Trevor Noah Replaces Jon Stewart: 6 Jokes Only New Host Could Make

Trevor Noah has taken over the The Daily Show. Move over white old Jewish Met-loving native son, enter young snazzy South African immigrant. As the Daily Show’s host has changed, so will the dynamics of the jokes. Noah’s slightly clunky debut left many viewers and re-viewers yearning for more. Gone were the epic cable news “gotchas” and profound political analysis. But Noah threw plenty of fresh comedic punches, helped by his very different background. We think you’ll be seeing a lot of these on the new Daily Show in the coming weeks.

Spoiler alert!

Sex Jokes: Jon Stewart told sex jokes from the perspective of an awkward uncle, but Trevor Noah is a young stud, shooting from the hip. He leaned hard on sex jokes, pointing to the Pope’s Fiat as proof that the pontiff has a huge penis (“what a waste”), and saying that Congress would make a poor dance club -- there are few women and everyone has “aides.”

Third World Humor: Trevor Noah is from South Africa, so his self-deprecation has a whole different flair. He kidded that he had achieved his two greatest dreams: hosting a comedy show and having an indoor toilet.

Noah Is Black: Noah has an even more racially diverse set of correspondents than Jon Stewart did. And unlike Stewart, mixed-race Noah doesn’t have to lean on them entirely to make racial jokes work.

“Black people ain’t going to mars, and that includes you, Trevor,” said new correspondent Roy Wood Jr., explaining why he doesn’t “give a shit” about the discovery of water on the planet.

Immigrant Jokes: Latino correspondent Al Madrigal is still on the Daily Show docket, even though he didn’t make an appearance last night. Despite the absence of the Chicano, immigration jokes kept flowing. That’s because Noah is an immigrant, a fact he pointed out in the opening monologue, explaining why Comedy Central didn’t choose a female host, or another American one.

“Why didn’t they get an American to host?” Noah said. “Comedy Central tried, and those people also declined, so once more a job americans rejected is now being done by an immigrant.”

Drug Jokes: Sure, Stewart could joke about drugs, but he couldn’t parody a black drug dealer. Whereas Daily Show fans might be tired with Stewart's old-jewish man impersonation, Noah’s young thug impression is fresh and new. He’s also younger, making it more believable that he’d be partying hard.

Jon Stewart Jokes: It won’t last long, but the Daily Show with Trevor Noah is also leaning on references to the former host. In the first episode, they compared his departure to that of another “John,” the Boehner who recently resigned from congress. Noah even made a joke about the Mets, Stewart's’ favorite team in baseball (a sport that’s relatively unknown in South Africa.)

“I don’t know what that is, Jon told me it would work,” Noah said.