ROGER AILES SAYS GOODBYE TO JON STEWART:

During his show last week, Jon Stewart showed a clip of the Ingmar Bergman movie, The Seventh Seal, only he substituted Ailes for the Death character. Ailes told THR he hadn’t seen the segment, but he isn’t surprised at the vitriol aimed at him.

“He’s feeling unrewarded because Fox News beats him on the amount of money we make, on ratings and on popularity. I’m sure it’s very depressing when he sits home at night and worries about it. We never did,” Ailes said.

“He’s a brilliant comedian. He’s actually a very nice guy, and I saw him with his kids on the street. He’s a good father. He has a bitter view of the world and you see it embodied in how he’s reacting to Fox News, equating it with death.”

But then, bitterness is a frequent byproduct of discarding comedy and replacing it with agitprop, and jettisoning genuine, earned laughs with  “clapter” — in which a robotic audience who agrees with your politics unwittingly plays the role of the mechanical prerecorded laughtrack from TV’s salad days.