For those unaware, Comedy Central is streaming every single Jon Stewart era episode of The Daily Show. They're calling it Your Month of Zen (even though it's actually going to run for about 42 days). As of this post, they've gotten up to January 2001. I've been sorta watching it on and off — I work from home, so I put it on my tablet as a background kind of thing. So, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on what I've seen so far.

A lot of those early episodes are, perhaps unsurprisingly, pretty uneven. The show was more of a flat local news parody than a satire. A lot of the correspondent field reports felt almost mean-spirited at times. And some of the jokes? Wow. If you weren't happy with those jokes that got upcoming host Trevor Noah in trouble, you would definitely be displeased with some of those early bits. Especially whenever the show dubbed over a foreign speaker.

Somewhat related, I wasn't too pleased with how much the show relied on specialty schtick correspondents. Unlike the regular correspondents, these would be people that basically had their own reoccurring thematic skit. A lot of these were very one note. They had one joke, and they drove it into the ground. Lewis Black's "Back in Black" bits were the best, which is probably why they are the only example left in the modern show.

All that being said, there's still some good glimpses of the show to come. The coverage leading up to the 2000 election (and the debacle that followed) is an excellent example. The first post-election episode showing everyone's ragged despondency was great. It's also interesting to see the big news stories of the time. It's like a time capsule, but funny!

One thing I'm looking forward to is the first episode after 9/11. Stewart's speech is wonderful and, to me, that very much feels like the first true example of the show as it exists now.

Has anyone else been following the stream, or simply watch The Daily Show? I'm curious to hear what other people think.