Last Week Tonight & John Oliver in the Media

[OneWhoLurks]

Oscar-nominated pictures Carol and The Danish Girl are among the more than 100 nominees for the GLAAD Media Awards, the annual ceremony to honor movies, TV, journalism and music deemed inclusive for LGBT people by the leading gay-rights media advocacy organization.

 

[...]

 

Other nominees in various categories include ABC’s 20/20 for its Diane Sawyer interview with Caitlyn Jenner; Jenner's IAm Cait reality series on E!, TLC’s I Am Jazz, Essence Magazine, CBS' The Bold and The Beautiful, and HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver for his show on transgender rights.

 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/01/27/oscar-nominees-carol-and-danish-girl-up-glaad-media-awards/79377506/

 

My Worst Audition: John Oliver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q26hfn9Hbyo

Edited January 28, 2016 by OneWhoLurks

[Kromm]

Those GLAAD awards are instantly inherently discredited by having anything with Caitlyn Jenner involved up for an award. Well, lets hope somehow LWT can beat it, or better yet I Am Jazz (which actually truly deserves it).

[OneWhoLurks]

Watch John Oliver Explain How He Started A Church: http://time.com/4197857/john-oliver-church-snowden/

 

Oliver also discussed pulling off another noteworthy feat: interviewing Edward Snowden in Russia. He only failed to tell his bosses at HBO first.

 

 

[OneWhoLurks]

He pleaded with HBO not to tell anyone that he had interviewed Snowden, in part because it would spoil a segment where he makes viewers wonder if Snowden would even show up. He even asked the studio audience at the episode's taping to keep quiet about it online.

 

"I really appreciated the fact that HBO would let us do it that way," Oliver said, "because we thought it was the best way to actually present it, even though commercially it was the worst way you could present it."

 

Oliver said HBO has kept its promise not to interfere creatively in the making of "Last Week Tonight."

 

"It's like your parents saying, 'you can do whatever you'd like, but don't touch that cabinet," he said. "I presumed that HBO was lying" the way other networks often do, he said.

 

[...]

 

He will, however, be ending a moratorium about discussion of the presidential campaign. The show wants to look almost forensically at how the process of democracy works, rather than be caught in daily stories about what candidates are saying that he said can be handled better comically elsewhere.

 

 

http://www.wral.com/john-oliver-about-to-return-to-hbo-and-his-secrecy-policy/15316067/

[Kromm]

John Oliver Is in Awe of the Super Bowl

 

[OneWhoLurks]

It almost makes me feel like, when people say: "This is journalism," it almost makes me feel like: Am I a terrible comedian? ... Is it like looking at a sculptor and saying: "Well it's not art, so are you trying to build a wall? What exactly are you working on here?"

 

 

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/12/466569047/is-john-olivers-show-journalism-he-says-the-answer-is-simple-no

 

Still hoping to get a look at Janice from accounting? Sorry to disappoint you, but Oliver explained that the show’s despised coworker might not be coming back. “Occasionally we do have jokes that get out of hand,” he said. “My instinct is that we are finished with the Janice-from-accounting story, but I thought that after the first joke.”

 

 

http://www.vogue.com/13398658/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-season-three/

 

The show is returning on Feb. 14, which obviously is Valentine’s Day. What is your pitch to viewers to justify watching your show on Valentine’s Day?

Listen: Valentine’s Day, as I think we all know, is a nightmare. It is a human emotional minefield. And the safest way to deal with a minefield is not to engage with it at all. Therefore, I will make the pitch that you are actually safer just watching our show than trying to book a restaurant, which is probably already full. It’s already too late. If you’re still wondering what to do for Valentine’s Day, it’s already too late. So go in the other direction and watch the least romantic television show currently available.

 

 

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/02/12/john-oliver-valentines-day-last-week-tonight

 

John Oliver must be planning something very romantic for his HBO show this Sunday night. Given that it’s Valentine’s Day, Oliver has a put out a call for “Flying Men” — white and around five foot five inches  “These men will be wearing large penis costumes and flying around set,” the casting call reads. “No previous flying experience is required.”

 

 

http://www.showbiz411.com/2016/02/12/casting-call-john-oliver-needs-flying-penises-for-vday-show-tina-fey-film-seeks-seductive-priest

 

ETA:

 

Q. You don’t think about that? Like, “This video had better go viral.”

 

A. By the time we’ve finished with our show on Sunday night, we’re already worried about next week’s show. Virality was a completely unintended byproduct of the show anyway. I don’t think any of our YouTube videos have any of the qualities that you would look for in a popular viral video. Car pool karaoke with Adele? “Yes, of course I want to watch that!” A 15-minute video about net neutrality? “No, thank you.”

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/arts/television/a-word-with-john-oliver-competing-against-people-sleeping.html

 

“… And I’m really interested to see how Justin Trudeau disappoints people,” he adds. “I’m really interested in how he publicly deals with his father issues. Especially with Pierre Trudeau, it is like having ‘Jordan’ on the back of a basketball shirt and not being Michael Jordan. ‘Oh yeah, I remember your dad. He was amazing at basketball, the best ever. You just missed.’”

 

He laughs.

 

“But, undeniably, nice hair.”

 

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/john-oliver-is-breaking-ads-and-thats-just-fine-for-hbo/article28750517/

 

Oliver has his own code, striving to find humour even in deadly serious situations such as the bombings near the Stade de France in Paris last November.

 

“We wrote that the morning of the show and it was very difficult,” he says. “There’d been a lot of sad, heartfelt reaction in the States and I guess I feel our show is not really a place for sad, heartfelt reaction.”

