Jon Stewart turned the overheated rhetoric about vaccine mandates into a Hitler game show joke on his new Apple TV+ series, The Problem With Jon Stewart. But it wasn't his first Hitler joke, he told his writing staff in a behind-the-scenes clip posted online Thursday. "One of the first things I did in television was I was doing a talk show for Paramount, in 1994 I think, and I was replacing Arsenio," he said. And he and one of his writers came up, late one night, with an idea that he would bring out the writer dressed as Hitler and interview him.
It went about as well as you might imagine, and as soon as they cut to commercial, Stewart recalled, Paramount called the control booth and ordered the show to memory-hole the segment or face cancelation.
Stewart took a more critical "relatively closer look" at Hitler references on The Daily Show in 2005, but if you want to find a copy of the 1994 Paramount talk show, your best bet is probably reading the transcript for a mock Larry King interview of Hitler he included in his 1998 book, Naked Pictures of Famous People. He recorded it with Mike O'Meara, who played Larry King, for WNYC in 2003, and you can listen to that below.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Rosalía and the rise of nunmaniaUnder The Radar It may just be a ‘seasonal spike’ but Spain is ‘enthralled’ with all things nun
-
Magazine solutions - November 14, 2025Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - November 14, 2025
-
Israel jolted by ‘shocking’ settler violenceIN THE SPOTLIGHT A wave of brazen attacks on Palestinian communities in the West Bank has prompted a rare public outcry from Israeli officials
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
