February, 2000
With Jon Stewart

Jon:
I don't mean to bring it down a notch, but recently the American people have been asked a lot of questions. Questions that raise serious concerns about our values as an society.  'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?', 'Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire?', and to a much, much lesser extent 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?'. Now, these questions reveal a society obsessed with money, and a much, much, lesser extent improv comedy. But it hasn't always been this way. What happened to us? 

In the 1960's questions we were asked challenged our ideas of what constituted a moral society. 'How Many Roads Must A Man Walk Down Before You Can Call Him A Man?',  'Where Have All The Flowers Gone?', 'What's New, Pussycat? Woah-Oh,Woah-Oh-Oh?' 

And a decade before the 60's, America was in midst of the Cold War, the questions reflected our national paranoia. 'Are You Now Or Have Ever Been A Member Of The Communist Party?', And 'Car 54, Where Are You?'. We were locked in a bitter dispute with enemies as the Soviet Union, and and Car 54. 

But by the 70's, 20 years of war and nuclear paranoia had given way to the "me" decades. 'Are You Talking To Me?', 'Can You Tell Me How To Get To Sesame Street?' Yet this too seems to be a dead end, and the 80's rolled around, and it found us lost, searching for a spirituality where 'where was the beef?', 'who had eaten all the frusen gladja (sp?)', and perhaps most disturbing 'what were you talking about, Willis?' 

We had no answers, and our words echoed lonely into the night, until the 1990's, when the information age brought us the answers. We found Waldo, he actually lives near Carmen Sandiego. And we'd know exactly what he would do for a Klondike bar. So we thought that we were done. We thought we knew all the answers...and then suddenly, they pull us back in! 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' 'Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire?'... i don't know! I wish I did! I would tell you! Leave me alone! My soul is starving! Did someone say McDonalds? 



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