Before Demetri was 'Trendspotting' for 'The Daily Show', he was an intern there. Originally going in to the studio to get tickets, he ended up asking "Do you guys need any interns?" The result was 'The Daily Shows' first law intern. Demetri worked at the studio three day a week, running errands for the senior staff.(1) He describes the job as a good learning experience, claiming he learned "several things. 1. A lot of people want to write, but very few do. 2. Comedy Central pays sh*t. 3. Nobody likes a go-getter. 4. You should avoid regimes whenever you can. 5. You can cook a sweet potato in the microwave if you poke holes in it with a fork."(2) He eventually left the job, realising it was taking him in the wrong career direction.

Demetri went on to "work at temp jobs, then become a full-time proofreader, do hundreds of stand-up shows, some comedy festivals, a couple of writing jobs, some screenplays, two pilot scripts, and about twenty minutes of Pilates" until eight years later, he got a phone call from Jon Stewart and Ben Karlin who wanted him to come in for a chat.(2) To see if Demetri was a "good fit" for the role, he was given a week to come up with some ideas to present, and "gave them six ideas a week later and they picked one, which was kind of a hybrid of two of them, and that became the trendspotter." The role was a strange one for Demetri who watches little TV and rarely involves himself in current affairs. "I told them when i first went in," he explains, "I don't know if I'm going to be right ... But it's great because I can just pick and choose, and find stuff to talk about."(1)

Demetri writes the episodes with a producer and is the mastermind behind the segment theme song, which was an impromptu solution for the opening screening. (3) "I told the editor to turn on a mic and I just did a little drum beat. Then he stopped it and I did the scratching sound. He laid one over the other and ... when we played it for those guys ... they laughed at it, so we kept it. It was one take and that was my trendspotting theme music." (1)

Watch Demetri 'Trendspotting' here.

Click here to read a 'Trendspotting' review (not so much a review on the show but on Demetri himself)

References -
(1)Demetri on BrianPalmer.com, January 2006 - http://www.brianpalmer.com/demetrimartin.htm
(2)A.V Club Interview, by Steve Heisler. 25 February 2009 - http://www.avclub.com/articles/demetri-martin,24319/
(3)Trendspotter is the trend, by Jay Cridlin. 19 October 2006 - http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/19/Weekend/Trendspotter_is_the_t.shtml