Another Top 10 John Oliver Moments on Last Week Tonight
He's only on the air for thirty minutes a week, but he's produced enough funny and memorable content that we need to do a second list. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we'll be counting down our picks for Another Top 10 John Oliver Moments on Last Week Tonight.
For this list, we'll be looking at both the entertainment value and the cultural impact of the piece, segment, or joke, excluding moments that were in our original video.
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#10: Government Agency Mascots
Showing American audiences interesting and quirky government initiatives from around the world is something Oliver both excels at and genuinely seems to enjoy. Sometimes, though, he takes things a step further, as he did in this short segment from Season 2. After mentioning a few of the countless publicly funded mascots that Japan employs in various towns, cities, utilities, and even prisons, Oliver brought the concept home. He presented a bunch of hypothetical mascots representing US government agencies, such as an owl for the NSA, an illuminati pyramid for the department of the treasury, and of course actor Bob Balaban representing the ATF.
#9: The State of Journalism
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John Oliver may have said that he’s not a journalist, but he sure does care about the work that journalists do. He had already taken a harsh look at the war between advertising and news back in Season One. Then in Season 3, he devoted a segment to how corporate desire for clickbait stories was killing the viability and integrity of local news. This gave him a chance to poke fun at how clueless some conglomerates were, especially when it came to selecting their name. The bit culminated in a parody of the Oscar-winning film “Spotlight,” imagining it being set in the current journalism landscape.
#8: Alex Jones
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John Oliver knows how to accept a challenge. When he poked fun at infamous conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as part of a segment on media figures that President Trump listens to, Jones dared him to dig deeper and present a more rounded picture, and that’s exactly what Oliver did. The comedian devoted an entire segment to Jones, highlighting the fact that most of his “Infowars” show is actually about selling his own line of over-priced products with dubious health benefits. Oliver even brought out his own fake doctor to endorse fake products, further mocking Jones’ questionable credentials. Sometimes, Alex, you get what you ask for.
#7: $15 Million Medical Debt Payoff
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John Oliver isn’t afraid to put his money, or at least HBO’s money, where his mouth is. To cap off a segment on predatory debt buyers and the need for regulation, he announced that he had formed a debt-buying company and bought $15 million worth of people’s medical debt, allowing him to legally demand the full amount owed. Instead, he decided to forgive all of it with the push of a big, red button. This $60,000 purchase ended up beating and almost doubling Oprah’s record for, as Oliver put it, “the largest one-time giveaway in TV history.” More importantly, it bought much needed relief for many people.
#6: North Korea
While “Last Week Tonight” may be famous for in-depth takes on domestic issues, Oliver proved that he can also explain and poke fun at hot-button international topics when he devoted a 2017 main story to escalating tensions between the US and North Korea. He started with President Trump's war of words with Kim Jong-un and then moved on to talk about North Korean culture and life in the dictatorship. Along the way, we learnt of the North Korean love of the accordion, so Oliver invited the most famous accordion player in America, none other than “Weird Al” Yankovic, to close out the segment with a song.
#5: Dalai Lama
John Oliver doesn’t do interviews that often, but when he does, he usually speaks with someone quite noteworthy. We’re talking Dali Lama-level noteworthy, or in this case, the actual Dalai Lama. After explaining the Tibetan spiritual leader’s role and the problems China is causing with his succession, Oliver played the interview he had conducted with the prominent Buddhist in exile in India. The pair touched on serious topics like Tibetans self-immolating in protest of China and the possibility of the current Dalai Lama being the last, before Oliver lightened the mood by presenting his guest with a calculator watch.
#4: We Got Him!
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Even at his most ridiculous, Oliver can be quite serious. In what is becoming a recurring bit, he uses the comedy trope of an over-the-top though premature celebration to declare, “We got him,” when he catches President Trump in a lie. After the marching band or basketball-dunking tiger come out, he tells them to stop, because Trump is still President. This helps Oliver make the point that the benchmarks for what will end a political career keep moving, and what would have and tanked a presidency months ago won’t anymore.
#3: Net Neutrality
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Not only can John Oliver mobilize his fans, he's also pretty good at getting those who don't like him to take action, provided they have a common interest. He proved this twice, both times with a hilarious and informative defense of Net Neutrality. After comparing putting lobbyists in charge of regulation to hiring a dingo babysitter, he challenged everyone to comment against a two-tier internet. Then, in a 2017 follow-up, he mocked FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai's jumbo coffee mug and plugged a URL that took people directly to the FCC comment page. Both times, the FCC website crashed.
#2: Coal
We all figured John Oliver would be sued one of these days. Oliver, though, knew exactly what bit was likely to prompt legal action, and shared that info with the audience during this segment. When talking about the bleak future for coal mining jobs in America, he brought up a cease and desist letter the show had received from Murray Energy’s lawyers and went on to talk about the company’s CEO Robert Murray anyways. Within days, Murray’s lawyers launched a defamation suit against Oliver and HBO. Apparently, the segment’s squirrel mascot, Mr. Nutterbutter, was not named as a co-defendant. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honourable mentions: Charter Schools Space Sex Geckos Catheter Ad
#1: Prison
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This early Oliver segment really set the tone for quite a few long form reports to follow. It took a serious subject, in this case, the staggeringly high rate of incarcerations in the US bolstered by the private for-profit prison system, and explored it with cold hard facts, examples of the human side of the story and, of course, the host’s unique wit. Oliver closed the segment by calling back the fact that “Sesame Street” was now talking about prison, before interacting and singing with his own version of Muppets about the topic. Informative, insightful, and funny, this bit is Oliver at his finest.
