NEW YORK » After more than 16 years and nearly 2,600 telecasts, Jon Stewart can feel proud of his scads of Emmys and his pair of Peabody Awards, his cultural gravitas (he hung with the Prez, both on and off the air!), even his reprobate status at Fox News.

Who could blame him for wanting to depart "The Daily Show" on this high note?

Besides, maybe it had gotten too easy. By June, when Donald Trump jumped into the presidential race, a giddy Stewart framed the candidacy as Trump’s going-away gift to him, "putting me in some sort of comedy hospice where all I’m getting is straight morphine."

Or maybe it had gotten too hard.

When he took over "The Daily Show" in January 1999, Stewart’s simple mission was to host a program that would lampoon "real" newscasts and newsmakers they enabled.

"I like keeping up with the news," he told the Associated Press at the time, "even though I think it’s gotten so out of control. But that’s what I like about ‘The Daily Show’: It’s like checks and balances."

But in an interview a few months ago, Stewart put a bit more dismally the task of finding the funny in the news.

"I think of us as turd miners," he said. "I put on my helmet, I go and mine turds. Hopefully I don’t get turd lung disease."

A famous definition of news: "What those in power don’t want you to know."

Meanwhile, the illuminative mockery of Stewart’s "fake news" might be defined as "What those in power don’t want you to think."

Always questioning authority — whether politicians, corporate titans, media barons or, of course, puffed-up journalists — Stewart did what satirists have done for centuries: He seized on the absurdity embedded in accepted truth.

But as "The Daily Show" aped the bombast and blizzard of graphics employed, without irony, by "legitimate" newscasts, Stewart never copped to grandiose claims for what he was up to.

"Our meeting every morning is an explicit discussion of what’s going on in the world," he declared in a 2004 interview with AP. "But then the rest of the day is spent trying to hide that under layers of fart jokes."

While Stewart is undeniably left-leaning, his show, he said, "doesn’t honor the distinction between left wing and right wing, or liberal and conservative, or in some respects between Democrat and Republican.

"We only honor the distinction between real and absurdly fake," he said, then grinned. "And WE are absurdly fake."

"The Daily Show" under Stewart thus made a credible argument that for both journalism and public affairs, bogus is the new real, leaving fact and fantasy interchangeable. "The Daily Show" prevailed as a bit of daylight in between, a privileged space that granted Stewart almost limitless freedom to make fun of things, even as he exercised due diligence in making sense of them in the process.

Some (even Stewart) would say "The Daily Show" is a half-hour of silliness meant to call out politicians and other power brokers with no higher purpose than amusing its audience.

Still, he was sharply attuned to America’s many wrong turns, how its leadership and media routinely let the country down. In 2010 he and fellow Comedy Central fake-news host Stephen Colbert even organized a rollicking "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" that drew tens of thousands to Washington’s National Mall.

Americans, said Stewart in one of the telecast’s more serious moments, do "impossible things every day that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make."

But reasonable compromises are what elected officials are loath to make in the present day; what news media dismiss in favor of spotlighting the more watchable bad behavior and conflict.

Americans do work together to get things done, insisted Stewart.

"The only place we don’t is here," he said, pointing behind him at the Capitol, "or on cable TV."

There has been little sign of sanity restored.

"Wouldn’t it be nice if people who jumped to conclusions and peddled a false, divisive, anger-stoking narrative had to apologize for misleading America?" mused Stewart last March in reference to a certain cable-news network.

On Thursday, Stewart, now 52, will step aside, making way for Trevor Noah, a 31-year-old stand-up comic from South Africa, to manage this nightly reality check as the nation dives headlong into the 2016 presidential election cycle.

Maybe Stewart has concluded things are crazier than ever. And, after all, how much crazy can one man comb through night after night, searching for laughs, and retain his own sanity?

In June, as he reflected on the mass shootings in a black church in Charleston, S.C., there were no laughs to be had.

"I honestly have nothing, other than sadness," he said before predicting that even now, after yet another American atrocity, "we still won’t do jack—" to join together for a solution.

Are things crazier than ever?

Or maybe do we recognize the crazy more? Are we more painfully aware?

If that’s the case, his fans can thank Stewart for his abiding and soon-to-be-missed role in bringing us the crazy with insight, clarity and, of course, loads of laughs. Whatever he’s been mining for his more than 16 years, he made the most of it.

10 highlights of "The Daily Show"

HAIL TO THE CHIEF

(November 2000) Reporting on George W. Bush’s remarks as he clinched the presidency, Stewart replayed Bush declaring, "I was not elected to serve one party," to which he retorted, "You were not ELECTED." Then back to Bush saying, "I ask for you to pray for this great nation." To which Stewart added somberly, "We’re waaaaay ahead of you."

GRIEF-STRICKEN

(September 2001) On his first show following the Sept. 11 attacks, Stewart, with his emotions barely in check, delivered a soul-bearing statement of grief, "so that we can drain whatever abscess is in our hearts and move on to the business of making you laugh, which we haven’t been able to do very effectively lately." He went on: "Our show has changed. I don’t doubt that. What it’s become, I don’t know."

