MAYOR Bloomberg has agreed to be interviewed on the late-night cable comedy show "The Daily Show" -- a coup for host Jon Stewart and an out-of-character TV appearance for the usually straight-laced mayor.

To land Bloomberg for his first late night TV interview as Mayor, "Daily Show" chief talent booker, Hillary Kun, began calling City Hall back in March.

"Pretty much from the get-go he had agreed on principal to do it," Kun said.

"I talked a lot about how Jon is probably the safest person to be interviewed by, so the Mayor wouldn't have anything to worry about. I made it clear he was not going to be in a dangerous situation here," she said.

The Mayor's only other appearance on late night TV was a brief stint on David Letterman's "Late Show," to read his "Top Ten Ways I'll Improve New York" (No. 1 was "Okay, Arizona, you had your fun - now we're coming to get our World Series trophy").

The appearance is scheduled for tomorrow night (11 p.m.).

Politicos and newsmakers have been popping up more and more frequently on Stewart's popular news/comedy show since its Presidential election coverage two years ago, called "Indecision 2000."

After Sept. 11, the newscast parody stepped up its efforts to land even more interviews with newsmakers.

"We said to ourselves: ‘Let's bring on people that are interesting and are in the world,' " executive producer Madeleine Smithberg said yesterday.

"We are not naive that people in America as a population really do like seeing celebrities talk and we enjoy providing them with this very valuable service, but we also think there's room for hearing [Fox News Channel anchor] Bill O'Reilly, [former conservative writer] David Brock or [author] Peggy Noonan," Smithberg says.

"Jon has an uncanny way to cut to the chase in terms of the types of questions that he asks these people that you might not hear on their interview on ‘World News Tonight.' "