I mean, he took it from being a pure comedy, almost a joke of a show, to something that defined a new category of TV. People forget that he was not the first host of the show. Craig Kilborn was great, but it was totally a different show, it was all about laughs and pop culture.

Then Stewart came along, and it turned into this brilliant quasi-news satirical-but-serious show that changed the way a lot of people thought about politics, news, television, and American culture as a whole.

Yeah, sometimes Stewart had to struggle to keep the balance of the show. There was a push to make it purely into a serious news show, but that’s not what it was best at. That showed up most often with interviews, where John took flak for not treating it as an opportunity to go hard at politicians in particular. But he was right, that’s not what the show was for, nor would it have worked. Not only did they not have an obligation to push hard on guests, I would say they had an obligation not to.

Which is tangential, but I think it explains why the show is his in a way that nobody else could pull off. He was deep in the entire process of the show.