 

The result was some cathartic, angry, profane calling out of the terrorists. “We didn’t need to fact-check that one too much,” he says. Oliver found a balance that was swift, searing and silly. He was heartened to hear a journalist from France suggest it be embraced at home.

 

 

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/2016/02/12/dont-tell-john-oliver-hes-making-a-difference.html

Edited February 13, 2016 by OneWhoLurks

[Julia]

Honestly, I'm more interested in the part where Trudeau's mom used to hang out with Mick Jagger and Halston at Studio 54.

[OneWhoLurks]

"I committed a murder, and I’m basically going to try to use the criminal justice system to get out of it," he joked, before comparing this theoretical bit to one of his series' most ambitious and memorable segments ever. "That’s going to be our church this year: I'm going to wriggle out of a murder."

 

He wasn't being serious, we think — but wouldn't you totally watch if he were?

 

 

http://mashable.com/2016/02/14/john-oliver-last-week-season-3/#84LLuSBcwmqc

[Delwyn]

NZ news is well on top of the show tonight.

[OneWhoLurks]

On Snowden himself, Oliver found him persuasive. “One of the hardest things he has to answer to is ‘Do you accept risk out of your control? Do you accept the risk that you’re not directly accountable for?’ And he does. I thought his answers were pretty impressive. To that, he said “You are never without risk if you are free.” That’s a hard thing to admit.

 

[...]

 

On chasing the millennial demo:

 

The thought of that makes me so nauseous. The idea of chasing them. I don’t even know where to begin unpacking that. I think anything that is targeted at millennials–you made me use that fucking word–is by its nature annoying to me and I imagine, annoying to millennials.

 

 

http://observer.com/2016/02/last-week-tonights-john-oliver-on-snowden-podcasts-and-not-chasing-millennials/

 

Oliver said Last Week Tonight "had to hire five permanent interns" to sort through all the mail it received. They ended up getting more than $70,000 in singles (Oliver had requested singles as part of his new church's call for support), dozens of paintings and cross-stitches of Oliver and his onscreen church wife Rachel Dratch ("nobody's funnier"), and even "five vials of human sperm" — all sent separately.

 

In Oliver's words: It got "pretty fucking out of hand." But it was a huge lesson. Moving forward, he told us, "I’ll be more wary going in of people actually doing the thing you ask them to do."

 

 

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/14/10989154/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-season-3

 

ETA:

 

While Oliver wouldn’t disclose what that might entail exactly, he did allude to the idea that the show might “try to look at the process of democracy in the United States,” and he was quick to quip: “Which sounds hilarious.” What about playing “boff, marry, kill” with Trump, Rubio and Cruz? “I’d kill myself so as to not answer that question,” he deadpanned.

 

 

http://www.commdiginews.com/entertainment/john-olivers-last-week-tonight-returns-with-rachel-dratch-57671/

 

ETA2:

 

What’s a political issue you see treated differently in Britain than in America?

The lack of religion in British politics is a polar opposite. I don’t know how many people in Congress are openly without religion; I would imagine potentially zero. Whereas in England, politicians cannot talk openly about faith. Remember that Tony Blair was a committed Catholic, and there was real concern about that. He tried to not be photographed going to church. The question that made him squirm the most leading up to the Iraq War was “Do you and George Bush pray together?” That was like pulling a pin out of a grenade, handing it to him, and saying, “What are you going to do with that?”

 

Tell me about the differences between political satire in England and in America.

Well, America’s has generally been better. There is no one in England that is or has been as good as Jon Stewart.

 

You always talk so glowingly about him. Does he have a photo of you behaving inappropriately with a pig? Is that just something every English person has secretly done?

Yes, he does have that photo — and it was a warthog, thank you — but that’s not why I say these things. In terms of what I learned from him, if we’re talking a percentage of what I know, it’s pretty close to 100. He invented this particular style of TV comedy about the news. There is not going to be a Stephen Colbert without Jon, and there’s definitely not going to be me. It was amazing, watching him cut some of the best jokes, and he was always right. By taking out what seems like the funniest joke, everything else would get funnier and make more sense, because that funny joke was a digression. Or the story shifted a bit so that joke is an orphan … and that orphan must be destroyed. That’s a big lesson to learn, because the funniest thing is something that you’re innately protective of. And as far as my level of gratitude — I’m talking about him like he’s dead — the fact that he asked me to take over the show when he was away felt like such a huge leap of faith from him, and I thought that faith may have been a little bit misplaced.

 

[...]

 

Heroin makes everything so warm and nice.

That’s right. It was the same kind of thing, except comedy does not feel warm and nice. I guess there were little problem-solving moments at The Daily Show — those field pieces were really difficult. I remember we were doing a piece about English as the official language of the United States. And we were talking to a guy in D.C. who was pretty media-trained, and he was managing to rebuff everything I asked him. Then he was saying, “You don’t even need to speak English, and you can be okay in the United States.” And I remember it was like time slowed down — if I can hold him in this thought, I can walk him somewhere funny. So I said, “How would you say ‘My arm hurts’?” And he pointed at his arm and went, “Ah ah ah.” And what about “My knee hurts?” He pointed at his knee and went “Ah ah ah.” Then I said, “Give me ‘I’m allergic to penicillin.’ ” He froze, and I’m thinking, I couldn’t have done that two years ago. That seemed like a seismic step forward.

 

Aside from Jon, are there other people you’ve been learning from?

Dan Harmon of Community. He’s a good example of just, like, killing himself to make something 3 percent better. That’s always quite inspiring because when I would redraft, I would say, “It’s fine, it’s just fine, the draft is fine.” Fuck knows most drafts stop at that point. Once you’ve got it to fine, people walk away. From that point, it’s a lot of sweat and a lot of pain to make a piece barely perceptibly better. But if you can do that six times, make it incrementally better, all of a sudden it’s 10 percent better, and that’s actually a big deal. But it’s like athletes: If you’re running a 10.3-second hundred meters, with all the pain and not eating the most flavorsome foods to get to that level, is it worth working even harder to get to 10.2? You’re already running pretty fast.

