With a reputation for being a funny man in school, Jon Stewart moved to New York City in 1986 to try his hand at the comedy club circuit, but he could not muster the courage to get on stage until the following year. He made his stand-up debut at The Bitter End, where his comedic idol, Woody Allen, also began. He began using the stage name "Jon Stewart" by dropping his last name and changing the spelling of his middle name "Stuart" to "Stewart." He often jokes this is because people had difficulty with the pronunciation of Leibowitz or it "sounded too Hollywood" (a reference to Lenny Bruce's joke on the same theme). He has implied that the name change was actually due to a strained relationship with his father, with whom Stewart no longer has any contact. Stewart became a regular at the Comedy Cellar, where he was the last performer every night. For two years, he would perform at 2 a.m. while developing his comedic style. In 1989 Stewart landed his first television job as a writer for Caroline's Comedy Hour. In 1991 he began co-hosting Comedy Central's Short Attention Span Theater, with Patty Rosborough. In 1992 Stewart hosted the short-lived You Wrote It, You Watch It on MTV, which invited viewers to send in their stories to be acted out by the comedy troupe, The State. When David Letterman left NBC in 1993, Stewart was a finalist to replace him, but Conan O'Brien was hired instead.[24] Later in 1993, Stewart developed The Jon Stewart Show, a talk show on MTV. The Jon Stewart Show was the first talk show on that network and was an instant hit, becoming the second-highest rated MTV show behind Beavis and Butt-head.[26] In 1994, Paramount cancelled The Arsenio Hall Show and, with new corporate sibling MTV (through MTV parent Viacom's acquisition of the studio), launched an hour-long syndicated late-night version of The Jon Stewart Show. Many local affiliates had moved Hall's show to 2 a.m. during its decline and Stewart's show inherited such early morning time slots in many cities. Ratings were dismal and the show was canceled in June 1995. Amongst the fans of the show was David Letterman, who was the final guest of The Jon Stewart Show. Letterman signed Stewart with his production company, Worldwide Pants.[27] Stewart then became a frequent guest host for Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder, which was produced by Letterman and aired after the Late Show on CBS. This led to much speculation that Stewart would soon replace Snyder permanently,[28] but Stewart was instead offered the time slot after Snyder, which he turned down.[29] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_stewart

• published: 26 Jun 2013
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