As you begin to break out your sweaters and jackets for the fall and winter months, you might notice the absence of certain feathered friends in your neighborhood.
John Oliver has some fine, well-considered thoughts about birds migrating to warmer climates because it’s that time of year and delivered them with an extra special kind of grace and tact.
There’s Now a $100,000 “Hey John Oliver! Back Off My Charter School!” Contest
This has to be one of the more intriguing reactions to a Last Week Tonight with John Oliver piece including that time Oliver had to shut down his church over what was being sent to him in the mail.
While people will probably never stop debating whether Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is more a civics class parading as satirical comedy show or vice versa, the issues that he deep dives into really do get some people heated.
The recent piece on how some charter schools (and Oliver is clear about ‘some’ and ‘not all’ and that he is not against charter schools as a whole) are poorly run has inevitably upset some of those on the side of charter schools. Their anger has been the fuel for this video contest that calls for a response from charter schools to respond to Oliver’s segment and will award $100,000 to the best one.
Such actions make you wonder how the public has blurred the line between of Oliver being a comedian and a journalist even though Oliver, time and time again, denies there being a “John Oliver effect”.
If you’re still reeling from the DNC and RNC over the last two weeks, let John Oliver and Last Week Tonight, as they’re wont to do, offer some levity, comical analysis, and more unapologetic calling out of Trump.
Of the many disturbing things to notice during this election season, one small aspect to note is the disregard for getting permission to play a song at an event.
You might have heard of a number of bands raising this issue recently with Donald Trump who has played songs Queen and Neil Young without asking permission.
On last night’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Oliver pointed out not only how wrong it is to play songs at a political event without permission, but how so many politicians don’t even get the irony of what’s being played.
Also, he got a bunch of famous musicians from Usher to Sheryl Crow and way more to make a song about this very issue.
The Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival returns as one of the biggest comedy touring festivals ever.
It’s interesting that they went with the bold red font for top billed acts and listed the line-up alphabetically instead of doing the traditional top-to-bottom-big-name-to-up-and-coming. It’s one way to be an oddball we suppose.
You can get your tickets here.
It’s unfortunate that Last Week Tonight is off for a few weeks given all that’s happening in the world.
At the very least, John Oliver and company have given a web exclusive video that runs down the weirder portions of the YouTube comments that they receive in their absence.
Here’s Last Week Tonight wishing all of us a happy 4th of July, though not without a nice FOMO-inspired list of things we could have had if we had stayed with Great Britain over 200 years ago.
The Summer Olympics is coming up soon and, along with it, the discussion of doping will come with it, especially since entire teams have been banned since testing positive for doping.
John Oliver and his team at Last Week Tonight broke down why it’s still such an issue despite plenty of measures being taken to prohibit the use of performance enhancing substances.
They also found the dude with the worst job in the IOC while they were at it.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)
The “non-existent” John Oliver Effect comes into play yet again?
In accordance with laws in the UK of staying impartial and balanced on television during times of election and referendums, Sky Atlantic, who normally airs the latest episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Mondays, opted to delay the airing of this past week’s episode because its deep dive segment on the upcoming vote of whether Great Britain should leave the European Union or not, otherwise known as the “Brexit”.
Oliver lays out, with jokes and a catchy song of course, a comprehensive breakdown of why his homeland shouldn’t leave. Watch it here.
This highlights an intriguing contrast in censorship when it comes to joking about politics between the UK and the U.S. and, perhaps, how valued John Oliver’s words really are.
There are laws for networks for giving equal air time to presidential candidates in the interest of staying “fair and balanced” in this country (even though no network seems to be really following those rules this year). However, bits of comedy aren’t really subject to such limits.
In 2015-2016, you can clearly see comedy in TV and across the media landscape that jokes about Trump far outnumber jokes about other candidates as well as any other topic. Whether or not comedians joking about Trump has anything to do with the notion that the media creating the presidential candidate version of Trump is hard to say, but they are part of the aggregate media obsession with the candidate.
