We've got our first look at Jon Stewart's highly anticipated series on Apple TV+, The Problem with Jon Stewart, and it is as timely as we could have hoped. In a tweet Tuesday night, the former Daily Show host released a trailer for the series, mocking the billionaire space race mere hours after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made headlines for his first suborbital flight with his aerospace company, Blue Origin.
The trailer casts Jason Alexander as Bezos, whose interest in rocketry seems to hinge largely on the spacecraft resembling his... equipment. Adam Pally features as Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who is equally set on designing a rocket to resemble his own equipment. It's an arms race, but, you know, not arms. The trailer also features a mop as Virgin founder Richard Branson, "a stray cat" as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Tracy Morgan as "'Diverse Friend' who would never actually hang out with Jeff Bezos in real life."
It's a decidedly sophomoric gag, but delivered with the commitment and manic conviction that made Stewart's Daily Show rants so memorable. The most surprising element of the trailer might just be its production values. In a world full of satire news shows inspired by Stewart's Daily Show run, most revolve around the host in-studio and the occasional photoshopped visual gag. While some might take brief jaunts to documentary-style remote pieces or mock commercials, a CGI space battle between phallic rockets is a unique spectacle.
While much remains unknown about the exact shape of The Problem, all signs indicate that it will be quite different from its competitors, including an hour-long format, a companion podcast series, and promises to include topics that touch on Stewart’s advocacy work. Even so, Stewart has tapped a number of satire news veterans for key roles, including The Opposition with Jordan Klepper's Chelsea Devantez as head writer, and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore's Lorrie Baranek as the executive in charge of production. Stewart is executive producing with his longtime manager James Dixon, along with Brinda Adhikari and Richard Plepler. The show is the first of a first-look deal between Apple TV+ and Stewart’s Busboy Productions, and has already been signed for a multiple-season contract.
The Problem with Jon Stewart will premiere exclusively on Apple TV+ this September. Check out Stewart's tweet below for the trailer.