 

That millisecond is the difference between a contender and a noncontender.

Is it even? Because the real guy is running 9.79. So is it worth all the trouble to go from 10.3 to 10.2? Is it worth all of those sacrifices to get to an Olympic final and then run a time that has you come last? Because that’s how I see myself.

 

[...]

 

Do you ever have the desire to do a logistically easier kind of comedy? You could be doing a sitcom and not worrying about fact-checking a network-news statistic.

There is no part of me that wants to do a sitcom. And it’s not so much that I would like to do something easier as I would like this … I just wish it wasn’t so hard.

 

Have you always loved political comedy?

The Daily Show cemented that love, but going back to sitcoms — you’d see people using the show as a springboard. They’d leave and do sitcoms or movies, and there was definitely part of me that always thought Why would you do that? You’re in the best place. But then you realize not everyone is so obsessive about this kind of thing. They’re just funny people for whom this is a good job, but it’s not in their DNA to try and find complicated ways to process political stories.

 

And you are that obsessive?

Definitely. It takes a particular kind of person. When I was offered sitcoms or whatever other things on the side, I would either say no or I would only do it if it were on a hiatus week. I did Community for NBC solely on the understanding that I would not leave The Daily Show, which some people thought was insane. They thought, It’s a network sitcom! And I thought, Yeah, exactly, that’s my point. I would be much happier working on a fake news show for basic cable.

 

 

http://www.vulture.com/2016/02/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-c-v-r.html

 

ETA3:

 

Now, John Oliver takes his stand-up show to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall stage for the first time with three consecutive shows from Thursday, Aug. 25 to Saturday, Aug. 27, each at 7 p.m.

 

Tickets start at $59 and go on sale to Kennedy Center Members on Thursday, Feb. 18. They go on sale to the general public on Friday, Feb. 19.

 

 

http://wtop.com/entertainment/2016/02/tickets-on-sale-this-week-to-john-oliver-at-kennedy-center/

Edited February 17, 2016 by OneWhoLurks

[OneWhoLurks]

Some regulators consider it gambling. Oliver wholeheartedly agrees. And he pulled no punches in his epic rant on the industry and its offerings.

 

“I did think it was funny, but I kind of hid behind the sofa when I watched it,” joked FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles onstage Thursday at Re/code’s annual Code/Media conference at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel in Dana Point, Calif. “It was quite painful to watch.”

 

[...]

 

Eccles can laugh about it, though. “I still like John Oliver,” he said.

 

 

http://recode.net/2016/02/18/fanduel-ceo-nigel-eccles-john-olivers-takedown-of-daily-fantasy-sports-was-painful-to-watch/

[OneWhoLurks]

Stumbled across this while looking for articles about the show:

 

Tremonton, UT — Bear River, Utah resident Rex Iverson, 45, died in the Box Elder County Jail on January 23 after being incarcerated for his failure to pay an ambulance bill. A deputy arrested him on a $350 bench warrant issued by the justice court on December 29. He was found unresponsive in his cell by a detention deputy a few hours after being arrested.

 

[...]

 

In Utah, most petty offenses are tried before “justice courts,” and many – perhaps most – of the judges in those courts are staggeringly unqualified: They are appointed from a pool of applicants by a six-member panel that uses selection criteria less rigorous than the admissions standards for DeVry University. No law degree or legal experience is necessary to serve as a Justice Court judge; in fact, any city resident with a GED and an advocate on the municipal panel would qualify.

 

More than 62 percent of defendants statewide “are processed through Utah’s justice courts without a lawyer,” points out the Sixth Amendment Center. Under relevant Supreme Court precedents, this constitutes an “actual denial of counsel” in violation of constitutional guarantees.

 

During the time frame examined by the Sixth Amendment Center, “defendants were arraigned and subsequently sentenced … to jail time or suspended sentences without any defense attorney present” by justice courts in every Utah jurisdiction except for Salt Lake City and County. In addition, “it is the practice of many justice courts to have prosecutors meet with unrepresented defendants to attempt to resolve the case prior to the defendant appearing before the judge. In others, the opportunity to meet with the prosecution is offered as though it is a chance to consult with an attorney who is looking out for the defendant’s interests.”

 

[...]

 

The crowning obscenity in this system is the fact that because these bodies are no courts of record (no official transcripts are kept of the proceedings), the rulings imposed by the be-robed ignoramuses cannot be appealed. Instead, a defendant has to file a de novo review in a distract court. Most of the hapless people summoned before the justice courts are poor, indigent defendants deprived of legal counsel to assist them in filing for that review – and devoid of the financial means to do so in any case.

 

As a result, Utah’s “justice court” system is a conviction mill.

 

 

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/warrant-issued-illegitimate-court/

[Julia]

Go figure the state that gave us Orrin Hatch and a hugely disproportionate share of the FBI and the CIA isn't interested in the rights of indigent defendants. I guess now that they're not taking up arms against the US government any more they're big supporters.

[OneWhoLurks]

Due to overwhelming demand, the Kennedy Center announced today two additional performances by John Oliver on Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall, as part of Comedy at the Kennedy Center. Tickets start at $59 and go on sale to the general public on Friday, February 26, 2016 at 10 a.m.

 

Tickets will be available for purchase at the Kennedy Center Box Office, by calling InstantCharge at (202) 467-4600, or through the Kennedy Center website at www.kennedy-center.org.

