A tearful Jon Stewart finally bid his beloved "The Daily Show" goodbye after serving as its anchor for 16 years.
He breathed new life into Comedy Central's show with his sharp wit and mockery, but now said it is time to pass on the torch to someone else, the New York Times reported.
"In my heart, I know it is time for someone else," he said. "I'm not going anywhere tomorrow, but this show doesn't deserve an even slightly restless host, and neither do you."
Stewart admitted that he doesn't have any specific plans, and he talked about his departure "might be (on) December, might be July." He added that he has lots of great ideas in his head, and even said that he's going to have dinner on a school night with his family, "who I have heard from multiple sources are lovely people."
For its part, Comedy Central offered no further details about the show's future without Stewart, only that it "will endure for years to come."
Stewart, 52 started hosting "The Daily Show" back in 1999. His "satirical sensibility" helped him transform the show as a reliable source for news and media commentary, not just in the United States but in different parts of the world.
It was because of Stewart that "The Daily Show" made Comedy Central a mighty contender in late night entertainment, which was once solely dominated by broadcast networks and programs such as David Letterman's "Late Show" (on CBS) and Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" (on NBC).
Since he started, Stewart has received 20 Emmy Awards, not to mention countless trophies for outstanding variety series and outstanding writing of a variety series.
Back in 2013, Stewart took a break from the show to direct the movie Rosewater, which was based on the memoir of Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-born journalist who was held prisoner in Iran for 118 days after giving a report on its 2009 election.
He told The New York Times that his desire to recognize journalists such as Bahari is no different than his propensity to mock others.
"The only reason you mock something is when it doesn't live up to the ideal," he explained. "There's a huge difference between what these journalists are doing on the ground, and the perversion of it that is the 24-hour news networks."
Just this Monday, Stewart even weighed in on the scandal trailing NBC's top news anchor Brian Williams, who was now suspended by the company for six months without pay. "See, I see the problem. We got us a case here of infotainment confusion syndrome," Stewart said on the show. "Finally someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq War."
