Trevor Noah To Replace Jon Stewart As Host Of "The Daily Show"

Trevor Noah - Live at the Apollo - London

South African comedian Trevor Noah will become the new host of Comedy Central"s The Daily Show, stepping into the role Jon Stewart has filled for 16 years.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Mark this next story as a sign of a changing nation. Comedy Central has announced the successor to Jon Stewart. Trevor Noah takes over "The Daily Show," the fake news program that"s often as influential as real news shows.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Stephen Colbert"s fake news program was recently taken over by Larry Wilmore, which means both high-profile shows will be hosted by black men. One of them was not always considered black. Trevor Noah was born in South Africa during the years of apartheid, as he has discussed on stage.

(SOUNDBITE OF STAND-UP COMEDY)

TREVOR NOAH: My mother"s a black woman, and then my father"s Swiss. So I was born a crime, which is something I don"t think they ever thought through because as a family, we couldn"t live together, you know? Like in the streets, we couldn"t even be seen together. My father would have to walk on the other side of the road. And he would just wave at me from far like a creepy pedophile.

INSKEEP: In South Africa, people of mixed race like Trevor Noah were not classified as black in those years but as colored.

(SOUNDBITE OF STAND-UP COMEDY)

NOAH: I wanted to be black, to be honest. That"s all I ever wanted, especially since one day, growing up, I met an American. And he was shocked that in South Africa we had all these titles. And he said to me - he said, well, you know, Trevor, if you go out to America, they"ll label you as black. I said, really? And he was like, oh, h**l, yeah (laughter). Yeah, buddy, everybody"s black out there, yeah. You"d be super black.

(LAUGHTER)

NOAH: That sounds good to me - super black.

GREENE: Whatever you call him, Trevor Noah now takes over one of the most prominent slots on American TV.

Copyright 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2015/03/31/396505270/trevor-noah-to-replace-jon-stewart-as-host-of-the-daily-show