Looking back at Trevor Noah’s time at The Daily Show

The final episode of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah went without some of the programme’s usual trappings: celebrity namedrops, grand musical interludes and Noah’s main segment – the top stories. It was an hour-long Trevor Noah love-fest looking back on his seven years as host.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a80CftLAwrE

The first half featured characteristically silly scripted send-offs from all of the current correspondents, none of whom spoke about their usual shtick, but rather about Trevor. The funniest, unsurprisingly, was the irreverent Ronny Chieng, who ended his skit saying, “In all seriousness everybody, can I be the new host?”

Chieng’s talent and culture-centred comedy make him one of the best candidates, but he’ll have to compete with the rotating roster of guest hosts that Comedy Central announced would be leading the show from 17 January, including Chelsea Handler, and Hasan Minhaj (two of the more likely contenders) as well as Al Franken, Sarah Silverman, Leslie Jones, D.L. Hughley, John Leguizamo, Kal Penn, Wanda Sykes and Marlon Wayans.

With so many talented comedians in the running, it’s striking how difficult it is to replace Noah, which is ironic considering how controversial a decision it was when he succeeded John Stewart.

On his last episode, Noah noted, “I remember when I started this show, there were so many people that hated everything about me.” When he took the reigns in 2015, he was already big in South Africa, but largely unknown in the US. To top it off, he’s mixed race and, most crucially, not American.

Trevor Noah recounted that when he met comedian Neal Brennan, who was his final guest on the show, Brennan warned him that “America doesn’t tolerate people with accents on TV”, and he should leave. Brennan came to his own defence pointing out, “at that time I was correct.”

The anecdote spotlights just how big a deal it was that a South African took over Comedy Central’s flagship show, and how transformative an impact his success has had on American broadcasting (it’s worth mentioning that Last Week Tonight with John Oliver also made waves).

During John Stewart’s decade and a half at The Daily Show, late night American television was largely dominated by old white American wiseguys like David Letterman and Jay Leno. Stewart stood out as the best of the bunch – his comedy was sharp and his show was more informative than most – but Trevor Noah was about as far from that norm as possible.

Noah’s youthful optimism was a chuckling breath of fresh air. That’s not to say he didn’t get rightfully angry with the infuriating issues of the day, but his magic is the ability to get real without depressing an audience.

His cheerful, joking approach to hard topics makes the world seem a little less evil, and his not being American allows him to observe the absurdity of US politics with the clarity of an outsider.

Noah is often at his funniest when playing the curious alien. He’s not necessarily self-deprecating, but he takes on an exaggerated naivety and his jokes are often about his learning or observing for the first time.

By positioning himself as an objective commentator, somewhere in the middle ground, both inside and outside a particular experience, Noah gets away with material on any issue, and gives an audience the impression that they can trust him.

He’s a chameleon. He adapts to any context without pulling a Trudeau, as he termed it in his recent Netflix special, (a reference to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2018 visit to India in which he embraced Indian culture embarrassingly overenthusiastically).

South Africans might find it slightly jarring that Noah says “erribody” at the end of what feels like the majority of his sentences on The Daily Show, but he never sold out his identity, and for the most part his time in America has just added another edge to his multi-layered cultural standpoint.

It’s a big part of why his comedy became so popular in South Africa. Even when he speaks about extremely sensitive issues like growing up during the waning days of Apartheid, any viewer, whether black, white, South African or not, feels as though he is on their side – not just because of his mixed heritage, but also his sincerity.

Late-night show hosts struggle to find the balance between the likes of James Corden, whose interviews are fun, flattering and frivolous, and David Letterman who’s prone to ambushing his guests for shock value or simply being rude. finds the sweet spot. His interviews are critical and uplifting. A compliment from Trevor Noah is often so genuine that it can leave a guest speechless.

Possibly the reason Noah floundered a little when he started hosting The Daily Show is that because much of the writing isn’t his own. He never did take to the slapstick quips of the skits with the same confidence as John Stewart, but he shone during any segment where he had the opportunity to go a little “off-piste”, most notably during his segment Between The Scenes.

The Daily Show. Image: courtesy of Paramount

Noah’s heartfelt eloquence let the audience in, in a way that was enormously valuable during the worst of the pandemic, when human connection was scarce. He was a voice of reason during an era of panic, and his cool-headed, forthright ruminations were every bit as valuable as his light humour.

It’s fitting that he ended his time at The Daily Show earnest and contemplative, with scarcely a joke in the final 20 minutes in which he spoke about the lessons he’s learned during his time in America.

He delivered his three lessons with the air of a graduation speech, with loving, parting advice to the American public: “Issues are real, but politics are just an invented way to solve those issues”... “Never forget how much context matters” and “be grateful”.

The correspondents made frequent jokes about Noah’s not having a regular gig lined up after the show.

Desi Lydic joked, “So you just leaving a job to do nothin’?!”

He will be returning to his stand-up, performing around the world, including South Africa in September 2023.

Noah held one of the most globally visible, influential positions on television for seven years, in a foreign country, without dropping the ball or compromising his routes. Having accomplished that at 38, rest assured that we have not seen the last of South Africa’s most beloved comedian. DM/ML

The final season of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah is available in South Africa on DSTV catch-up until 7 January.

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