(Jon Stewart is) the most trusted name in fake news.

Although mostly thought of just in the context of the daily show by his younger fans, Stewart got his start as a stand-up comedian. He drew inspiration from other notable jewish comics like Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen as well as renowned social critics George Carlin and Richard Pryor.

Stewart graduated in 1984 from the College of William & Mary in Virginia, where he majored in psychology and played on the soccer team. While at W&M, Stewart became a brother of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity and met future Congressman Anthony Weiner, who is the only politician to have received campaign donations from Stewart and who was recently caught up in a sexting scandal which was the subject of practically en entire weeks worth of daily show bits.

Although 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. When he did muster the courage to put it on the line Stewart did his first act at The Bitter End (at nightclub in Greenwich Village), where Woody Allen had gotten his start. Stewart chose the stage name "Jon Stewart" by dropping his last name and changing the spelling of his middle name "Stuart" to "Stewart. He has joked that people had difficulty pronoucing his last name (Leibowitz) and that it sounded "too hollywood" on different occasions.

Stewart was also a regular at The Comedy Cellar, choosing to be the last on stage every night and honing his comedic style during very late hours.

Two Shows

In 1993, Stewart developed The Jon Stewart Show, a talk show on MTV. The next year, Paramount pulled the plug on The Arsenio Hall Show and 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.

In 1999, Stewart began hosting The Daily Show on Comedy Central when Craig Kilborn left the show to replace Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show. The show, which has been popular and successful in cable television since Stewart became the host, blends humor with the day's top news stories, usually in politics, while simultaneously poking fun at politicians and many newsmakers as well as the news media itself.

Stewart denies the show has any intentional political agenda, saying the goal was "schnicks and giggles." "The same weakness that drove me into comedy also informs my show," meaning that he was uncomfortable talking without hearing the audience laugh.

Also Stewart was in line to replace David Letterman when he left NBC in 1993 but Conan O'brien was chosen instead, so we could have easily had Late Night with Jon Stewart.