 

 

http://www.broadwayworld.com/washington-dc/article/John-Oliver-Adds-Pair-of-Performances-to-Kennedy-Center-Engagement-20160224#

[dusang]

http://www.broadwayworld.com/washington-dc/article/John-Oliver-Adds-Pair-of-Performances-to-Kennedy-Center-Engagement-20160224#

 

Just to be clear, that's two additional performances over and above the SIX performances that already sold out.  He's the only stand-up with more than one show at the Kennedy Centre, everyone else up is one night, one time.

Edited February 24, 2016 by dusang

[OneWhoLurks]

The Guide has set Oliver a task: to explain aspects of modern America to Britain, and vice versa. It’s one he sets about with relish, but also with a caveat. “I’ve been here a decade so I’m institutionalised. My bafflement index is much lower than it used to be. This all kind of makes sense to me now.”

 

[...]

 

Ted Cruz

 

“Now that is a very hard thing to explain. Born in Canada, yet every beat of his heart is that of a Texan. Why is he so popular when you consider the things that come out of his mouth? All I can do is reassure British people: don’t worry, he is not going to be president. I wouldn’t waste too much time worrying about what Ted Cruz is, where he came from or how this has happened. I don’t think there’ll be much residual effect from his behaviour outside Texas state borders. He is not going to be the nominee. Iowa has a distinguished history of not picking the candidate who becomes the nominee. That’s why we do not have a President Mike Huckabee right now. Don’t put too much emphasis on what the people of Iowa think.”

 

[...]

 

Jeremy Corbyn

 

“Calling him the ‘British Bernie Sanders’ would be very reductive, very simplistic and probably the best way to explain him to Americans, while being wildly inaccurate. If you try to explain the differences, then you’re into the parliamentary system and you’ve lost them. For Americans, it’s all about the prime minister, whether or not he stuck a dick in a pig’s mouth. Over here, people hoped that story was true. I did. Either way, it seems entirely plausible, which makes whether or not it’s true kind of irrelevant. When Cameron came over here, he ate a hotdog in a stupid manner and completely lost any level of authority he might have had. He held it like it was a china cup of tea. That’s not how you attack a hotdog. As for Corbyn and Sanders, I think we’ll have to wait and see whether being principled actually gets you anywhere. I don’t think you can doubt the tenacity of their beliefs. But can you translate that into power?”

 

[...]

 

Pyjamas on the school run

 

“The right to wear pyjamas on the school run, like those parents in Darlington? You’re just describing ‘freedom’ to an American here. Just as they defend their right to bear arms, they [would] defend their right to wear pyjamas. They’re not going to have some town council or school governor tell them they can’t wear rabbit slippers to drop their kids off at school. That’s not what this country fought a revolution for. The very reason they kicked the British out was so that, one day, they could wear pyjamas on the school run, and in doing so feel the full force of freedom. They’re not hearing the specifics, they’re just hearing: are you free or not? If you’re not being allowed to wear pyjamas to drop your kids off, you’re basically in a Stalinist gulag.”

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/feb/27/john-oliver-explains-the-us-to-the-uk-and-vice-versa#comments

[OneWhoLurks]

In an interview with Stuff, Oliver said there were two reasons for Key's appeal.

 

"The first is that New Zealand itself is a genuinely interesting country; the second is that John Key is a very odd human being. It's like a clown car in a circus parade. The car itself is fascinating, but the clown is really the thing that draws your eye. And John Key is nothing if not a gigantic clown."

 

[...]

 

"My God! What's wrong with this guy? There was another clip where two radio DJs said 'Hey John, will you get in this cage?' and he did it. I couldn't believe it! You're the f***ing Prime Minister! There's a certain dignity in office that you should maintain. Why would you let someone put you in a cage? It was a little bit troubling that the Prime Minister of New Zealand is so susceptible to peer pressure."

 

Oliver says he's very keen to see more prime ministerial mishaps.

 

"Please give my love to John Key. He's probably done something dubious in the last 15 minutes that neither of us have found out about yet, so if you hear of anything, I beg you, please let me know."

 

 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/77558357/last-week-tonights-john-oliver-says-gigantic-clown--john-key-makes-great-tv

[OneWhoLurks]

They've released an extended version of that article now: http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/77475243/john-oliver-john-key-is-a-gigantic-clown

 

"Yeah, our main imperative is to be funny, but if you're going to do a show about tobacco companies dodging international lawsuits, for example, you really need to be accurate, too. It's like that line Omar says in The Wire – 'If you're coming for the king, you best not miss'. If you're taking on Big Tobacco and you mess up, it might be the last show you ever do."

 

[...]

 

But how would he describe his personality? "Oh, God! I have no idea. I'm British, so I don't really have a personality. I'm so repressed that any defining characteristics are buried extremely deep."

 

Are you telling me you're a walking vacuum? "Yes, precisely. Somewhere deep within my stomach, there are emotions being crystallised into diamonds."

 

 

[OneWhoLurks]

What do you think of John Oliver and his transition to the U.S. comedy scene?

 

It’s amazing the whole John Oliver thing because he supported me doing stand-up back in the day. Then he sort of went to America and that was it, he never came back. But he’s a lovely man. I’ve not seen him for like 10 years. It’s crazy.

 

So you guys used to work together?

 

Yeah, we used to do gigs together. He used to support me doing stand-up. He was always a good stand-up [comedian]. We did some dreadful gigs, actually, like university gigs when we were both starting out. The first time I ever saw him, I was at an Oxford ball doing stand-up and he was in an ’80s cover band, like a comedy thing. It was like Spinal Tap. That was the first time I saw him, he was playing guitar.

 

Then we both had the same agent years back, so we used to travel around and do gigs together. He’s a lovely man. But then it was kind of crazy because he came to America to do that one job and then Jon Stewart resigned, then he took off from there. I’d love to see him again just to say hello because we were quite good friends.

