If you take Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert out of the equation, then the answer to the above question is probably yes. Over on the the AV Club, ahead of Jimmy Fallon’s third-year anniversary, Steven Hyden has come around to what I’ve been saying elsewhere since Fallon became the only network talk show host to come out of the Leno/Conan controversy unscathed.

Fallon’s transformation from widely derided lightweight—a man assumed to have secret knowledge of where Lorne Michaels keeps the bodies buried in order to continue getting such good jobs—to heir apparent to the King Of Late Night crown is complete and shocking. Jimmy Fallon is now so likeable that it’s actually a cliché to point out how likeable he is. Not only has he become the opposite of what he used to be, he’s made thinking otherwise seem mean-spirited. He is the puppy-basket of late-night talk-show hosts.

Hyden continues on to say that Fallon “has the brightest future of any late-night host.” I don’t disagree. As someone who grew up on Dave, disliked Fallon on “SNL” and hated his short-lived movie career, it took me a while to warm up to him, but now if I bother to watch any of the late night network talk shows at all, it’s always Fallon.

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A small refresher: Last week, Stephen Colbert announced his intention to create an exploratory committee in order to run for the President of South Carolina. By law, if someone become a candidate for office, he or she must relinquish any control he has of a Super Pac, one of those independent organizations that raises money on behalf of a candidate but can’t actually coordinate with the candidate. It’s a not so subtle way of getting around campaign finance laws. As a result, Colbert had to relinquish control of his Super Pac, Americans For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow. He gave it to Jon Stewart, who renamed it, The Definitely Not Coordinated With Stephen Colbert Super PAC.

What is Jon Stewart doing with all of that Super Pac money, besides eating chewed food from Mario Batali’s mouth? He’s releasing commercials in South Carolina, one of which alleges that Mitt Romney is a serial killer.

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Jon Stewart and the team at “The Daily Show” are never better than when they’re mocking the moronic programming on 24-hour news channels. The show has taken a sledgehammer to all of the networks, from the mindless rabble-rousing on “Fox and Friends,” to whatever the hell MSNBC is doing with their schedule (“Tonight on MSNBC, a hard-hitting report by Rachel Maddow on our unsafe, overcrowded prison system. Then at 11 on ‘Lockdown: Violence Prison,’ someone gets shivved! MAYBE IN THE FACE!”). But last night they took it to a new level in a takedown of CNN’s new morning show “Early Start” — specifically, an idiotic segment where the hosts try to prank call celebrities at 5 a.m.

There’s not much I can add to this that isn’t articulated better in the clip. The whole thing is just so awkward and terrible and fantastic. I know Stewart can rub some people wrong way sometimes, but he’s doing the Lord’s work here. A segment this dumb (on a NEWS NETWORK) deserves to be mocked in the harshest manner possible, if only because you can’t physically grab a television show by the collar and scream right into its face like it’s an unruly drunk. Something to work on, scientists.

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After yesterday’s ratings post, which revealed that “Community” is the sixth least watched TV show on the Big Four networks, that “Harry’s Law” is more popular than “Parks and Recreation,” and that “NCIS” is America’s most watched TV show, the collective American intelligence needed a win.

Enter Jon Stewart:

Fox News’ prime time lineup now averages fewer viewers than Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. According to TVNewser, Fox News averaged 1.868 million total viewers in prime time compared to 2.3 million for The Daily Show … The reason why Fox News feels so threatened by Jon Stewart is because his program is more popular than anything not named Bill O’Reilly on the network. Not only is Stewart popular, but he is popular with the coveted young demographics that Fox News struggles with. The average Fox News viewer is 65 years old.

The ratings win is not only big in terms of moral victories for common sense, but the demographics also suggest that there are more younger, brighter television viewers than deluded senior citizens demanding that hobos “put some skin in the game.” Then again, to put it in a broader perspective Fox News was the 4th ranked cable network of 2011 (while “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity” were number one and two in cable news, respectively), compared to MSNBC, which was 28th (with CNN trailing behind at 29th), which suggests that there are a lot more deluded senior citizens watching Fox News than there are wackjob Pinko-liberal fascists watching MSNBC.

Either way, it’s a victory for fake news and dick jokes.

(Source: TVNewser)

In the wake of Rick Perry leasing a hunting camp called… ummm… *cough* *cough*head, Wyatt Cenac filed a report for “The Daily Show” (video below) that no white correspondent possibly could have: he pointed out that scores of other American geographical features are named with similar insensitivity to race issues. What I’m trying to say is, he said the N-word a LOT. And not the N-word the way black people say it to each other, but the way white slave owners used to say it: casually, and with a hard “-er.”

The piece made me wide-eyed and slightly uncomfortable until Cenac branched out into my preferred territory: locations named with old-timey racist slurs. And as we all know, old-timey racist slurs are the ONLY racist slurs I’ll tolerate around here.

Hahahahaha, “Squaw Tit Mountain.” Sounds like a Navajo strip club. I bet there’s firewater and slut machines there. “Wait, don’t you mean slot machines?” Nope.

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