Since he signed off The Daily Show for the last time, Jon Stewart has been busy for a guy that’s supposedly retired. He’s opened an animal sanctuary, saved a runaway bull, and also done human-centric things like visit his old employer, sign an agreement with a new one, and grow a beard. Now it sounds like he and his signature exasperation might be back in front of the camera just in time for the general election in November.
Vulture reports that HBO is “hopeful” Stewart will begin producing that “short-form digital content” he signed up for six months ago by the time we collectively decide America’s fate on November 8. “We now have the flexibility to let you paint however you want to,” HBO CEO Richard Plepler said at an event in Los Angeles. “[Stewart] has free rein to do whatever he wants.”
There’s still little confirmed information about what format Stewart’s HBO content might take, or even where it would land, although a likely home is the provider’s standalone service HBO Now. Credit should be given where it’s due to Plepler for publicly using very laid-back-cool-guy terms like “flexibility” and “free rein” when in private he and the other HBO executives are likely frothing at the mouth for Stewart to make his debut. Presumably they’re all normally seated around a table shouting non-laid-back phrases like “hurry up, Stewart” and “all we ask is one fucking Moment of Zen.”