Yet, as suggested above, the UK is taking a much different, more strict approach that goes beyond giving equal air time to opposing views of an issue. Sky Atlantic is delaying a bit of comedy about the Brexit by an established comedian, John Oliver, under the notion that people’s vote might be swayed. Trying to quantify how much Oliver would potentially influence voters would be hard to gauge given all the other campaigning for and against the Brexit that has been going on. Overall, this seems like a form of censorship that is perhaps overstepping its bounds, but one should note that freedom of speech isn’t quite the same in the UK as it is over here.
The vote for the Brexit is this week. Thanks to the Internet, we’re sure folks in the UK will get to see the segment if they really want to and the existence of a “John Oliver Effect” will still be up for debate.
John Oliver may poke fun at the “John Oliver Effect”, but one should beware of trying to pull a fast one in actually offering up problematic retirement plans to the Last Week Tonight staff.
Otherwise, this latest deep dive segment will happen along with the aid and ire of Billy Eichner and your retirement company might be subject to that “non-existent” John Oliver Effect.
It’s pretty simple. Lots of great, important stuff happened last week in comedy. Like the title says, here are 10 (or so) of those things.
–Chris Gethard wanting to be Kelly Ripa’s sidekick
–John Oliver topping Oprah with nearly $15 million debt forgiveness giveaway
–Trailer for Bassem Youssef’s Democracy Handbook
–Second trailer for HBO’s Vice Principals
–This stand-up set from Brodie Reed
–Danny Jelinek and Chris Sartinsky’s “Mulchtown”
–The Lucas Brothers returning to The Tonight Show
–Comedy Central putting every Key & Peele sketch online
–Angie Tribeca is back for season 2 at TBS, Casual is back for season 2 at Hulu, Not Safe with Nikki Glaser returns to Comedy Central, Ladylike premieres at MTV
–Comedy Central’s next roast will be of Rob Lowe
–Amber Tozer’s memoir Sober Stick Figure
Jerry Seinfeld, some very fancy and/or unusual cars, and John Oliver, Jim Gaffigan, Margaret Cho, JB Smoove, Lorne Michaels, Judd Apatow are the latest group to get coffee and show off what hanging out as very successful people in comedy is like in season 8 of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
Catch a glimpse of it in this trailer, then look for new episodes to start streaming next week Thursday, June 16th.
John Oliver is making a great case for sainthood on top of being one of the funniest and smartest people on television.
His latest miracle involves showing how easy it is to start a company that buys personal debt by starting a debt buying company of his very own. Of course, Oliver opted for another choice. Instead of coming around to collect on his second hand debt, Oliver decided to forgive the entirety of the debt he just bought. That totals in $15 million of debt, even though the debt is bought at a fraction of a cent on the dollar. Oprah’s famous car giveaway doesn’t total that much as you’ll find in this week’s deep dive segment.
On Last Week Tonight last night, he delightfully forgave in grandiose fashion.
It’s nice that John Oliver and the team at Last Week Tonight always make sure to leave us a nice morsel every time they take a week off.
This time around, Oliver nails daydreams of things we wish were real, even if you were only subconsciously aware of them up until this point.
Whether it be a secret to weight loss or what just might give you cancer, there are many very premature, non peer-reviewed scientific studies that often getting peddled as scientific breakthroughs by the morning news and even TED Talks.
They also have a fun bit where Jon Benjamin gives a B.S. TED-style talk.
The extra mile that John Oliver and his team at Last Week Tonight go might be cause for a new awards category.
This week’s episode of Last Week Tonight had Oliver break down credit reporting firms and how they can, for a small, but notable percentage of the time, ruin people’s lives by publishing a credit report riddled with errors. One of the major errors is being confused for another person entirely and vice versa due to a somewhat, yet barely similar resemblance in the name.