 

 

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/blog/2016/03/09/noel-fielding-misses-john-oliver/

[dusang]

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/blog/2016/03/09/noel-fielding-misses-john-oliver/

 

"But then it was kind of crazy because he came to America to do that one job and then Jon Stewart resigned, then he took off from there."

 

That's an interesting (read: hugely inaccurate) description of John's time in America.

[Julia]

Well, apparently they're close enough that he's telling reporters in Boston that he wants to get together instead of picking up the phone.

[OneWhoLurks]

Politics: Their fans lean distinctly left. 63% of Trevor Noah’s fans affiliate themselves with the Democratic party, followed by a 55% tie between John Oliver and Stephen Colbert. Conan O’Brien has the least Democratic-leaning fan base (39%) as well as the most fans that identify themselves as Independent (36%). The national TV talker with the most right-leaning fans is Jimmy Kimmel at 22%, about the same as the national average.

 

Talk Show Hosts Are Their Favorite Celebrities: John Oliver fans name Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Bill Maher as their favorite celebrities. For Jimmy Fallon fans, it’s Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Ellen Degeneres and Conan O’Brien. Jimmy Kimmel fans are the biggest outliers: two of their favorite celebrities are Jackie Chan and Kathy Griffin.

 

Music: Queen and other classic rockers dominate across most of their fans, but Trevor Noah’s fans are much more eclectic (Miley Cyrus, Missy Elliott, Barbara Streisand, and Beck) and John Oliver’s turn toward alternative rock mode (Modest Mouse, Death Cab For Cutie, MGMT, and Eurythmics).

 

Magazines: Again, Noah and Oliver are the outliers. While Entertainment Weekly, Time and Rolling Stone are the preferred magazines of most talk show host fans, Oliver’s leans toward Out, Wired, and Harvard Business Review, while Noah’s prefer The New Yorker, Mother Jones, and Consumer Reports.

 

 

https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/03/10/tv-talk-show-fans-their-media-and-political-habits/

[dusang]

https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/03/10/tv-talk-show-fans-their-media-and-political-habits/

 

Fans of Jimmy Fallon identify Jimmy KImmel as their favorite celebrity?  Am I the only one confused by that entire question and range of responses???

[Irlandesa]

Fans of Jimmy Fallon identify Jimmy KImmel as their favorite celebrity?  Am I the only one confused by that entire question and range of responses???

Nope.  Because Jackie Chan?  C'mon.  Nothing against Jackie but I find it a stretch to believe. 

Edited March 12, 2016 by Irlandesa

[OneWhoLurks]

Bugle 294 - The Chainsaw of Futuristic Justice: https://soundcloud.com/the-bugle/bugle-294-the-chainsaw-of-futuristic-justice

[OneWhoLurks]

Watch How John Oliver Describes Countries (Compilation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiG6_1LS_AI&feature=youtu.be

 

ETA:

 

Josh Gondelman is an unlikely kind of hybrid. By day, he writes political humor for “Last Week Tonight.” Many nights, he’s on the stand-up circuit, where his comedy tends to be personal and observational. (He’s also one of the creators of the Modern Seinfeld Twitter account.)

 

[...]

 

If I can go to your day job for a minute: There was a hilarious bit on John Oliver Sunday night on encryption. Did you have anything to do with that one?

 

We all kind of contribute jokes and stuff to all the pieces. I ended up writing a couple of the jokes. But I didn’t work on that long-term.

 

How do you guys balance funny and serious on the show? You pretty much always get it right, but I just wonder how it works. Are you always conscious of the fact that it can become too dry and factual if you’re not careful?

 

Oh sure, the idea is to be a funny show about serious things, I think. I was hired to write comedy … That’s the directive we’ve been given.

 

 

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/15/i_think_its_terror_comedian_josh_gondelman_on_how_donald_trumps_rise_sobered_up_this_election_year/

Edited March 16, 2016 by OneWhoLurks

[OneWhoLurks]

John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” is No. 1 in the audience for election-related video clips, with 82.2 million total views, compared to Jimmy Fallon’s 62.7 million, Stephen Colbert’s 30.7 million and Jimmy Kimmel’s 23.6 million.

 

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/cmo-today-j-walter-thompsons-ceo-resigns-1458301741

 

ETA:

 

Trevor Noah, the South African comic whose meteoric rise landed him in John Stewart’s old chair at The Daily Show, is coming to Indy for a night of stand-up on March 25. Noah, who was conceived under the rule of apartheid to a mixed-race couple (“born a crime,” in his words, since such unions were illegal then), wound up becoming the first South African comic to appear on both the Leno and Letterman shows earlier this decade.

 

[...]

 

So many people have gone on from the Daily Show — Colbert, Samantha Bee, John Oliver — to host their own programs. Do you watch any of them?

 

The only person I get to watch consistently is John Oliver. It’s my appointment I love what he’s doing. I love how he does it. Right now, he’s at the pinnacle. He’s honestly, in my opinion, the best show that’s on television right now. It’s great to watch somebody in the same field hitting their stride.

 

 

http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/a-chat-with-trevor-noah/Content?oid=3866122

 

ETA2:

 

Paste: How did you wind up writing for Last Week Tonight? Did you have to go through an audition process?

 

Gondelman: I was a given the packet to audition from a couple different sources. It was a packet of sample material and then the next round where you get asked to write additional sample materials in a shorter time frame. For my first year there I was hired to do all the digital stuff for the show. Then after Season One, I got moved to start writing more for the show itself.

 

Paste: What is the process of putting a show like that together? Is it just from week-to-week you’re handed this big subject that John decides he wants to tackle and you get as an assignment, or are you pitching things?

