10 Times Trevor Noah Proved He's the GOAT of GOATs

After his announcement of leaving The Daily Show in September, yesterday marked the day Trevor Noah hosted the show for the very last time. The South African comedian spent seven years on Comedy Central, during which time he:

• interviewed President Obama, Michelle Obama, Oprah,
• hosted the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,
• hosted the Grammy’s,
• published his autobiography on growing up during the South African apartheid as a mixed race child (hence the title Born a Crime),
• voiced a Wakandan AI system in Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,
• carried us all the way through Corona times by relocating The Daily Show into his own New York apartment,
• released three Netflix specials.

Of course, these achievements in themselves fail to show why I consider Trevor Noah one of the greatest TV hosts and comedians of all time. That’s why I compiled a list of 10 of his most memorable moments, let them be interviews with political figures (from the left and the right), heartfelt conversations with his audience, or an insightful monologue on France winning the World Cup.

1. Interviewing Tomi Lahren

“I’m in the lion’s den, Trevor,” says Tomi Lahren as she enters the set.

Then Trevor just goes, “I am not a lion at all. Is that, like, an African thing?”

The invitation of the anti-BLM, conservative commentator was indeed a great big challenge for Trevor Noah. Being an advocate for communication with the people on the other end of the political spectrum, Trevor highlighted in one of his later comments on the interview that it’s important “to challenge your ideas, otherwise you get trapped in the bubble with people who agree with you.” On the other hand, Trevor had to strike a delicate balance between showing hospitality (being the host, you know) and challenging Lahren’s controversial views.

With his audience bursting out in boo’s of contempt on the side, Trevor puts great effort into not hurting his guest’s feelings. The way he forms his questions mirrors a kind and thoughtful approach to understand his guest:

“What do you wish people would understand about you on the other side,” he asks Tomi.

On the top of all this, his general communication supports this kind of openness without ever letting himself be hammered by Tomi’s ready-made panels (eg. “a black man is 18.5 times more likely to shoot a police officer than a police officer is to shoot a black man”). One of the main sources of this is upward inflection, which is the question-like elevation of voice at the end of statement-like sentences (“So what you’re saying is you have to right to say anything you want, so shut up?”).

Such an interview between a conservative Republican and a progressive supporter of minority rights is exactly what a world getting more and more polarised needs now. The fact that, shortly after the interview was conducted, rumours started that Trevor and Tomi are dating tells a lot.

2. The Daily Social Distancing Show

In the wake of 2020, COVID hit the world, hard.

In spite of the travel bans on China and other countries of early outbreaks, the infection rates continued rising exponentially all around the world; the board game Pandemic and the zombie movies we love so much seemed not so light-hearted narratives anymore. Even with the introduction of social distancing in public spaces and mask mandates, it was inevitable to start working, studying, shopping, watching movies, and doing close to everything remotely.

It was no different for The Daily Show, and in March, Comedy Central suspended the show. Even though we had Netflix, HBO, and Disney, the void this left was not to be filled with movies and series, as the essence of TDS was not really entertainment, it was a reliable source of news and information for a number of people. And that was something that there was a shortage of at the time; I vividly remember the hoaxes flying all around our heads, so fast that we couldn’t really catch a breath before we would meet two opposite versions of the same story.

The production crew of TDS started streaming The Daily Social Distancing Show on March 18, 2020, which was. at least in the first, rawest format, a stand-up performance with Trevor Noah sitting down on his couch and discussing, commenting news, of course, without an audience or crew around there. Later, more and more Zoom interviews took place with TDS correspondents, invited celebrities, scientists, sportspeople etc.

Here’s the first episode of The Daily Social Distancing Show that may remind you of the hard times we went through those days with perhaps one or two laughable memories, provided that we are now entering the post-COVID times.

3. President Obama: "Thank You, Man"

Rarely do American presidents invite talk show hosts to the White House, so it was quite a historical moment for all of us. Presumably, the reason for President Obama doing so was that he could support Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, fearing that the radical ideas of Donald Trump and the controversies around Hillary’s emails might lose the Democrats an important race; an ominous suspicion that turned out to shape America’s reality and politics for the next four years (and on and on and on and on…).

Obama had already guested at Jimmy Kimmel’s, Jimmy Fallon’s, and Stephen Colbert’s, endorsing Hillary every way he could. And yes, he did. He participated in comedy sketches, danced, shared intimate secrets about his marriage with First Lady Michelle Obama, slow-jammed with Jimmy Fallon, read mean tweets in the Jimmy Kimmel Live!; in other words, he had to endure every kind of media torture.

