Liz DeLillo
Staff Writer
Many are familiar with the sharp wit of “The Daily Show,” but few people have the opportunity to look at the effort, planning and collaboration behind the scenes that leave audiences laughing. At 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater, producers Jennifer Flanz, Max Browning, Matt O’Brien and Elise Terrell will be joined by comedian Jeff Stilson. The panel will share their work on the “The Daily Show,” its evolution over the years and the creative processes underlying that work as part of this week’s theme for the Chautauqua Lecture Series, “Comedy Now: A Week Curated with Lewis Black” in partnership with the National Comedy Center.
Co-executive producer Terrell joined the show as a production assistant 20 years ago and currently helps manage production of scripted and unscripted segments. While producing on “The Daily Show,” she has won two Emmy Awards and received five additional nominations.
Writer and producer O’Brien started writing for the show in 2024 and previously served as the head writer on “Conan.” He has received eight Emmy Award nominations, including winning in 2024 for “Conan O’Brien Must Go.”
Supervising producer Browning joined “The Daily Show” in 2007 as a production assistant. He has won two Emmy Awards in addition to five nominations, and he currently co-runs the Topical Assignments Group, which encompasses current events, breaking news and deep dives segments on the show.
Executive producer, writer and showrunner Flanz has worked on set for over 25 years, receiving 23 Emmy Award nominations and nine wins, three Peabody Awards, a Television Academy Honors Award and a Gracie Award. Flanz was integral in the transition from Jon Stewart to Trevor Noah and oversaw the recent shift to a multi-host modality as well as Stewart’s return.
“We have been able to really hone each of the hosts’ voices and have different writing and producing teams on different weeks,” Flanz said.
She emphasized that shifting to multiple hosts has been “a fun challenge for people at the show.” In particular, she enjoyed seeing how the modality enabled them to elevate different voices.
“You can write a lot of the same news stories with jokes that lean into a different point of view with different hosts,” she said. “It’s really fun to find the different guests that all work for each of them.”
Beyond being able to expand the perspectives available in the planning process, having multiple hosts helped facilitate “having different people be able to share the burden of hosting the show,” she said.
Flanz also explained how important it is that they have fun during the production process.
“I always say that if we are not having the best time making the show, no one’s gonna have a good time watching the show,” she said. “I think the more fun you can have doing what you’re doing every day, the more it will resonate.”
Joining Flanz, Browning, O’Brien and Terrell on the panel, comedian and producer Stilson is best known for his work in “The Chris Rock Show,” “The Osbournes” and “Good Hair.” He won two Emmy Awards and has received 12 additional nominations. Stilson contributed to “The Daily Show” in its early years as a correspondent, then writer and consulting producer.
“It was an interesting time on the show because they were just making the transition to the ‘Daily Show with Jon Stewart,’ ” he said.
Reflecting on his time at “The Daily Show” as well as “Late Show with David Letterman,” Stilson elaborated how Stewart’s approach was novel at the time. Late-night television was still topical, he said, but “it was done in a way that didn’t feel political at all.”
With contemporary late-night television embracing the approach championed on “The Daily Show,” he noted that the news is “a great driving force behind a nightly topical show — it’s great fuel.”
Stilson highlighted the concomitant cultural shift in how people receive their news. Rather than learning about current events through a daily newspaper, he said, now people are “always plugged into the news cycle.” Analogizing consuming news with eating, he noted that a newspaper is like eating a meal, whereas perpetually receiving news notifications on one’s phone is more like snacking.
“Now we just snack all day,” he said. “Instead of having two or three meals, you just eat all day long — and we eat news.”
With the increase in politicization and media, “we’re obsessed with politics,” Stilson said. “Comedy gives us a release from all the tension that’s built up during the day.”
Along a similar vein of thought, Flanz noted how the physical, bodily response people have to comedy is what makes it important for wellbeing.
“I think comedy is essential in that way, and for that reason,” she said. “It just gives people this catharsis.”
“People want to laugh about the absurdity of politics right now,” Flanz said. “It gives people a feeling of relatability when the show points out something that feels absurd.”
However, Flanz noted that this absurdity does not make their job any easier, but rather presents particular challenges for turning current events into comedy.
“The more absurd politics gets, the harder it is to write jokes; … it’s easier to make jokes when it’s straight,” she said. “When it’s absurd, you first have to ground it in reality and be like, ‘I’m telling you the story, and I know it sounds like a joke, but it’s real — and now I’m going to make a joke about it.’ ”