 

Gondelman: It’s a combination of things. There are things that come from John or that come from our executive producer Tim [Carvell]. Some of those things they will have talked about amongst themselves or with the producers and researchers to make sure there’s a story worth assigning and they assign to us. Or we will pitch stuff and have that assigned back to us. It can happen a number of different ways.

 

Paste: Are there things that you pitched that made it to air that you’re particularly proud of?

 

Gondelman: Oh man. [laughs] There’s so much that has so many hands on it, that so many people punch up and enhance. But my favorite things that I’ve pitched are the really silly ones. And one that I think I can take credit for, because I don’t know that anyone else would want credit…there’s an app that I think is about to launch, that was announced last year called Peeple. We did a little bit on it that was written by Dan Gurewitch, and there’s a website attached to it called screamintothevoid.com. It’s a website where you type in something and you click “Scream” and it makes a scream sound and sucks whatever terrible opinion or thought you have into a black hole. So this story was pitched but in addition to that…for whatever reason they decided it was fun enough to make…I pitched a different app called Peeble where you submit a photo of yourself and you’re rated on a scale of 1 to 5 by actor/director/producer Mario Van Peebles. And Mario Van Peebles agreed to be in the piece so it was this very silly minute long thing of Mario Van Peebles assigning rankings to pictures of people on staff and dogs. It was really, really silly. There are lots of things that I’m really proud to have worked on but I’m just delighted that I got to pitch that very silly thing that got made.

 

 

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/03/now-what-josh-gondelman-on-his-new-stand-up-album.html?p=2

Edited March 19, 2016 by OneWhoLurks

[OneWhoLurks]

The actor Tom Hanks (whose “A Hologram for the King” is on the festival schedule) will speak with the television host John Oliver; the filmmaker and actress Jodie Foster will sit down with the director Julie Taymor; and Baz Luhrmann, creator of the coming Netflix series “The Get Down,” will talk with the writer Nelson George. Tina Fey, Patti Smith, Alfonso Cuarón, Francis Ford Coppola, Catherine Hardwicke and Idina Menzel will also take part in Tribeca Talks.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/movies/chris-rock-to-talk-with-jj-abrams-at-tribeca-film-festival.html?_r=0

[OneWhoLurks]

The World’s Greatest Leaders list

Angela Merkel and Stephen Curry. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Oliver. Paul Ryan and an Australian marathoner. What do they have in common? They’re playing a leading role in making the world a better place and inspiring others to do the same.—by the staff of Fortune

 

 

http://fortune.com/2016/03/24/worlds-greatest-leaders-2016-intro/

 

Oliver’s cerebral deep dives into social injustices on his HBO show, Last Week Tonight, have created a new form factor in comedy—call it “investi-comedy.” There isn’t a topic he won’t tackle, from the plight of chicken farmers to native advertising to net neutrality. He insists he’s no more than a comedian, but he has effected change: His net-neutrality piece, for example, was credited for a shift in the FCC’s position (and for crashing the agency’s website). His merciless pre–Super Tuesday takedown of Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been viewed more than 22 million times on YouTube.

 

 

http://fortune.com/worlds-greatest-leaders/john-oliver-30/

[Julia]

Wow. Paul Ryan? Really?

[OneWhoLurks]

Why John Oliver Is One of the World's Greatest Leaders: http://fortune.com/2016/03/27/john-oliver-greatest-leaders/

[OneWhoLurks]

This sort of thing is a staple of his weekly HBO show, “Last Week Tonight,” which frequently deals with scientific and technical subjects, from abortion, food safety, and Medicaid, to mental health, cigarette packaging, and sex education. And while Oliver stands in the tradition of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report,” it seems clear he is doing something different here. Where Stewart dealt with “fake news” (his term of art) and Colbert developed a fake persona, Oliver delivers something very close to straight news, albeit between a succession of gags and profane outbursts. More importantly, he joins a widening array of enterprises that raise intriguing questions about the role of advocacy, and the withering concept of objectivity, in journalism.

 

[...]

 

For his part, Oliver, like Stewart and Colbert before him, insists he’s not a journalist. “It’s not journalism, it’s comedy,” he told The Daily Beast when the program launched in 2014. “It’s comedy first, and it’s comedy second.”

 

Chattoo notes that the distinction is probably important to the people promoting the show. “From a consumer point of view, they don’t want to say they’re doing journalism. They want people to watch,” she says.

 

But Oliver’s success can hardly be seen as being based solely in comedy. He and his staff are also very good reporters, and very sharp writers. “What is so interesting and probably obvious is that he can often take very esoteric subjects and make them go viral,” says Lauren Feldman, an assistant professor at Rutgers University who studies comedy and journalism. Where Stewart would have had a field day with Donald Trump, for example, Oliver tackles such bell ringers as net neutrality and bail bonds. “These are all cases where vulnerable groups are being exploited by powerful institutions,” Feldman says. “He’s interested in challenging those power structures.”

 

[...]

 

Feldman argues that Oliver’s work reveals a troubling truth about traditional journalists: They often rely on objectivity as a crutch.

“That can have devastating consequences in that it leads to uncritical deference to official sources,” she says. For some journalists, she adds, a he-said, she-said approach to reporting “can be an easy way out.”

 

As these scholars and journalists see it, “objectivity” was always a false measure of journalistic excellence, and a superficial stand-in for more meaningful ideas like honesty, accuracy, and transparency — terms that might better describe the characteristics of a top-tier journalist.

 

 

http://undark.org/article/the-journalist-as-advocate-is-there-any-other-kind/

[OneWhoLurks]

Finalists for the Webby Awards were announced Tuesday, and HBO’s John Oliver is in the hunt in a humor category for SpendYourLeapSecondHere.com.

