Jon Stewart Did a Surprise Stand-Up Set at The Comedy Cellar Last Night
With his final episode as host of the Daily Show just a week away, Jon Stewart hit NYC’s Comedy Cellar last night with Louis C.K. and former Daily Show/current Nightly Show producer Rory Albanese and ended up getting onstage for 10 minutes of surprise stand-up.
Stewart went up directly after an unannounced set by Louis C.K., who was trying out some new jokes. Sean L. McCarthy of The Comic’s Comic was there, and describes watching Stewart accept Louie’s invitation to take the stage.
Would Stewart like to go up next? Yes, it turned out. Very much so. Even if he just talked for 10 minutes, the prospect looked too juicy to pass up. Even if he was following CK. Perhaps because he was following CK. It’s fascinating to see and to know that a star goes through the same emotions before, during and after shaking off the proverbial rust of not having gone onstage as a stand-up in far too long.
Albanese agreed with that assessment: “I took this guy to the @nyccomedycellar tonight and he couldn’t resist the mic. The Cellar is where it all began for Jon. This was an awesome moment,” he wrote on Instagram.
After getting off stage, Stewart shouted “I’m alive!” and McCarthy overheard him saying “I could do this again.”
And he probably will.
“That’s how I started and that’s — I’m sure that’s how I will end. Eighty years old, standing on stage, going ‘ah, come on!’” he told a Daily Show audience recently.
