Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Yeah it's new RF thread, deal with it. John has been killing it SO completely and utterly lately that I thought this warranted discussion, it takes a British comedian to shine a mirror on America and show us just how dumb we really are. His televangelist thread has already had such a profound effect, that the IRS is considering new investigations into televangelist fund raising. This man has been on the job for a matter of months, but has already eclipsed, IMO, John Stewart's 17 year tenure as host of The Daily Show. I'm glad HBO is backing his bits, as who knows who he will target next, I hope Scientology gets some.

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I like your threads. Great show too.

I've watched a bunch of those 15-20 minutes thematic monologues of his, what's the rest of the show like? Does he do interviews too or something

like what he did with this

and this

only watched those 15 min clips like TSG so i dont know how the rest of the show is, hopefully these 15 min clips will help change something.

yeah i don't pay for HBO either, so the Youtube clips are all i have access to.

The show is great and he really gets his point across brilliantly.

don't find him particularly funny but do enjoy the information in the bits. favs so far, chicken, prison system, food waste, etc.

i knew someone on the Last Week team who admitted to me

a) they watch RT (russia today) daily for ideas on story segments
b) they cribbed at least 2 segment ideas directly from my sister's show Breaking the Set

i think its pretty awesome though

one thing Oliver is smart about doing is tapping into populist political causes and ideals, instead of directly perpetuating lame partisan issues (like Jon Stewart more or less made a career from)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d3nASKtGas

Love it.

He pretty much does the same joke every 30 seconds, but I love being outraged by the subjects they bring up.

explains injustice-filled scenario

"that would be like [completely absurd analogy]"

repeat for 30 minutes

No offence to anyone that likes him, but how did some shit Mock the Week comedian get this gig on american telly?!

by having a british accent.

they also inexplicably gave james corden a job.

  On 11/2/2015 at 11:35 PM, Amen Warrior said:

No offence to anyone that likes him, but how did some shit Mock the Week comedian get this gig on american telly?!

American people have really fucking horrendous ability to discern bland british comedy Vs good shit. Its why that dumbass Milo Yiannopoulos is huge among mentally retarded right wing assholes in the US. He's probably seen as one of the most unfunny bland idiots in England rightfully so. John Oliver sits somewhere in 'Mr Bean' territory for me, British comedy that we as americans can relate to without feeling like someone is talking down to us or being "too sophisticated". I like Oliver though, nothing overtly bad about him

oliver's delivery and timing is terrible. though some of the bits the show does are alright, that's more down to the writers (not sure how involved he is there, he may be a better writer than performer).

  On 11/2/2015 at 11:35 PM, Amen Warrior said:

No offence to anyone that likes him, but how did some shit Mock the Week comedian get this gig on american telly?!

Because no one over here who watches him on HBO knows anything about that. He earned his current role off his work for the daily show.

  On 11/3/2015 at 2:55 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

please don't compare oliver and corden! corden is a total nothing, stole reggie from comedy bang bang and put him in a non-ironic environment. they both look like utter fools now. i don't hate corden, i just don't see why we needed another late night show and why it had to be him they chose for the gig.

 

last week tonight has a brilliant writing staff, and i think oliver does a great job of delivering the material they write, he's able to combine the wit and outrage without coming across as too phony. one thing he does too much though is to talk to the picture above his shoulder and give the person in it a name and then run the joke into the ground long after the audience is over it eg "no declan! that's not how you do it, declan! i warned you declan! declan!"

 

because watmm is watmm, expect some folks here to jump on the hate bandwagon just because it's popular.

well said. i think john oliver is a good host. he proved himself covering for Jon Stewart when stewart was away for a few months making a movie. it was obvious he was going to move on to something else. i do think he sometimes gets a bit too excited about his own jokes but that's just his style i think. believe in the material and don't look back. he has writers.. they do a good job and often the one or two issues they stick with for longer bits are really well done. every show isn't going to be 100% full of winners but it's above average imo and does deliver the "WTF lets rage rage" over various issues in a really good way. It's obvious every show is really well paced out and scripted to dovetail in a way. the thing he did earlier in the year with the television preacher fake church was classic.

anyway.. Corden is a ponce. i have no idea who he is or why he's on TV at all. he's boring and i don't get why people suck up to him on his show.. at least the few times i've endured it that's what it looked like. they should've just begged conan obrien to come back with dump trucks full of money.

  On 11/3/2015 at 2:12 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

 

  On 11/2/2015 at 11:35 PM, Amen Warrior said:

No offence to anyone that likes him, but how did some shit Mock the Week comedian get this gig on american telly?!

American people have really fucking horrendous ability to discern bland british comedy Vs good shit. Its why that dumbass Milo Yiannopoulos is huge among mentally retarded right wing assholes in the US. He's probably seen as one of the most unfunny bland idiots in England rightfully so. John Oliver sits somewhere in 'Mr Bean' territory for me, British comedy that we as americans can relate to without feeling like someone is talking down to us or being "too sophisticated". I like Oliver though, nothing overtly bad about him

Isn't Milo a joke act?, I mean i heard him on Joe Rogan and it was really hard to take him seriously surely its a joke, a parody of some sort.

I only know of Milo whatshisface cos someone I follow on Twitter (limmy) trolled him for a bit. He isn't known here at all. Didn't know he was British even.

John oliver and James corden must have amazing agents. What next, fucking John Culshaw on saturday night live?

  On 11/3/2015 at 11:32 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

he's not even a comedian yeah?

technically he's a journalist, but more accurately he's a deliberately controversial troll. occasionally interesting and mildly amusing, but mostly just an asshole.

  On 11/3/2015 at 7:23 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

 

huh? as someone that listens to more stand up comedy and comedy podcasts than music, i think there's nothing wrong with his delivery or timing. unless you count the thing i talked about earlier as a timing issue, to me it's more just not knowing when to stop with a joke.

 

that would be more his delivery, and yeah, it is terrible when he does that. comedy is pretty subjective though, so it's a pretty pointless discussion.

I'm not saying he's anywhere near as bad as Corden either, I'm also annoyed he stole Reggie from CBB, Kid Cudi is terrible. CBB has gone downhill in the last couple of seasons though, I only occasionally listen to the podcast, that's much better - but it depends on who's on.

the anathema that is merka - you gave a visa to that talent-less fat cunt Corden while also giving a platform to a genuinely funny bloke like Oliver

its highlights just how warped British culture is today that Oliver had to go abroad to get that platform/talent recognized & working to its potential in the 1st place

loved this episode

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i like his show. he's clearly got some great writers. i think his deliveries are pretty good. i've seen some of his standup and it's not bad. i dont recall it being real great but at least it wasnt awful, which most stand-up is

i see snowden all upset saying "the government lied" and i have to wonder if he is really in the right. are spy agencies supposed to tell the truth all the time or something? secrecy and lies are actually vital when it comes to defense. keeping a country safe is not simple business by a long shot.

now... facebook harvests data from peoples mobile phones if they've installed the app. 9 out of 10 websites are selling data harvested from its visitors' devices. china and russia are hacking these companies that are freely wheeling and dealing this information. the phone companies, generally, have the data on hand anyway, and again it is being hacked. is the us defense apparatus supposed to be the one entity that is out of the loop? as horrifying as it sounds i wonder if panopticon is just the inevitable direction of things.

sorry snowden. thanks for bringing attention to the MIC, that's good, but maybe you shouldnt have become a fugitive in order to do it. stealing secret shit and running to russia and china with it... maybe just come face the music while we have a pothead hawaiian valedictorian constitutional scholar washington-outsider geek as president.

please be gentle on me, watmm