 

Called “the Internet’s highest honor,” Webbys are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

 

Oliver’s site, timed to capitalize on the leap second of June 30, 2015, goes up against The Onion, ClickHole, Funny or Die and Cracked.

 

 

http://mynewsla.com/hollywood/2016/04/05/waste-a-second-to-vote-for-john-oliver-website-as-webby-winner/

[OneWhoLurks]

DREAM INTERVIEW "The Queen. I'd like to ask her what the point of her is."

 

PERSON I'D LIKE TO SIT NEXT TO AT A DINNER PARTY "Maybe Putin. I like to eat in excruciatingly tense silence."

 

MOST REVOLTING PIZZA RAT-STYLE MOMENT "I once saw a dog running through the park with a rat in its mouth. The rat had half a bagel in its mouth. It was either cute or horrifying."

 

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/powerful-people-new-york-media-880895/item/john-oliver-new-york-power-880972?utm_source=twitter

[OneWhoLurks]

Full Frontal may have launched first, but the second half of husband-and-wife team Jason Jones and Samantha Bee’s TBS takeover is about to commence.

 

[...]

 

How do you think Trevor Noah’s doing with it?

 

To tell you the truth, I just haven’t watched it. I just don’t know. I divorced myself from that world. And I still have a lot of great friends who work over there and I see them all the time and they’re like, "Hey, that thing was pretty good." And I’m like, "What thing?" It’s like, oh, that thing, it’s everywhere, man! And I’m like, oh, it’s not everywhere, I didn’t see it. When you step out of that world… although let me say this: I still love my fake news. Sunday nights I tune into John Oliver, a good friend of mine, and Monday nights, obviously, you know what I’m watching.

 

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jason-jones-daily-show-exit-882528

[dusang]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jason-jones-daily-show-exit-882528

 

I wonder if that was a person-to-person interview or a questionnaire because after they asked "have you watched the new version of the Daily Show?" and he said "No" there was really no point in following up with "How do you think Trevor is doing with it?"

[stillshimpy]

I wonder if that was a person-to-person interview or a questionnaire because after they asked "have you watched the new version of the Daily Show?" and he said "No" there was really no point in following up with "How do you think Trevor is doing with it?"

 

I'm kind of wondering if those questions were presented in the order asked though, because it actually makes zero sense that the interviewer proceeded to ask three "so what do you think of late night's ____" in a row, if the first answer was "I don't watch any longer because of X, Y, Z" ....you know?  If anything it seems like the order had to be reversed on those questions. 

 

That or the interviewer is really counting on Jason to be super patient.  

[scrb]

Viewers of Last Week Tonight  and Real Time may remember Totally Biased with Kamau Bell, which used to be a very liberal version of The Daily Show.

 

Bell is back on TV with an upcoming Showtime special (Semi-prominent Negro) and a CNN series, United Shades of America, which is described as Kamau's version of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown except instead of exploring food in different parts of the world, it explores racism in the US.

 

First episode airs 4/24/16 and in it, he meets with a KKK member who tries to explain how everyone might prefer living racially apart, not knowing Kamau is in an interracial marriage and has a interracial daughter.

 

There is a United Shades of America forum now.

[OneWhoLurks]

A panel of politicians was aghast on Friday as John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction, described a defence department initiative to import Italian and Tajik goats that were supposed to mate on a remote farm and increase Afghanistan's output of blond and white cashmere wool.

 

However, some of the goats used to stock the farm were infected with Johne's disease - a transmittable, fatal gastrointestinal infection that can destroy whole herds, Mr Sopko said in written testimony to the House armed services subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

 

Additionally, the farm itself was too small to provide adequate grazing.

 

Congresswoman Jackie Speier suggested the episode was worthy of lampooning by British comic John Oliver, who hosts a satirical current affairs show on US television.

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/15/no-kidding-pentagon-ran-fancy-italian-goat-project/

 

ETA:

 

 

We started a new Bugle but had to pause. You'll hear John and Andy explain why.

 

Contains some classic Bugling.

 

 

https://soundcloud.com/the-bugle/sick-bugle

Edited April 16, 2016 by OneWhoLurks

[OneWhoLurks]

At its upfront presentation on Wednesday, Crackle announced that Jerry Seinfeld's popular series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee would return for another season, featuring a slew of high profile guest stars including Margaret Cho, Judd Apatow, John Oliver and JB Smoove, among others.

 

 

http://mashable.com/2016/04/20/crackle-upfront-2016/#9322cpwukGqx

[Kromm]

JB Smoove? High profile?  REALLY?

[OneWhoLurks]

Tom Hanks’s chat with John Oliver Friday night at New York City’s Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC)—part of the Tribeca Film Festival’s “Tribeca Talks – Storytellers” series—was merely the latest stop on a “promotional blitz” for Hologram for the King, his new film based on the book by Dave Eggers and helmed by his Cloud Atlas director Tom Tykwer.

 

And yet during their nearly hour-long conversation, Hanks’s latest effort wasn’t discussed, or even mentioned, once. Instead, the duo treated audiences to a more wide-ranging discussion that involved the actor describing his professional philosophies, mimicking more than one illustrious former collaborator, and delivering an all-time great anecdote involving a famous co-star.

 

From the outset, effusive respect could be felt between interviewer and interviewee, with Hanks praising Oliver for being “the only voice left in the public forum [telling us] what we need to know, what we should know. Our lives would be void of outrage, John. And for those people who don’t get HBO, they are void of outrage because they don’t get to see you.” That admiration was reciprocated shortly thereafter, when Oliver opined, “You started your career, obviously, as an actor. Since then you’ve expanded into writing, producing, directing, and being an American treasure.”