With Trevor, however, it was less about comedy. There was no audience, there was no studio, no teleprompter, just two black men discussing Russia interfering 2016 elections, polarisation in the US, Obamacare. With Trump winning the presidential race in November, this interview is one that reflects a depressing Christmastime that was followed by an even more depressing era, both affectively and economically.

At the end of the 22-minutes interview, Trevor shakes hands with the President, saying “thank you, sir,” to which President Obama just responds casually, “thank you, man.”

[Unfortunately, the full 2016 interview is not available on YouTube anymore, so if you are not located in the US, you have to access Comedy Central Online via a VPN. Hola works wonders.]

As for now, I will just put another interview here, one featuring a much more relaxed, retired President Obama, after Democrats retained the Senate, and an equally loosened-up Trevor Noah, one month before his leaving the show.

4. Interviewing Oprah

Having these two wonderful hosts in the same studio, it is sometimes hard to decide if it is Oprah at Trevor’s or the other way round. The audience applauds her arrival for 50 seconds straight, not letting Trevor starting his first sentence. However, Trevor is the GOAT, remember? He pulls a joke, and then goes on discussing, quite wittingly, the enormous effect Oprah has on people.

Along with this genuine modesty, Trevor starts his inquiries with I-statements, describing his own personal connection to his guests and the topics at hand, which adds a personal touch to the conversation and opens easier paths to more controversial, hence more provoking topics. This is how he found manageable means of communication with Tomi Lahren, Will Smith, and Maggie Haberman, and this is how he interacted with Oprah. Starting from the Leadership Academy For Girls in South Africa, the conversation flew flawlessly towards Michael Jackson, the #metoo movement, and Oprah’s interviews with Neverland victims.

In addition to the 17-minute interview, Oprah also participated in another segment, Between the Scenes. The Between the Scenes segment of The Daily Show usually involves Trevor receiving questions from the audience and discussing them before the crew is ready to go on. Of course, having Oprah on the show, it was different: Trevor used the opportunity to have two audience members to ask Oprah their questions. But before that, he threw in a question which is quite emblematic of what kind of host will be missed in him: How many normal random things happen to you?

5. Between the Scenes

Some of my favourite moments with Trevor happened in the segment of TDS called Between the Scenes, in which Trevor turns to the audience and answer their questions, having a casual chit-chat with them, or commenting on serious topics that were not included in the show.

One time he was asked about what he would transplant to America from South African culture. Anytime he draws a parallel between the US and South Africa, no matter if it is 911 operators, racism, infrastructure, or Hollywood, it is pure gold. His answer to this one is, again, down-to-earth, pointing at serious issues from a personal angle of the everyman.

Of course, starting a conversation with his audience also brought us some unforgettable moments; like that time Trevor talked with a Frenchman in the audience about living in Atlanta and French fries (which turned out to be not from France), or with an Egyptian woman about the similarities between Egyptian leaders and Donald Trump. Or when he had a guy who had to change his name because he was always selected by the airport security for a pre-check.

I could go on and on about how swiftly and wittily Trevor reacted to these questions and stories, never offending these people, but see for yourself:

6. Hosting the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is an annual event of, as the name suggests, the White House correspondents, journalist covering the sometimes problematic functioning of the administration and the White House. The get-together is traditionally attended by most members of the current administration including the president and the vice-president. Another tradition is to invite a comedian to roast politicians and media figures sitting by the tables, often causing a public outcry and guests standing up and leaving the event.

However, there were some notable cases of these two conventions not being followed through, especially when the administration eschewed inviting a comedian for one reason or another, or when the president refused to participate. President Donald Trump, for example, didn’t attend a single White House Correspondents’ Dinner during his four years in office, and even boycotted it in 2019, banning their staff members from attendance. One of the main reasons Trump disliked the event is that, since 1983, it has been roast-hosted by a comedian.

But the aftermath of Trump’s losing of the 2020 elections didn’t immediately lead to the rekindling of the tradition as the event had to be cancelled in 2021. It was not until 2022 Trevor Noah was invited to host the event, and host it, he did!

Besides being a wonderful comedian, Trevor is an exceptional jester. A jester who confronts the administration, head-on and spot-on. After Trump left office, I was afraid of what will happen to the American comedy world as they lost their inexhaustible source of humour, and of course, I also had my doubts on how many media outlet in favour of the Democrats would continue criticising the administration once Biden’s at the wheel.

Well, Trevor caused no disappointment in that. Criticising the corrupt cosiness of media and politics, he went after MSNBC, for example, jokingly remarking that “when Trump was in office your shows were all about how bad he was, and now that Biden’s in office your shows are all about how bad Trump was. Consistency is important!” And then he turned to the President and quipped that the reason he was hosting the event might just be that “[Biden] gets [his] highest approval ratings when a biracial African guy is standing next to [him].”

