The renowned satirist and long-time host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, is expected to usher a new animated political parody into the world, as part of a deal with HBO, within the year.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the news about Stewart's plans sprung from an interview with HBO's newly appointed chief of programming, Casey Bloys, held during the Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour at the weekend in the lead-up to this week's TCA Awards.
As THR notes, Stewart signed a four-year production deal with HBO back in November last year that indicated we would see short-form digital content from the venerated comedian being distributed through HBO's services such as HBO Now and HBO Go. Now, those plans appear to have broadened to include a half-hour animation on HBO's primary channel as well, Bloys said, although the short-form — which Bloys compares with The Onion — is the more immediate concern.
"I spoke to Jon before this," Bloys said in the interview. "He is establishing an animation studio. He wants to get material out on a daily basis. The idea is that it's an animated parody of a cable news network in an Onion-like portal. It will be his voice, in his actual voice, and his tone."
Although Bloys could not announce a concrete premiere date for the content, THR reports that Bloys "express[ed] a hope for September or October", which would see it arrive just in time for the US election in November.
The wide-ranging chat also saw Bloys open up on an array of topics including Vinyl's cancellation ("It didn't land, I think, as we would have liked it, as [critics] would have liked it or as producers would have liked it"), the return of Curb Your Enthusiasm (Larry David is "gearing up for it"), Deadwood's long-awaited movie ("I feel good about it") and the fate of True Detective ("It's not dead").
