Trevor Noah, a Daily Show correspondent who started in December, will be taking over the anchor's chair that Jon Stewart has occupied for 16 years.

The 31-year-old comedian was in Dubai when he spoke to the New York Times about the decision, he said, “You don’t believe it for the first few hours. You need a stiff drink, and then unfortunately you’re in a place where you can’t really get alcohol.”

Noah has only appeared on the program three times as a correspondent, but an exact timetable for Stewart's departure has not been announced so the young successor should have some time to practice. 

Check out his standup routine at the Apollo for a longer take.

UPDATE: 

Hours after the announcement was made that Trevor Noah would go on to replace Jon Stewart as the host of the Daily Show when he steps down later this year, the internet exploded in backlash against Noah for controversial Tweets he made which have been seen as misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and intolerant. 

With the influx of negative attention, The Daily Show’s network Comedy Central issued a comment, backing Noah. “Like many comedians, Trevor Noah pushes boundaries; he is provocative and spares no one, himself included," Comedy Central said in a statement. "To judge him or his comedy based on a handful of jokes is unfair. Trevor is a talented comedian with a bright future at Comedy Central."

Noah issued a similar response over his Twitter account, asking people not to put him in a box for jokes that “didn’t land.”

Always one to get involved in the conversation, comedian Patton Oswalt took to Twitter with a 53 Tweet rant to champion Noah against the uber-sensitive media landscape. Oswalt's rant begins with a stale, old timey joke and goes on to unpack each word ad nauseam, to the point where no one could ever possibly be offended. Oswalt’s trolling works to spotlight how hypersensitivity in the media takes away all the edge from any joke, thus killing its humor. It’s food for thought.