Jon Stewart is the meanest man in show business. "I learned how to be mean out on the road," says the 30-year-old host of MTV's Jon Stewart Show. Before finding his way onto television -- he previously emceed MTV's You Wrote It, You Watch It -- Stewart traveled the nation, playing small comedy clubs with names life Chuckle Stop and Snigger Lounge.

Stewart comes from a middle-class family in Lawrence, N.J., and his siblings are all professionals, so when he graduated from William and Mary and set off on the road, he was pretty much on his own.

By trial and error he taught himself the simple pleasures of travel. "When a waitress tells you her kid is staying at her mother's," he says, "then you're in business. And I've eaten more club sandwiches and watched more hotel movies than anyone should be allowed."

Stewart's Hot List accordingly has the feel of the road, something you might compose on a bus. Indeed, if Willie Nelson were a little younger and a little less tragic and just a bit more funny this is what he might come up with.

HOT SNACK: Ham Dinger at Denny's "Value, taste, ambience. Only valid after 2 a.m."

HOT BAND: Buffalo Tom "Great music and model citizens."

HOT COMEBACK: Lamb Chop. Shari Lewis is ditched, and the fabric mutton comes back with a risqué Vegas revue."

HOT MEANS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION: Smoking. "Anti-smoking fervor ignites a wheezers' revolt."

HOT POET NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT: Bingo Gazingo. "Aging, frumpy, and edgy. A Greenwich Village treasure."

HOT FASHION MODEL LOOK: Really big heads. "I mean big -- like medicine balls."

HOT MOVIE THEME: Human tragedy on a grand scale. "The success of Schindler's List spurs a new spate of tragic films. Surprise 1995 Oscar winner: Corey Feldman, for his role as a Rollerblading prison guard, in Jesus, My Feet Hurt: The Bataan Death March Story."

HOT ANIMATED SCAPEGOAT: Casper the Friendly Ghost. "He comes back on Nickelodeon, and all across Ohio kids are hurt trying to walk through walls. Janet Reno is outraged."

HOT PICTURES I LIKE TO STARE AT IN MAGAZINES Drew Barrymore and Partricia Arquette. "They sure are purty."

HOT BAR FAD: Karaoke. "A can't-miss night out."

HOT SCANDAL: Young talk-show host found in compromising position with members of local high-school marching band. "Oops!"

HOT FACIAL HAIR: The Manchu. "The Fu is out."

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