Even if Jason Jones and Samantha Bee are newly minted U.S. citizens, they still count as Canadians who have sat in the anchor chair of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Jon Stewart missed Tuesday night's episode, and so Jones and Bee, real-life married couple and correspondents on the show, handled the duties.
Jones started out in the chair for the first segment, a thinly veiled double meaning to a segment on gaffes from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to the difficulty of filling in for someone.
In the second segment, Jones was still in the chair, but Bee made thinly veiled references to why she wasn't sitting in the anchor chair. After a segment from Bee as a correspondent about the impossibility of tracking civilians shot by police, both of them were behind the desk.
"I am not losing anything. I am chained to the f—king desk," Bee said, handcuffed herself to the desk. "I'm here until the bitter end!"
Both Jones and Bee interviewed former Daily Show writer and correspondent Wyatt Cenac in the third segment.
Cenac brought them a pie to signify their new American citizenship status. "We're as Canadian as apple pie. I made that up. That's my catchphrase," said Bee.
Jones pointed out that the citizenship test proves they know more about America than most Americans.
The three questions Jones threw out were "When was the Constitution written?" "What is the longest river?" and "Who wrote the Federalist Papers?"
I knew the Constitution was written in 1787 and the Missouri River is the longest river. I only got one of the 3 writers of the Federalist Papers: James Madison (the others were Alexander Hamilton and John Jay). As much as I know about Canada, I wonder how hard the Canadian citizenship test would be.
Jones finished up the Moment of Zen, which ironically (or deliberately) featured Vancouver Canucks anthem singer Mark Donnelly tripping on the ice and kept the anthem going without missing a beat.
A Canadian gets to grace the host chair of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
The previous record for a Canadian in the Daily Show anchor chair was held by Justin Bieber. The pop singer and Stewart did a Freaky Friday parody on February 3, 2011.
This was the closest Samantha Bee got to the Daily Show chair, but this wasn't her first try.
On October 1, 2008, Stewart, Bee, and Kristen Schaal pulled out an amazing allegory to Sarah Palin (Schaal), Hillary Clinton (Bee), and John McCain (Stewart). As I wrote after Bieber's appearance, "Along with Foreign Affairs' Gideon Rose, they had a lovely time focusing on who would be hosting the show paralleling the political moment of the time." Bee got to sit in the chair, but only for a few seconds.
Bee mocked Stewart because he had to say "We'll be right back" — the traditional end to a segment. Bee got to send the show to commercial after the second segment; Jones resisting the temptation to follow along.
Bee has been around since 2003; Jones since 2005. They have helped guide the show through numerous Canadian adventures. "Is Iqaluit the capital of Nunavut?" Bee once asked.
Daily Show points out that anchor babies can be Canadian, too
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To watch the full episode, click here. Canadian readers will have to watch through the Web sites of CTV or Comedy Channel.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart airs in Canada on the Comedy Channel (and Comedy Central in the States) at 11 pm Eastern and on CTV at midnight local time.
photos credit: twitter @TheDailyShow
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