But the audience members not walking out on him is more about what shined through his words all along and what he immaculately summarised in the final part of his speech:

“The reason we’re here is to honour and celebrate the fourth estate, and what you stand for: an additional check and balance that holds power to account and gives voice to those who otherwise wouldn’t have one, and I’m not just talking about CNN or Fox or any of the other major organizations. I’m talking about everyone, you know; the young journalists we saw today, intrepid journalists who aren’t even in this room in Flint, Michigan, or that daring reporters at The Des Moines Register, or the unflinching local newscaster in El Paso, Texas. Every single one of you, whether you like it or not, is a bastion of democracy.”

7. France Winning the World Cup

Tonight, France might make it to the semi-finals, but I don’t want to spoil it, especially because I’m on a losing streak when it comes to the 2022 Football World Cup. Back in 2018, when they did make it there, they triumphed over Croatia 4-2. History might just repeat itself, provided that Croatia beats Argentina next Tuesday.

But let’s not jump ahead and continue our reel of the greatest moments of Trevor Noah. As France won that year, Trevor celebrated their victory, chanting “Af-ri-ca won the World Cup! Af-ri-ca won the World Cup! Af-ri-ca won the World Cup!”

This insightful remark maddened the French ambassador to the US, so much so that he sent a letter to Trevor, in which he resentfully complained about the comedian “denying [the French players] Frenchness” by celebrating an African victory. However, Trevor didn’t just back up without a fight, he commented on the issue and put it into the broader context of (post)colonialism, wisely reflecting on the difference between the alt-right and him talking about these players as Africans:

“When I’m saying they’re African, I’m not saying it as a way to exclude them from their Frenchness, but I’m rather using it to include them in my Africanness.”

This year, by the way, Trevor is rooting for Ghana, Senegal, Brazil, and France. Well, as for now, France’s still in the game!

8. Doing the Accents

Ah, doing the accents: Trevor’s number one skit! As he explains, the reason he’s so good with accents might be his family background, where at least three languages were spoken (English, Swiss German, Xhosa), not mentioning the accents of English he was surrounded as a child. In his book Born a Crime, he goes into details on how he had to learn proper English in school, and how his prayers were regarded more valuable than African prayers, as it was widely believed that God speaks the English of the colonisers.

One more thing I liked about him is his philosophy on doing the accents: he’s not impersonating general accents; he’s impersonating his friends’ accents. That’s why his bits on accents and nationalities hit so close to home.

I once looked into postcolonial comedy. There’s an intriguing idea somewhere that one of the most defining characteristics of postcolonial humour is the twofold identity of the colonised: being part of two cultures at the same time enables Trevor, for example, to subvert the colonial discourse. Discussing the “sing-song-y” qualities of Trinidadian accent, Trevor does a bit on a Trinidadian Liam Neeson on the phone with the kidnappers to make a point. Again, see for yourself how that sounds:

9. "Oh Trevor, he's never forgotten his roots!"

When Trevor was back in South Africa for a short time, he visited his late grandmother Gogo in Soweto. Now, you must know that Trevor’s mom was a single parent, so Gogo took the lion’s share in Trevor’s upbringing. That required great care with the child, literally, “born a crime”, as it was illegal in apartheid for a White man and a Black woman to have a child together. Trevor even describes a situation in his book where his mother had to deny him in a local shop when asked whose child he was, fearing, not without foundation, that Trevor may be taken if the truth gets found out.

Gogo recalls the struggles of South African people against that system, or how afraid she was from the Flying Squads (patrolling policemen in apartheid) taking Trevor when playing on the streets with the black kids. Of course, she also shares what Trevor and his mom were like as children, both naughty and headstrong.

10. Bidding Farewell

Of course, Trevor had to go, but the correspondents for The Daily Show didn’t just let him without a word or two. Michael Kosta, Desi Lydic, Ronny Chieng, Roy Wood Jr., and Dulcé Sloan bid farewell to their – our – great host in a segment that was introduced this year in TDS: the correspondents not doing the weather, the traffic, the stocks etc. but rather commenting on, joking about, the current news.

Ronny Chieng’s skit, for example, was quite heart-warming. The Asian correspondent thanked Trevor for trusting in him and “being adamant about Asian representation in the show”, then took everything back, just to say it was all a joke. Well, his initial reaction went viral and became a meme, and that reflected the feelings we the viewers all shared when hearing about his leaving.

All five correspondents said goodbye in their own way, and it was all so emotional. However, the best was when in the end of the goodbye ceremony, a “senior” field correspondent showed up to “finger the pulse” of New Yorkers on Trevor’s departure. Well, as always, New Yorkers tell you the truth: