Big Think Interview With Lizz Winstead | Big Think

Big Think Interview With Lizz Winstead

New videos DAILY

Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT:

Question: What was the initial idea for "The Daily Show?"

Lizz Winstead: Well, I started out as a stand up who did political material and it had been...I'd done a couple of one-woman shows that had been based on sort of the evolution of 24-hour news and media and during the First Gulf War it occurred to me that CNN had been spending more and more money on graphics and less and less money on research and it was like, well, that's kind of a sounding alarm that I think through comedy I kind of want to do through my stand up to talk about that. And then it became...there was things like there was always children disappearing on the news and like we never got their big story and so I've been talking about these in my one-woman shows and my stand up and then Comedy Central knew my standup and I've done specials for them and stuff...and so then they said, "Would you like to come and create a show that responds to the world on a daily basis.? " And I said, "Yeah." But I said I...one of my big sticking points is that it's not just the politicians and the news-makers, it's the media itself that's as big as pa player in the landscape. So, if you want to do it where we actually become a media outlet and become them and show how sort of remiss they are in reporting the facts and getting it wrong as well as taking on the powerful, I'm all for it. And they said, "That's a great idea." And so Madeleine Smithberg and I created this machine that is now "The Daily Show."

Question: What did Jon Stewart bring to the show?

Lizz Winstead: Well I think there was several different...As we were developing the show, there was also two different camps as we were on the air about people that wanted to focus on pop culture and people who wanted to focus on politics and what was going to be engaging and I was sort of fighting for politics, and the people who were fighting for pop culture so we had this meld of politics and pop culture and when John came onboard, John was really, "Let's take on the people that are the big giant offenders and hypocrites which are corporations and the media and politicians," so that when the show really started going for sort of a really healthy big targets of big bullies, that's really when it started to shine and John is somebody who really knows that game and through humor, you know, he always says the show is funny first and then, you know, the points come through second. And so, he really knows and understands that picking on the big targets and pointing out their hypocrisy is definitely the best way to go when it comes to political satire.

Question: Did the Bush administration make the "The Daily Show?"

Lizz Winstead: Well I think there's...The political climate, I mean...When it was being developed and it was the last years of Clinton, you know, remember that Clinton wasn't always just Monica. You know, there was welfare reform, there was all sorts of stuff that happened, those elections were also really great. So the show built itself on that and then when the Bush administration took off, yeah. I mean, it's sort of incredible how it felt like we hired them so we could have material. Like, there really wasn't an election. We just paid off America to vote for George Bush so that we could have a show.

Question: Was the McCain-Palin ticket a peak moment for political satire?

Lizz Winstead: Well I think you're forgetting the whole part of the political landscape which was the Bush administration, you had 10 Republican candidates, only three of them believe in evolution. You had Mitt Romney, you had Mike Huckabee, you had Hillary, you had Bill Clinton running off the rails. You had this power struggle between the first viable female candidate for president and the first viable African-American candidate and then you had John McCain on his own being a complete...He was like Yosemite Sam. Then Sarah Palin happened. So, there was a wealth of material and also, don't forget we had wire tapping. We had crazy, you know, attorneys who were, you know, political appointees from Pat Robertson University, we had Katrina, you know. There was so much going on before the election, into the election, the candidates themselves and John Edwards don't forget that, you know, Palin didn't come till September of 2007 and so...or 2008 I'm sorry. So, there was...That was, I mean, I have to say I don't...Tina Fey was probably sitting in her underwear eating cheerios on that morning when they stood on the stage in Minnesota and I'm sure she spat whatever was out in her mouth and said, "Oh my God, the dumbest woman in the world looks just like me. Ka-Ching!"

Read the full transcript at