Anyone who thought that Jon Stewart was going to sit out of this Presidential election cycle was dead wrong. Stewartâs new HBO series will be coming much sooner than expected!
Via Deadline, HBO Programming chief Casey Bloys appeared at the TCA Press Tour and said that Stewartâs new show will hopefully âbe up and running by September or October.â Bloys added that âitâs an animated parody of a cable news network. Itâs Onion-like, with video and text…Itâs very much Jonâs voice and tone.â
That sounds like a more comedic take on The Newsroom than a rehash of Stewartâs Daily Show format. Stewart will also lend his voice to the show, which will be animated in a way that âallows (Stewart) to comment on events in real time.â That probably means limited animation that can be turned around very quickly, which is how the South Park creative team is able to keep its episode topics so timely. A specific animation technique wasnât mentioned by Bloys, but it will reportedly be similar to the animated Hillary Clinton shorts on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where Stewart recently made his on-camera return for coverage of the Republican convention. Stewart is also an executive producer of The Late Show.
The animated format is intriguing, because it could potentially allow Stewartâs character or characters to interact with the real life personalities that he mocks on the show, presumably voiced by other comedians or Stewart himself. Whether the new series will be built around ongoing stories and original characters remains to be seen. But it will still be a vehicle for Stewart to offer commentary on current events, which is something that he does quite well.
Stewartâs currently untitled show will be shown on HBOâs digital networks, and it is widely expected that a half-hour compilation of his shorts will air on HBO itself.
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Image: Comedy Central