Art Bell, Creator of Comedy Central, Talks About Jon Stewart Threatening to Quit His First Show

That episode of "My Favorite Mistake" will be titled "When Bill Maher Wanted Me Fired From Comedy Central: Art Bell."

My guest for Episode #57 is Art Bell, the creator of The Comedy Channel (which later became Comedy Central). He's also the author of the book Constant Comedy: How I Started Comedy Central and Lost My Sense of Humor, and co-host of the podcast "Constant Comedy."

"Well, that was another case where the talent was surprised, and I don't even know the extent to which he was surprised. I heard that from him and, and the, the setup is Jon Stewart was hosting short attention, span theater with a cohost named Patty Rosborough, another comedian. And they'd been on the air for a few months. And mind you, this was Jon's first job in television. And it was not quite as first job, but he was really a baby comic. I mean, he, you know, he didn't have a whole lot of experience. As soon as I saw him on television, I knew he was great. You know, everybody like everybody, you know, you're watching the talent on comedy channel at that point, trying to figure out who's good and who's not great.

And he immediately connected. Patty. It wasn't that she was bad, but Jon was doing so much of the talking and she was just doing much of the laughing that she became kind of the audience. Now, I thought that was a good thing, because you know, when you and I laugh on the podcast and people listening or watching we'll laugh too, but I wasn't in charge of that show. And people said, you know what? I think Jon would do better by himself. So they let Patty go. Now, I don't know, to what extent he got a heads up. All I know is I got a phone call saying, listen, we told Jon that Patty was leaving and he is fit to be tied. I mean, he is, he's threatening to quit.

He wants, you know, he's really upset. You gotta come down here and talk them off the ledge. Now, I think I mentioned earlier, I'm not so great at this. That's why I'm not a talent, you know, talent person, nor was I ever. But I said, okay, I'll come down and talk to Jon. And I did. I walked in and I said, Hey, Jon, listen, we just thought it was really important. And given that you were doing so well, we just thought this show would really benefit. And the channel would benefit and it was best for everyone. Patty's going to be fine. And he just said, look, you can't do that. You cannot fire someone like that. At which point I really almost wanted to just laugh because we're in a corporation, right?

It was his empathy. I mean, he really cared about Patty. It's not like they were pals from way back or anything, but she was his co-host and they got along and he was looking out for her. And he really felt that we had crossed the line by, by, by letting her go, especially without consulting with him about whether we should let her go. So that was, that was a moment. But, you know, at that point, I really realized that not only was Jon great on television, not only was he smart and funny, but he had a lot of empathy and he was principled and was willing to take a stand for his principles. Now, all of that showed up as America knows on The Daily Show."