
When first we heard that Jon Stewart was switching up his Daily Show schedule this week, we assumed it had something to do with the Netflix Is a Joke festival, where he had a show Friday night.
What we didn’t know at the time was that instead of sitting behind the desk of his own show this Monday night, he’d be visiting two other late-night shows instead.
In order of appearance, the first stop on Stewart’s Monday night comedy tour was episode #2 of Everybody’s in L.A., John Mulaney’s six-episode experiment of a live late-night show for Netflix. The delightfully frenetic show—which includes viewer calls, random tangents from announcer/actor Richard Kind, and plenty of unintended snafus—had Stewart simultaneously confused, amazed, and seemingly terrified.
“I feel like this entire show is a Banksy,” he finally declared. “I feel like, at the end of this, somebody’s going to come and pay like $2 million and carry us all away. I’ll just be living in some dude’s house… This is phenomenal.”
A half hour later over on ABC, it was a pair of kids who were confused when Stewart—a man they do not know—hopped into their family car as their parents drove them to school.
The parents in question were Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney, who shocked their kids a few months back by picking up a “hitchhiker” who just happened to be pop star Olivia Rodrigo (Kimmel’s daughter Jane is a major fan).
This time around, Jane and Billy Kimmel weren’t quite as enthused—nope, not even when Stewart told them that he, too, was a musician and played some of his music for them. But the kids were onto their parents by now and weren’t buying that this Stewart guy was just some random stranger they happened to pluck off the street.
When Jane told Stewart about the time they picked up Rodrigo, she said that she had the same “good feeling” when they picked him up, despite clearly having no idea who this weird stranger rocking out next to her was. Which touched Stewart.
“Your daughter is the nicest person I’ve ever met,” Stewart whispered to Kimmel—who suggested he “Get to know her a little more” before eating those words.
While son Billy was the quieter of the two, Stewart eventually coaxed him out of his shell with a couple of choice four-letter words (all on Billy’s part).
When Molly demanded to know “What is happening here,” Kimmel suggested they needed to be “smarter” about who they let spend time around their kids.
“They corrupted me,” Stewart swore. But it was too late. His ride was over.
Stewart will be back behind the Daily Show desk Thursday.