The return of Jon Stewart to “The Daily Show” had been so anticipated, so long in the making, it almost had to let us down a little.
John Oliver had done a pretty terrific job filling in all summer, as Stewart was off in the middle east directing a movie. For the return Tuesday, there was a big fussy pre-show dressing room bit that looked like it was a second rate awards show (in it, the bearded, overly ethnic Stewart babbled Hebrew and after a series of treatments, reappeared as everything from a redneck to a Smurf to a VMA Miley Cyrus complete with hair horns and foam finger (and Hitler, he was Hitler too). Not until Stephen Colbert came down in a HazMat suit did things get straightened out (with behind the door fisticuffs).
Even when he got back to his desk, clean shaven and back in a suit, we almost forgot how cutesy he gets to the camera and the audience, and how much of his rapport is based on that. We forgot, too, how much of the punch lines end up to be penis jokes.
It took a while to get into the rhythm of all that had happened all summer and is still happening. But by the time he donned a drum major outfit and addressed perennially “parade of idiots” Bill Kristol, Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld and to sing “Shut the @#$% Up!” things started to warm up. Then Stewart chose as his first guest a leader of the Syrian refugee relief effort .
Stewart didn’t get a lot of laughs out of this, but his show was alone Tuesday to bring up that humanitarian aspect of the current saber rattling. This was the reason “The Daily Show,” against all odds, keeps getting nominated in TV critics awards for news and information, amid the laughs. Welcome back, Jon.