Former 'Daily Show' correspondent Samantha Bee looks ahead to new TV projects

For twelve years, Samantha Bee has made viewers laugh until they cried as a "senior correspondent" on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. But last Thursday, on her farewell episode with the program, everyone skipped the laughing part. 

"I tried really hard not to cry, although I knew I was going to cry a lot," Bee tells As It Happens co-host Carol Off. "I warned people: please don't do a highlight reel for me, I don't want to do that, because I'm just going to blubber through the whole thing."

In 2003, the Toronto-born-and-raised Bee left her hometown to join the Comedy Central show. Since then, she has contributed satirical Daily Show segments on decidedly unfunny topics like abortion, child labour, and women in the military.

"I like doing big picture pieces," she explains. "It's nice to make a statement about something while also being a complete dork and a goofball."

But why is now the right time for her to leave The Daily Show? Was it because she finally passed Stephen Colbert as the longest-serving correspondent?

"That was all I wanted to do — now I retire forever," she jokes.

Seriously, though: Bee has two high-profile comedy projects lined-up with U.S. network TBS — produced with her husband and fellow Daily Show alum Jason Jones — along with a new children's show debuting tonight on YTV called Game On. She stars alongside Jonathan Torrens. 

Game On was filmed in Montreal where Bee used to attend McGill University. "I know Montreal. I always like to go back. I eat my way through the city every time...I come home with smoked meat in my bag. I'm smuggling bagels!"

Bee says she is open to moving back to Canada. But for now, she and her husband live where the work is.

"I'm a person who does not actually love change all that much," she says of her even-busier schedule. "I just had to return to that part of myself that is willing to dive-in and take a risk of a different kind."