the same category of Shatner et. al; only replacing respect and affection with morbid fascination which could potentially lead to the strongest roast yet (I personally thought Stallone would be a good choice, particularly when considering the SNL sketch he did where Norm MacDonald kept telling him all of his movies sucked; but, as of right now, Sheen is even better).
ccfan

Rob Schneider. Think of the roasters: Adam Sandler, Norm Macdonald, Christopher Walken, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Hugh Hefner, Cheech Marin, Tom Green, etc. He’d make an fun target and has great famous friends!