‘The Daily Show’ showrunner Jen Flanz: ‘Some days the news gods give us more, some days less, but they never give us nothing’

Given how divided the country is right now, it would seem it’s grown more challenging than ever to generate satire that appeals to the masses. But Jen Flanz has seen it all before. As a staffer on “The Daily Show” since 1997 and showrunner since 2019, the eight-time Emmy winner knows there’s always room for comedy, even when the United States seems largely to have misplaced its sense of humor. “It’s definitely harder than it used to be to tell jokes in general,” she acknowledges. “There’s a lot of sensitivities. Everything is very polarized. So you just have to call out hypocrisy where you see it and remember that the main goal of the show is to make people laugh, to inform them but also make it funny. We spoke with Flanz as part of our “Meet the Experts” TV Showrunners Panel. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

It certainly isn’t that there is less to parody in 2024. “Possibly never more,” Flanz believes. “There are so many news networks, there’s so much media coverage, there’s social media, there’s a wealth of things to comment on. That’s not to mention both Presidential candidates have their running material that we go to. I think there’s always somebody to look at and to and make jokes. We say some days the news gods give us more, and some days they give us less. But they never give us nothing.”

Does Flanz look forward to the day when the name Donald Trump isn’t uttered every hour?

“I mean, listen, I’m a New Yorker, so Trump’s been a name in my life for a long time,” she replies. “He’s a character in the story that we tell every night. At some point, maybe he won’t be. But who can predict when that will be? I think even if he doesn’t with the election, he will be a character in the story.”

That story changed markedly for Flanz and the show in December 2022 when host Trevor Noah stepped down after a seven-year “Daily Show” run. The search for a permanent replacement was abandoned earlier this year. Was the decision creative? Financial? Flanz asserts it was both. “Listen, I was here to transition the show from Jon (Stewart) to Trevor, and I was here to do the guest host era, and I’m here to transition it back to what I think is possibly the best version of the show or at least the show to meet the moment. It’s really a great opportunity for us to be able to not just pick one person but be able to hear from different voices all the time and different points of view on the same headline. It gives us different ways to cover stories.” She adds that it’s been a relief that every night is no longer an audition for the next host. “Instead, it’s, ‘This is how we’re covering the election’.”

Having it be an election year doesn’t necessarily make Flanz’s job tougher. “It’s creatively maybe easier,” she finds, “because it gives us a purpose and gives us main characters to the story that the audience already knows. There’s a lot less that you have to lay out.”

At the same time, having Stewart back as part of the regular weekly host rotation during election season has been a godsend for Flanz.

“I’ve been here for over 27 years,” she points out, “so I started before Jon. I started with Craig Kilborn (as host). But Jon was my mentor. I learned so much from him. I worked with him for 16 years and absolutely loved him. When he left, I was like, ‘Oh my god. my shorthand is with Jon Stewart. That’s the person whose show I know how to produce. What am I going to do?’ And I quickly learned Trevor and I obviously loved working with him as well. But having Jon come back and already having that shorthand again is just like, what a leg up. And listen, Jon is, as the kids say, the GOAT. He’s the best to ever do it. He is so freaking good. The second the lights came up in that first rehearsal with him, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this guy is exactly where he’s supposed to be.’ His mind works in a way that I have never seen anyone else’s.”

“The Daily Show” airs on Comedy Central and streams over Paramount+.