Comedy Central Wanted Amy Poehler and Chris Rock to Host THE DAILY SHOW

When Comedy Central announced that Jon Stewart was stepping down from The Daily Show, the Internet went crazy listing top-caliber comedians like Tina Fey and Melissa McCarthy as possible replacements to host the show. Turns out Comedy Central was thinking along the same lines.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that Comedy Central approached both Amy Poehler and Chris Rock when Stewart announced his retirement. Based on the fact that Trevor Noah is going to be the one sitting at The Daily Show's news desk, neither of those candidates worked out.

The network made a call to Amy Poehler, for instance, to gauge her interest. (As someone outside the company with knowledge of the exchange put it, “They were pretty much expecting her to say no, and it was the quickest no in history.”)

Poehler was never going to take The Daily Show gig — when you're voicing the lead character in a movie that's going to open around $80 million, you don't go crawling to basic cable. Rock, on the other hand, was interested in replacing Stewart, but he was only interested in sticking around through the 2016 presidential election. For him, it would have been a cool project to work on before going back to his life as a comedic icon.

People like Poehler and Rock paid their dues. Hosting The Daily Show is paying your dues. Yes, Jon Stewart made a career out of it, and it'll probably be the pinnacle of that career, but every person who listed Poehler, Rock, Fey, McCarthy and anyone else who has already graduated from Saturday Night Live clearly had no idea how the world of pop culture works. You don't go backwards or make lateral moves.