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Read What Jon Stewart Had to Say About His First Daily Show Episode

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Jon Stewart ends his 16-year run on The Daily Show on Thursday, and he’s used his stint at America’s top fake-news desk to make himself a legend. He’s interviewed the most powerful people in the world. He’s given a generation a new way of looking at the world. He’s launched the careers of some of today’s top comedy icons.

But back in 1999, when Stewart first took on the gig, those achievements could hardly have been predicted. Stewart had appeared in the pages of TIME just once — with one sentence in 1997, commenting on the fact that he’d managed to get a book deal despite a canceled TV show — and The Daily Show was hardly the juggernaut it is now.

Bearing that in mind, fans shouldn’t be too surprised to learn that when TIME interviewed Stewart on the occasion of his first episode of The Daily Show (for the Jan. 18, 1999, issue; the episode aired Jan. 11), what he had to say about the new job was…not much. He joked with TIME’s Joel Stein about a range of silly topics, but this is all that was printed about his news-filled future:

Q: This is a bad time to have a girlfriend. Your stock is going up.

A: You think? I checked my rotisserie standings. I still look like a utility player.

Q: How do you compare to Larry King?

A: Nobody scores more points than King. The only one who can challenge him is Al Roker, only because he scores in so many categories. If Roker ever puts out a music album, it’s over.

While the interview is hardly chockablock with career insights, it does call to mind one fun factoid that The Daily Show fans may have forgotten in the decade-plus that’s passed: shortly before Stewart took over The Daily Show, he appeared on The Larry Sanders Show as a possible replacement for Larry on that fictional talk show. Though that plot was merely fictional, Stewart’s thoughts on its end offer a look at his feelings about the conclusion of any TV run: when it’s over, let it end.

“You’re in that After M*A*S*H scenario,” he said at the time. “Guys are in a meeting saying, ‘I think people would care about Radar and Klinger in Iowa.’ We saved ourselves from that.”

Read the rest of the interview here, in the TIME archives: Jon Stewart

See Jon Stewart's Career Over the Years

THE DAILY SHOW, 1996-present, Jon Stewart 1999-present
Jon Stewart takes the reins as anchor of The Daily Show in 1999.Comedy Central/Everett
Stewart gets a cameo as Kevin Gerrity in the 1999 Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy.Columbia
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno - Season 9
Jay Leno interviews Jon Stewart on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno in 2000.NBC/Getty Images
MCDDETO EC011
Stewart plays Marion Frank Stokes in the 2002 black comedy Death to SmoochyWarner Bros.
55th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards - Press Room
Jon Stewart and his team win the first of many Emmys for The Daily Show in 2003.Chris Weeks—FilmMagic/Getty Images
The 78th Annual Academy Awards - Jon Stewart Portraits
Jon Stewart hosts the 78th Academy Awards in 2006.Academy of Motion Picture Arts—WireImage/Getty Images
Stewart has a cameo as himself on The Simpsons in 2008 in the episode "E Pluribus Wiggum."Fox
Jon Stewart And Stephen Colbert Hold Rally On National Mall
Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart host the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear on the National Mall on Oct. 30, 2010 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee—Getty Images
US President Barack Obama (L) tapes an i
Jon Stewart interviews President Barack Obama on The Daily Show at the Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, DC, Oct. 26, 2010.Jim Watson—AFP/Getty Images
51st USO Armed Forces Gala & Gold Medal Dinner - Inside
Jon Stewart speaks at the 51st USO Armed Forces Gala & Gold Medal Dinner on Dec. 13, 2012 in New York City.Michael Loccisano—Getty Images
ROSEWATER, front, from left: Gael Garcia Bernal, Jon Stewart, on set, 2014. ©Open Road
Stewart makes his directorial debut in the 2014 drama Rosewater.Open Road Films
Jon Stewart announces his retirement for the end of 2015.Comedy Central

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Write to Lily Rothman at lily.rothman@time.com