Daily Show is Gen Y’s SNL

Look­ing back over the his­tory of com­edy, much of the great US Come­di­ans came through spe­cific chan­nels. Work­ing at a com­edy the­atre has opened a door to under­stand the chan­nels which most come­di­ans flow through. Please note that I say most not all. There are always peo­ple who buck the sys­tem and make their own route, but the large major­ity of come­di­ans went through var­i­ous institutions.

For the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion, the large selec­tion of come­di­ans went through SNL before break­ing out on their own but today it seems as if the tal­ented prov­ing grounds is the Com­edy Cen­tral show with Jon Stew­art, “The Daily Show.” They’ve had Stephen Col­bert, Steve Carell, John Hodg­mann is up and com­ing, and a small hand­ful of other come­di­ans who are work­ing their way out. Sure SNL has put out a few as well, but in terms of rel­e­vance I hear peo­ple talk­ing about The Daily Show a lot more than SNL.

This could be attrib­uted to the fact that The Daily Show is, well, daily. And SNL is only weekly, but I hon­estly only know a small hand­ful of peo­ple who watch SNL and talk about it. I know some friends who dream of break­ing out as come­di­ans and so they watch it, but other than that, I think SNL is appeal­ing to our par­ents and our older siblings.

The Daily Show has its spin off, The Col­bert Report, which has proven to be mete­oric in its suc­cess, but it hasn’t pro­duced the come­di­ans that Jon Stewart’s show has. Yet.

So watch out Lorne Michaels, Jon Stew­art and Stephen Col­bert are gun­ning for you!