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A Daily Show Script,
Deconstructed By One
of Its Writers
A Daily Show Script, Deconstructed By One of Its Writers
by Dan Amira | photograph by Maria Lokke3.28.17
At The Daily Show, we seek to hold those in power accountable for their hypocrisy, dishonesty, and, of late, their poor grasp of basic grammar. More important than any of that, of course, is the comedy. The sweet spot is when our jokes add context to a larger issue—as on January 23, when we explored the president’s pathological self-consciousness through the timeless magic of dick jokes.
1
During our brainstorming meeting, one of our producers, Adam Lowitt, joked that Trump was defending his crowd size the way men defend their penis size. That was in our minds when I cowrote this pass with fellow writer Zach DiLanzo.
2
The audience caught on to the meaning here immediately. Our audience is very smart—and perverted.
3
Our first draft used the less subtle phrase “stand-in for his dick.”
4
We asked our producer Allison MacDonald to see if anyone had blamed Trump’s shriveled crowd on the cold weather. Instead she was able to find Kellyanne Conway blaming it on the rain, which was even better.
5
VT-SOT is videotape-sound on tape—also known as a videoclip.
6
OTS means “over the shoulder”—it’s the box with the pictures. Nobody knows what MOZ1 means.
7
We debated correcting these phony claims but decided it would disturb the flow of our penis metaphors. We fact-checked them later in the show.
8
Classic small-penis excuse. Very difficult for other people in the locker room to disprove.
9
This is a joke about the president’s pubes.
10
We asked Allison to dig around for any other defenses of Trump’s crowd that could also plausibly refer to penises. She found this one, and it was … [kisses fingers like Italian chef].
11
You can write words on a page, but the performance matters a lot. Trevor delivered this line with particular gusto, though I can’t imagine why.
12
Joke that got cut: “Although I will say it is a little strange that Trump’s crowd was smaller than the women’s crowd.”
13
I highly doubt that Trump cares about or even believes in the female orgasm.
This article appears in the April issue. Subscribe now.
Illustrations by Nishant Choksi; patterns by Overlaponeanother
