Jon Stewart crashes John Oliver’s ‘The Daily Show,’ salvages its ratings

Let’s face it: The John Oliver experiment on “The Daily Show” over the past several weeks has been somewhat of an uneven start. Have there been some highlights? Definitely from a comedy perspective; Oliver is manic, bizarre, and he doesn’t try to just be Jon Stewart 2.0.

However, the ratings have not been exactly the same with Oliver at the helm, as we have seen some episodes fall under a million viewers, which isn’t too bad considering that it is summer, but it proves that there is at least a certain aspect of the show’s success that is very much tied to the man that is sitting in the chair.

So how does Comedy Central try to work around this, and bring some viewers back to the show? How about by having Stewart make an impromptu appearance via Skype from the Middle East? This call was funny, showed off Stewart with a full beard as he directs the movie “Rosewater” (which is the reason for his departure from the show this summer), and also had him give Oliver a full endorsement by saying that he is doing a “phenomenal” job with the program. He also admitted that he doesn’t watch the show all the time, mostly because it feels awkward. (You have to love the honesty, right?)

Stewart’s brief appearance did turn into ratings success for the show, as the numbers for “The Daily Show” last night were around 1.5 million, which marks the best performance since the first night of Oliver as host.

Have you enjoyed this bizarre “Daily Show” experiment? If you do want to read some more news pertaining to Stewart appearing on a Egyptian satire show recently, check out the thoroughly-entertaining video over at the link here.

Photo: Comedy Central