Jon Stewart On How Tech Companies Are Changing Entertainment | Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend

entertainment is there was this Legacy. business and you're seeing it change now. as Silicon Valley comes in the ethos of. Legacy you know entertainment is we've. created this incredibly eccentric. business where like and you need an. agent and a manager and a lawyer and. they're going to take about 60% of what. you make but without them there's. nothing you can do and you join the. studio and the studio will give you a. deal and you'll sit in your room right. it's the most inefficient way Silicon. Valley walked in like in the way that.

Elon Musk walked into Twitter and went. like how many people work here 10,000. make it two right that's so now that. apple and Amazon they go in and they go. writers room wait you've got 14 writers. and they're with you from start to. finish on the production well it's. important for the writers to be invested. and then also we're showing them how. they're on the page because it's. different about the page uh to the. screen they've got to understand how. that works and understand how we. interact with the props and like uh they.

can have three weeks and it's got to be. on Zoom yeah and you can have four of. them right they're changing the. ethos into this they're changing us from. an analog business to a digital business. and I think that's the Schism the. earthquake that's been going through it. I don't I can't function like that like. my writers like what you know also it's. not it's it's it's across the business. many comedy writers uh my vintage or.

younger have trouble getting work now. right uh and it's it's these companies. changing radically it's changing they. don't believe in institutional knowledge. right that that allows people to grow. and get better and and create more what. they believe now is the aour system. which has always sort of existed within. film and TV and then this idea of. ruthlessly efficient content factories.

where what matters is the real estate. and not the individual creative I I. think the problem if I had to guess. would be that you can't you can't. explain what happens in a writer's room. MH to anybody who hasn't been in one and. imagine a coffee clotch with a lot of. Holocaust jokes but you know I remember. that's writer I remember uh I remember. on when I was on the S.

and it was you know fairly early days on. The Simpsons there was a lot of. excitement and a a German film company. came th this this documentary film crew. came from Germany and the director. wanted to he wanted to capture The. Simpsons Writing Room in action so I'm. sitting there with Schwarz welder and. Jeff Martin you know uh uh Myers and. Legend all these amazing people I'm. sitting in this room and this they set. up these cameras and the guy was there. and he had like the lens around his neck. and he's watching us and what he saw was.

a bunch of guys saying all right well we. need a end to the scene and it should be. and then it would be you know Al Jee. would be like we really need should. probably be Marge that takes us out and. and be like okay and then there'd be. this and John V would. go what. if no and long silences and the guy and. you could hear the. equipment and then at one point the guy. just. went can something.

happened and I'm like this is this is. writing there's a famous story of I. think it's Harry Warner or something. walked past the writers uh the area on. the lot and he didn't hear typewriters. going and he was like I better hear. typewriters because those guys are. getting paid well a lot of writing is. sitting and thinking and agonizing and. eating a donut and then there's this. process realize too that the idea like. you're diagramming stories like in some. ways it looks like a math problem like. you're.

creating these kinds of tranches of a b. and c story lines and drawing lines and. creating arcs and it really is a little. bit of like Beautiful Mind craziness. like you look at it and go none of this. seems to but everybody is you're putting. the Jenga pieces together and then in. the edit later the mistakes that you. made with your original Instinct can get. corrected or shaved you know what's the. biggest change for me in content. creation was the invention of the Avid.

when we stopped editing on those in the. online rooms where like if you up. you had to go back to the beginning and. you could start to manipulate things. digitally in. space it was it was revelatory right. because it was how more your mind works. your the the technology of. it had not caught up with the way that. you spatially kind of see structure or. plot orct of those things when you had a.

tool that would allow you to work more. in sync with with how you think right I. that was because in the early days at. MTV I can remember we would do these. bits you know these parodies and like. get the little razor and cut cut the. thing and put it through and tape it up. and run it through again like it was you. feel like Charlie Chaplain on the set of. the Gold. Rush yeah it was we were we saw that. transition I've always liked working. with young people a cuz I'm a creep uh.

you don't have to pay them they're still. in. school they'll work for. credit oh this will help me but no. there's like U I'm very delighted by. when when I see young comedic talent. that really makes me laugh I feel better. you there's this I guess there's this. cliche. that uh that people in our stage are. supposed to be looking at you know Young. Comedians and going I don't think that's.

funny why in my day and I've never felt. that way i' mostly I feel like like. I the other night at the you know emy's. one of the the emy's parties I ran into. the the writers that do hacks and I just. stopped and said you're doing such. superb work and you started out with a. great show and then the other seasons. are each one's better than the previous. one I don't know how you're doing it but. I left feeling energized and better. about things because I'm always happy.

when young people are killing it because. I think oh I think civilization's going. to be okay and I'm putting that all on. the the writers at hats it reminds me of. sort of the way that they look at. Athletics like when people go you can't. compare the football players of today to. the Legends and you're like right the. football players of today like mediocre. ones would blow their doors off. like yeah dick buckas was great these. guys are running a. 3240 like he wouldn't have a he wouldn't. even know that they had gone past him.

and I look at that sometimes with with. the content now that's being created by. those young comics and all that and I'm. just like they've leveled us up yeah. like they really have like y there you. know people like to talk about uh oh. back in the old days we really you know. that that comedy was great and you're. like well it was kind of flat-footed and. racist but other than that you're right. right right um no I'm I'm always. impressed by and especially like in the. standup world like the level.

that young Comics come into it and the. it it's shocking like it's one of those. things like I see as my kids went. through the college process I was like. oh I wouldn't be able to get into. college today like it makes me feel that. way about the comedy club's like oh I. would have to end up really being a. bouncer I am oh you'd be a great bouncer. you better leave what are you going to. do about it nobody expects for you to. hit them nobody expects for to hit them.

low nobody expects that you go right at. the knee I think you know what I would. love a comedy club where you and I are. the. bouncers they're different sizes and. both equally. ineffectual I'll hit you I'll hit you. high and you won't feel it and I'll hit. you low and you won't feel it who are. the bouncers it's Rand and. Stimpy they'll take care of. it no problem.