Samantha Bee is exiting The Daily Show, where she’s served as a correspondent since 2003 and created hundreds of memorable moments.
Bee is leaving to host her own TBS show, which is in the early stages of development and which she is executive producing with husband Jason Jones. The news of her exit came just days after TBS picked up the scripted family-vacation comedy series she also exec produces with her husband and fellow member of the Daily Show family.
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Bee still will appear occasionally on The Daily Show until production on the new series begins, but soon her sharp field reports and purposefully ignorant in-studio chats with Jon Stewart will be a thing of the past. Before she’s gone for good, take a look back at five of her finest pieces on the show.
1. Long Island secession
On the June 15, 2009 episode Bee profiled a group of Long Islanders who wanted the island to leave New York and become its own state. Unfortunately for the subjects of the piece, they had trouble naming other U.S. states (sorry, Ireland doesn’t count), which sort of took the wind out of their arguments.
2. Occupy Wall Street
On the Nov. 16, 2011 episode Bee mocked an apparent divide among the protesters, with the park split between the “poor people” with their drum circles and the college-student elite with their bicycle-powered espresso machine. Even the 99 percent have trouble getting along.
3. Sarah Palin VP announcement
On the Aug. 29, 2008 episode of the series, Bee got in her first Sarah Palin jokes, saying she’d be voting for John McCain even if he and Palin represented everything she stands against. She used some crude, sexual language to explain why ladies would always vote for other ladies.
4. Women in the military
On Feb. 14, 2012, Bee mocked complaints about women in the military, putting the blame on women for being sexually assaulted if they entered traditionally male work environments. “You don’t bring the fruit if you don’t want it to be picked.”
5. The Five
On Jan. 14, 2014, Bee performed a one-woman show about Fox News Channel’s The Five — to glorious results.
Email: Aaron.Couch@THR.com
Twitter: @AaronCouch
