Another season, another talk-show host. This fall's entrant in the late-night snake pit is former MTVnik Jon Stewart, a Gen X-style chatman who Paramount TV hopes will hold the ''hip'' demographic abandoned when Arsenio bid his posse a final ''let's get busy'' last May.
''An alternative talk show? Oh, I don't know,'' says the former stand-up comic, 31, tucking into a Blimpie's tuna sub in his still-under-construction Manhattan studio a few weeks before his Sept. 12 debut. ''Basically the concept is to give a more casual approach to what's already out there. It's not like I had this idea-'let's talk to celebrities about their new projects'-and Paramount said, 'You're a genius.' All you can do is put on what you think is cool.''
Like his 1993-94 half-hour MTV talk show, the hour-long Jon Stewart Show (syndicated; check local listings) will be a shabby-chic affair, specializing in offbeat decor, offbeat guests, and offbeat banter (Stewart once introduced Michael J. Fox this way: ''You know him from his very famous role as Tootie on The Facts of Life ''). The new program, which has also imported Stewart's oddball MTV sidekick, Howard Feller, will showcase plenty of baby-buster musical heroes (Sonic Youth, the Meat Puppets) and in general will maintain that same snarky, slackerly attitude that made his original show one of MTV's hottest nonmusical series.
''People always ask me when I started wearing T-shirts and jeans to be hip,'' says Stewart, dressed, as usual, in T-shirt and jeans. ''I'm like, 'Eighth grade.' What people used to view as irresponsible and immature is now considered 'edge.' But it's not like we walk around thinking, 'Boy, we're hot.' We're just trying to establish an atmosphere that's an enjoyable place to hang out for an hour.'' Maybe Chevy should have thought of that.
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