NO MONKEY BUSINESS

(October 2004) Stewart appeared as a guest on CNN’s quarrelsome "Crossfire," where he startled its hosts by criticizing them for their "partisan hackery" and "doing theater when you should be doing debate." He implored them to "stop hurting America," and when Tucker Carlson, the show’s conservative host, invited him to drop the serious act and be funny, Stewart shot back, "No, I’m not going to be your monkey!"

HOLLYWOOD TURN

(March 2006) Stewart hosted the Oscars twice — in 2008 and two years before, when in his monologue he noted that two of the nominated films, "Good Night and Good Luck" and "Capote," were about "determined journalists defying obstacles in a relentless pursuit of the truth. Needless to say," he added pointedly, "both are period pieces."

FUNNY BUSINESS

(March 2009) Stewart took on CNBC, unreeling video of the financial news network’s personalities making howlingly wrong forecasts for market behavior. Then, after "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer booked appearances on CNBC sister networks NBC and MSNBC to rail against Stewart, the "Daily Show" host "responded" with make-believe appearances on other Viacom series, inserting himself into MTV’s "The Hills" and Nickelodeon’s "Dora the Explorer." ("Why is everyone being such a pendejo?" Dora asks Stewart as he joins her in the frame, then tells the audience, "Pendejo: It means ‘jackass’ in Spanish.")

BECK-OLA

(March 2010) Then still a major draw on Fox News Channel, Glenn Beck was lampooned by Stewart in a virtuosic impersonation of the conservative champion, complete with Beck’s theatrics, byzantine pronouncements and, of course, many blackboards as he battled his volatile emotions: "As I look around at all the truly random things that I scribbled, I promised myself that I would cry."

RALLY BIG SHOW

(October 2010) Aired live on Comedy Central and staged at Washington’s National Mall, "The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" was staged by Stewart and "Colbert Report" host Stephen Colbert as a goofy, star-studded three-hour variety show with a serious social message: Americans aren’t as divided and at odds as the politicians who represent them or as the media portray them. "The image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false," Stewart declared. "It is us, through a fun-house mirror."

KEY OF F-WORD

(June 2010) Having let loose during an earlier comic tirade against Fox News with a simple bleeped proposal that the channel (bleep) itself, Stewart returned to the subject a few nights later leading a hallelujah chorus in a rousing musical reiteration that Fox News, for preaching "Fair and Balanced" but seldom delivering, should indeed (bleep) itself.

WINGING IT

(March 2014) After Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared, CNN, with so much time to fill but scant information, decided to "go nuts," as Stewart summed up in a segment lampooning the dubious news judgment of wall-to-wall coverage with nothing new to say yet ample use of "big fake airplanes, little fake airplanes, holographic airplanes!" Then he ran a clip of a CNN anchor, in a flight of fancy, suggesting that a psychic be retained to find the plane.

ALIEN REASONING

(June-July 2015) Stewart made the most of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy, treating it as comic gold. And it was for him, night after night. On one show in July, he recalled Trump having said he "assumes" that not everyone illegally entering the U.S. from Mexico is a rapist. "By the law of averages," Stewart explained, deadpan, a few of those immigrants are "unable to rape for medical reasons" or maybe are "all raped out."

‘The Daily show’ alums

You want a great career in comedy? Start by landing a job as a correspondent on "The Daily Show"! Under Jon Stewart’s 16-year-long run as host, it became one of TV’s best launching pads. Here are a few shining examples:

Stephen Colbert
(1997-2005)
Arriving two years before Stewart became host, Colbert scored in his emerging persona as a right-wing blowhard correspondent. He left "The Daily Show" to launch his own show, which he hosted for a decade, and will step into David Letterman’s "Late Show" slot.

Steve Carell
(1999-2005)
From 2005 to 2011 he starred in the NBC comedy "The Office," then left to continue a thriving film career, including his Oscar-nominated performance in the 2014 drama "The Foxcatcher."

John Oliver
(2006-2013)
In April 2014 this droll Brit debuted his own weekly comic-commentary show, "Last Week Tonight," on HBO.

Ed Helms
(2002-2006)
He joined "The Office" in 2006, continuing through its conclusion in 2013. His films include "The Hangover" trilogy, "We’re the Millers" and the just-released "Vacation."

Larry Wilmore
(2006-2014)
A successful writer-producer ("The PJs" and "The Bernie Mac Show"), he served as "senior black correspondent" before leaving "The Daily Show" to host Comedy Central’s "The Nightly Show," which premiered in January.

Samantha Bee
(2003-2015)
Jason Jones
(2005-2015
After their lengthy stints at "The Daily Show," this married comic couple left in May to develop a comedy for TBS.

Rob Corddry
(2002-2006)
After "The Daily Show" he created and stars in the online and TV cult favorite "Childrenscq Hospital."

Aasif Mandvi
(2006-2015)
Along with comic TV appearances, he has been a regular on the dramas "The Bedford Diaries" and "Jericho," as well as on the current HBO comedy "The Brink."

Trevor Noah
(2014-2015)
A rising young stand-up comic from South Africa, Noah had barely set foot into "The Daily Show" as a correspondent before he was tapped to succeed Stewart as host. He takes over in that role Sept. 28.