It is the host’s first day back at his desk at The Daily Show after 11 September 2001. He is humble and sincere at just the right moment, apologising to us for being inadequate while giving us exactly what we need. He feels what we feel, and he expresses it better than we could. We want to crawl through our TV screens and hug him, maybe cry a little on the lapel of his grey suit jacket. We are sure he wouldn’t mind – and that is what makes him such an indispensable figure through the tumultuous decade and a half to follow.

    He made us laugh about things that also make us want to cry

When Stewart announced in February that he’d be leaving The Daily Show after 17 years as its host, it was the kind of pop culture shock that brings home the impermanence of life. It hadn’t occurred to most of us that we might ever have to live without Stewart weighing in every night on the issues of the day, deconstructing the absurdity of media coverage and calling politicians on their hypocrisy – all while making us laugh about things that also make us want to cry. Of course he has a staff of writers and producers who expertly edit damning video montages of politicians and pundits to skewer; they also craft many of his lines. But it is his perfect combination of wit, scepticism, passion and outrage that has soothed much of the US, and even the rest of the world, through endless wars, terrorist threats and financial crises.