Knowing that a bad credit report can make it more difficult trying to get a job, a house, etc. So, Oliver is giving credit report forms a taste of their own medicine by launching sites that sound like Experian or Equifax.
His team and himself have set up websites for TramsOnion.com, Experianne, and EquiFacks to highlight how the margin for error should be as close to zero as possible rather than just generally being low.
Not only are the faux sites great in name, but their made-up purposes are the icing on the cake.
Even when John Oliver is not doing a segment that’s thoroughly researched and backed by fact, Oliver and Last Week Tonight are still meticulous in their make-em-ups.
See for yourself in Oliver’s Cadbury Egg Conspiracy.
John Oliver is living proof of how great of a difference comedy can make.
Surrounded by the likes of world leaders, Pope Francis, Tim Cook, several notable philanthropists, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, John Oliver sits at #30 spot on Fortune Magazine’s recently released World’s Greatest Leaders list.
Oliver, who has often been discussed as having a “John Oliver effect” from his deep dive segments on Last Week Tonight, is rightfully included on this list and is at least one thing that’s right with the world that keep sleep soundly about after this week.
We can’t wait to see what clever thing Oliver will say about this new honor when Last Week Tonight returns next month.
As far as we know, there hasn’t been an official, public response from Donald Trump/Drumpf about John Oliver’s last damning report on the unfortunate presidential hopeful.
That might have something to do with Oliver and his team at Last Week Tonight’s constant reliance on facts/proof/evidence/etc. in the jokes/points that they make. Also, in it’s in line with Trump/Drumpf’s campaign to ignore facts, especially the ones that make him look bad or weak.
When the dust settles from this election and finds its way into the history books, there is no doubt that Oliver’s reports will be cited, sourced, and played over and over again.
This past Sunday saw much of comedy rise to the occasion and throttle social injustice when called upon (even if it’s an implicit sort of call-to-action).
Chris Rock met expectations and talked about the diversity problem while hosting The Oscars relentlessly.
Then, just hours after that, John Oliver ripped Donald Trump hard on Last Week Tonight and did so in a such a great, brutal way that only Oliver can on his HBO show. It’s an early, secret Christmas present from John Oliver to the future of America
It could just be preaching to the choir, but it’s damn fine preaching. Please watch it here and share so maybe it reaches beyond the people that are already on board.
P.S. If elected, Trump wants to strengthen libel laws to make it cost dearly for people like Oliver to point out facts about Donald and make jokes about them.
When John Oliver very succinctly picks apart pressing and controversial issues of our time presenting great punchlines to unfortunate happenings within said issues, you can be sure that he’ll balance the tone with something adorable at the end.
In last night’s Last Week Tonight, when covering abortion laws in such a manner, he indeed offered a cute palate cleanser with a caveat for a certain segment of pro-lifers.
John Oliver and the team at Last Week Tonight pick up where they left off months ago by delving deep into the concept of those infamous ‘voter ID laws’, finding more than adequate fodder for roast style jokes of said laws.
So, welcome back Last Week Tonight as well as wise up about what those behind the voter ID laws are really up to here.
We’re back on the air tonight at 11 on @HBO. Does anyone on Twitter remember how to do a tv show? No reason.
So much has happened in the weeks since Last Week Tonight went on break and we’re just glad they’re back.
Don’t miss John Oliver and company at 11PM on HBO.
Last Week Tonight finally returns this Sunday on HBO, so host John Oliver stopped by Late Night with Seth Meyers.
On top of previewing what the gang at Last Week Tonight will be up to now that the 2016 Presidential Race is well underway, Oliver gives a great outsider perspective of how transcendent the Super Bowl is as well as questioning why Coldplay was there.
Thank goodness Sunday is only a few days away.
Need a new Last Week Tonight fix before the official return on Feb. 14th? John Oliver and company have you got covered with a new edition of graphics they cut from the show for time.
Get that fix here.