The Daily Show’s co-creator Lizz Winstead didn’t plan on staying away from stand-up for so long. But writing and producing the award-winning TV program (which she oversaw during host Craig Kilborn’s tenure) sucked up most of her time. “I had to sacrifice something,” she says. She left The Daily Show around the time Jon Stewart took over, but she soon got bogged down with other projects, including an on-air gig with the ultra-liberal Air America Radio. She’s now returned to the road, and “I’m having a blast,” she says.
Still, Winstead says it was difficult walking away from The Daily Show. Stewart asked her to stay, but she felt it was time to try a few other things. “I gave my baby up for adoption,” she says. “But I knew the adopting family. I [told Jon], ‘Oh, you’re going to raise this kid? Awesome — bless you.’”
Bemused by all the other fake-news series out there these days, Winstead says a few of them — like Fox’s conservative The ½ Hour News Hour, which was recently canceled — manage to get it completely wrong. “It’s one of the worst things I’d ever seen in my life,” she says. “Howard Dean jokes? Really? Is this 1997?”
Sun., Sept. 16, 7:30 p.m.
This article appears in Sep 12-18, 2007.