Like the mostly vacant canvas that once hung outside the Midtown Manhattan studios of “The Daily Show,” advertising his Sept. 28 debut date and not much else, the office that Trevor Noah works from was nearly barren on a recent visit. The walls were unadorned, and the bookshelves were unfilled, except for a sound system that Mr. Noah was setting up so he could listen to jazz while he worked on his material. Perhaps the room’s only other distinguishing feature was a row of three TV sets, tuned to the NY1, CNN and BBC news channels, inundating Mr. Noah, 31, with a stream of information from around the world.

“It’s empty and yet full,” Mr. Noah said of his surroundings, where he is already keeping busy and is about to get exponentially busier. On Monday, Mr. Noah takes over as host of “The Daily Show,” Comedy Central’s marquee news-satire series. He has the formidable task of succeeding Jon Stewart, who, over his 16-year tenure, helped transform the program from a garden-variety lampooning of events to a pointed and influential commentary on politics and the news media.

Mr. Noah, who was born and raised in apartheid-era South Africa by a black mother and a white father, built an international reputation as a standup comedian before the handful of “Daily Show” appearances that preceded the surprising announcement that Comedy Central had chosen him as its new anchor. The sparseness of his office reinforces the fact that, to American audiences, he is still a blank slate; the little data they have to fill it in includes a modest but enduring scandal that cropped up around Mr. Noah’s Twitter account, where he once posted jokes that some prospective viewers felt were offensive to Jews and women.