Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart isn't sure why he's here on Super Bowl weekend, either.

"I wish it was an interesting story. 'There I was with Rickles and Shecky Greene ...' " says "The Daily Show" host.

Oh sure, he has an opinion about Sunday. "I find it very difficult right now to bet against Peyton Manning," he says. "I'd like to, but in some respects it's betting against Deep Blue, that IBM computer that plays chess against people. There's just something otherworldly about that cat I cannot figure out."

But Stewart understands why people might find it a head-scratcher that the country's most prominent political satirist would play The Mirage today and Saturday, on a weekend usually owned by the likes of Andrew Dice Clay (who is back this year) and Artie Lange.

"I couldn't believe it!" Stewart says in mock outrage when he's reminded a recent studio audience didn't catch his reference to Indianapolis Colts backup quarterback Curtis Painter. ("They're not football fans," he stage-whispered into the camera. "They want to talk about cap and trade.")

Stewart, 47, still does live dates on weekends, even if he hasn't made it to Las Vegas since the first Comedy Festival in 2005. "There's something wrong with stand-ups, that no matter what's going on in their lives, they feel like they have to go out and do stand-up," he says.

"I imagine even (comedian-turned-senator) Al Franken: 'Maybe I can still play a couple of weekends. Do a couple of weekends when I'm in D.C., maybe at the Improv while I'm down there.'

"It's just something I think is always in your blood. Much like hepatitis C."

And he respects the Vegas tradition, even if he usually prefers to keep his weekend excursions within the Boston-to-Washington, D.C., corridor.

"I do think for comics, there are places you have to play every now and again just to check your bona fides. It's like the compulsories you would do in Olympic figure skating. You just sort of have to do it. It's retouching the birth stone to some extent.

"I know in some respects it's not rational," he says of this Vegas-as-Mecca thing. "But it is what it is for comics. And comics are very ritualistic.

"Believe me, we've been hanging on to the Borscht Belt way longer than anybody else has," he adds of the faded Catskill Mountains resorts in upstate New York. "I've been up there playing the Borscht Belt when the only people were (on) a singles Orthodox weekend. It's not what it was, but for some reason it still holds a certain sway. I think because we have a weird affection for history. 'Alan King played there? I'm playing there.' "

Stewart has some Vegas history of his own.

In his fledgling stand-up days of the late 1980s, he worked as the host comic at the bygone Catch A Rising Star at Bally's.

"I had a little taste for the ponies at the time," he recalls. On his first visit, "I'd say I was there probably at least an hour and a half before I lost everything I was set to earn for those next two weeks. I spent the entire two weeks basically in the employee cafeteria -- because I had one of those pass cards they gave you -- and wandering around feeling like a schmuck. That was my opening lesson."

By October 1992, he had worked his way up to Caesars Palace, opening for Sheena Easton. "I remember just bombing one night. It was bombing to the point where it was noticeable, and she poked her head in my dressing room and said (he mimics her Scottish accent), "Don't worry, Jon. Tomorrow is another day."

Now that Stewart is the most trusted mock news anchor in America, it takes a longtime fan to remember those crossroad years before he landed "The Daily Show" in 1999. For a few years, he was all over the place in movies and sitcoms, even a 1996 HBO stand-up special.

Current events dominate his stage act now, but the material also veers into "the stomping grounds of a neurotic Jew. Your life, sex and death type of obsessions. ... As your life changes, you end up branching out."

Stewart says he's never been one to plan far ahead in his career, "and in some respects, I think that's served me very well. For me, it's never been about ambition as much as it's been about doing things that you're interested in, or you like doing or you do because you feel like you've got something to say."

The Jay/Conan talk show melodrama reaffirms the folly of planning ahead. "Succession plans, whether it be for late-night talk shows or underdeveloped third world countries, never tend to go off as planned," he says. "Somewhere there's going to be a coup. Somebody's going to get frog-marched out to the airport. You just never know when it's going to happen."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.