ALSO LOOK AT HOW 90'S THIS JON STEWART IS

I have to repost this video for you all, because I need a second post and this is actually extremely hilarious.

If you're like me, you're a fan of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Granted, you might not have as much in common with the host of the universally acclaimed satire show, such as a dark and receding hairline, biting wit, or the short and wiry stature of Moishe the Frail Bagel Store Owner. But you do enjoy his Monday-to-Thursday beatdowns of everything wrong in the media, hypocritical in politics, or just bizarre in the world. Last night on the show he lampooned every part of Herman Cain's farewell speech, from his admission of using Pokemon lyrics to his shenanigans driving up to the podium. It was classic. Watch it with your eyes.

But the Jon Stewart we know now is vastly different from a Jon Stewart in Jon Stewart's past. Take a look at this, for example:

Look at that set! And look at Jon's black leather jacket! And what is baby-faced Conan O'Brien wearing? Is that a plaid flannel over a black shirt? Yes! This must be... oh man! Oh God! This must be the 1990s! This is actually 1994, back when Jon had a show on MTV called (uninterestingly) The Jon Stewart Show. It was actually a competitor to Late Night With Conan O'Brien, and as you can tell one beat out the other. But can you blame Conan for beating out Jon back then? Seriously, look at that set design! What were they thinking?

Of course, we all know that Jon and Conan are on amicable terms. That is, unless you discount the mock feud between them and Colbert in 2007. That was funny.

Anyway, I wanted to share this with you guys. Also, the fact that Jon's head of hair has receded and turned gray since this video is making me queasy about the future of my own head. Don't leave me, beautiful hairline.

Awkward.....a real-ish high school story

I have lost pretty much all respect for MTV since they stopped actually playing music. I've been saying for a while that they should change their name to RTV (Reality Television). They hit on something good when they blazed the path for reality, but it became their new "thing". For the longest time they relied on reality tv's cheap trick of voyeurism to get viewers, so I was skeptical when I heard the they were now starting to venture into the field of fictional programming. I did not think that the minds who thrust Jersey Shore on the world could come up with anything of merit, but I was soon highly surprised. After some praise that my co-workers gave the pilot I was curious to see if there could be any creative minds left working at MTV. Low and behold I believe they have stumbled upon the best teen drama in a while.

Their new high school drama, Awkward. is about an average-ish girl navigating the awkward terrain that is high school. It is surprisingly funny and more accurate then most shows set in high school. One of the things that adds to their believability is that they have a you cast (in comparison to most shows that are based in high school). Though the cast is not actually of high school age, they are the youngest cast portraying high schoolers on tv today. Many shows now a day cast people in the mid to late 20's or even in the their ealy 30's to play high school characters. These actors aren't too far separated from those awkward years of discovering themselves and making mistakes in the hell-ish place people call high school.

The show is seen through the eyes of the main character Jenna sharing her life with her blog readers (MTV actually goes the extra length to publish the blog as a form of interaction with the audience to add to it's growing sense of reliability). The show starts off when Jenna has sex with the popular guy days before school starts but he wants to keep his feelings for her secret from the world. Later that night she has an accident that makes the world think she tried to commit suicide and the rest of the show is the comic incidences that follow after she gains her new title of "That Girl".

American Remakes

I don't mean to keep up a streak of posts about British television but since I'm a little behind on the times, I recently heard about another popular British show getting an American makeover. I had to watch The Inbetweeners for my British Youth Culture class in London and was immediately hooked. The show features vulgar comedy as it follows four teenagers who are "inbetween" social groups, and puts an original spin on the obvious story lines of alcohol, sex and school. It has also just been made into a movie of the same name that came out inthe UK and will be out here very soon. Two years ago ABC tried and failed to give the show a pilot but now MTV is giving it a shot. However, MTV recently cancelled their last attempt at a remake after the small disaster that was Skins.

I understand that the stations are in a position to make more money if they remake these shows instead of just buying the rights to the British versions and airing them on their channels. But because the UK is much less censored when it comes to television, the shows lose a lot of their original comedy and it really simplifies the characters when they come to an American screen. British television is much more candid about sex and openly shows nudity and drug use to a somewhat young audience. But in America, I believe that parents are more involved in what their children watch on TV and seem to be more comfortable in protesting against shows that they fear are a bad influence on their children's actions. An MTV spokesman, David Janollari, is very optimistic stating, "The Inbetweeners is unique and simply hilarious. It will resonate immensely with out viewers". However, he later says that the show has a very authentic voice and in successfully adapting it to a US audience, they are making it into a "quintessentially American suburban experience" and therefore changing the show's premise.

While there have been successful remakes, such as The Office, I feel like shows that air on channels such as E4 and Channel 4 in Britain will not have a good survival rate in their American counterparts. I think it will be difficult for MTV to get around the main focus on sex and the language that is much more comfortably used in British television. I also think that the rate they are churning out remakes will hurt them more then help them. The cancellation of Skins in still fresh in everyones mind and The Inbetweeners should be out early 2012 followed by a remake of Misfits.

Sources: The Sun article

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