 

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/22/john-oliver-interrogates-tom-hanks-i-peaked-in-the-90s.html

 

ETA:

 

The YouTube outpost of John Oliver’s late night, weekly HBO news program always does well on the video sharing site when it’s in season, but it had an especially fantastic month on the platform thanks in large part to one video in particular. “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Donald Trump” was released on February 28, 2016, and throughout the course of March amassed an impressive eight-figure view count. The 21-minute-and-53-second in-depth look at the Republican frontrunner for the presidential nomination helped Last Week Tonight‘s YouTube channel to a 170% month-over-month increase in subscribers, more than 344,000 subscribers on the month, and the #49 spot on the worldwide chart.

 

 

http://www.tubefilter.com/2016/04/22/top-100-most-subscribed-youtube-channels-worldwide-march-2016/

Edited April 23, 2016 by OneWhoLurks

[OneWhoLurks]

Quote

 

There's no arguing with John Oliver when he describes Tom Hanks as "an American treasure." Hanks, whose decades-long career has given us Sheriff Woody, Forrest Gump, Captain Miller, a heartbreaking volleyball, and a romantic rendezvous atop the Empire State Building, sat down to discuss his career with the host of Last Week Tonight as part of the Tribeca Film Festival's "Storytellers Series" last Friday night. Over the course of the hourlong talk, the two brainstormed epitaphs for Hanks's headstone, discussed the first time they each went to the movies, and the necessity of perseverance when trying to hack it as a working actor. Hanks also blessed us with the gem of an acronym "BFCUKB," or "Just a big fucking close-up of Kevin Bacon."

Then Vulture, a signature sponsor of TFF, typed it all up for you.

[...]

I saw E.T.
That was your first? How old are you? Thirteen?

Thirty-eight.
But that was the first time you went to a movie theater?

Well, it's England, isn't it? Gin-soaked. I'd already joined a pickpocket gang, cleaned some chimneys. I'd got money, watch me flick. I was carried screaming from the end of that movie because I couldn't believe Elliott didn't leave with him. So I had suspended full disbelief.
My parents were divorced, so I lived with my dad. Just with my dad. And so we sort of called our own shots. When I started going to the movies regularly at the age of 8, 9, 10, 11, I always went to movies that none of them were aimed at kids. They were all adult movies about adults going through adult things. I went by myself to the Alameda Theater in Alameda, California, to see Ship of Fools with Michael Dunn. I saw Sean Connery in The Hill. You know that? That little British movie? I belief it's about a prison camp for AWOL soldiers. I would see things like Dennis Weaver in 40 Guns to Apache Pass. I just saw the culture of the mid-to-late 1960s. Not hit movies but B movies. But it always about grown-ups. I didn't understand them, but I knew they were important, so I was involved in stuff that wasn't just another production of Peter and the Wolf or something like that.

[...]

It's weird that there are sometimes ... if you can nail those moments when they're so important they stay with you forever. There's an English movie called Fever Pitch. I remember there's this one moment. I remember nothing about it other than the way that they shot the first time he went to a football camp. Not "football” camp. Fuck you.
You don't call it soccer?

Every time Americans use that word, somewhere in the world a British person dies.
If you want, we Americans can start referring to it as "the game of hooligans."

That would not be inaccurate. But there's a moment when he sees the sea of floodlit green in front of him. And I remember nothing else from that movie but that one moment; they nailed that.
It's funny. For all of us, most movies have those incredibly personal moments that just hit us all like a ball-peen hammer right in the middle of the forehead, and you never forget. I hope some of mine have them. Did anybody see the goofy-titled Clint Eastwood rugby movie? The South African rugby movie?

[...]

That does go deep. I remember Jon Stewart told me just before he hosted the Oscars he was really nervous. And he was outside walking. I think he'd gone into a restaurant to get a sandwich or something. And he was thinking, This feels like the center of the world, the Oscars. And some guys came up to him and were looking at him. He was thinking, Here we go. I know what this is for. And these guys came up and said, "I'm sorry to bother you. Are you in Half Baked?" That's the only thing they knew him from. Not what he was doing the next day. And I think it really helped.
These guys had a connection with Half Baked. It was undeniable. We all have it for some fluke-y movie that came out of nowhere.

 

Tom Hanks and John Oliver Talk Hamilton Villains, Fan Encounters, and the Lessons of Turner & Hooch

ETA1:

Quote

When the two left the stage roughly an hour later, Hanks called out for people to watch Oliver's show, Sunday nights on HBO.

Tribeca: 6 Revelations From Tom Hanks' Wide-Ranging Talk With John Oliver

ETA2:

Quote

Jimmy Fallon collected a Webby and People’s Voice Award for Best Content and Marketing; “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” earned Webby and People’s Voice recognition for Best Writing in Social; and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” received love for a second consecutive year for the show’s annual “I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy” bit in the viral category (online film and video).

20th Annual Webby Award Winners Announced

Edited April 29, 2016 by OneWhoLurks

[peeayebee]

Thanks for posting the link to the Hanks interview. I just read the whole thing. What a great conversation. I love when two people are equally matched in intellect and wit. Fantastic.

[OneWhoLurks]

Quote

Looking at HBO in L+3, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and “Silicon Valley” drew 2.36 million viewers to tie as No. 2 for the week, behind “Game of Thrones.” They were followed by “Real Time with Bill Maher” (1.76 million), “Veep” (1.52 million) and Saturday’s Beyonce special “Lemonade” (1.00 million).

3-Day Ratings: ‘Empire’ Tops Week; ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Down, Still Potent

[OneWhoLurks]

Men in Blazers are joined by John Oliver

[OneWhoLurks]

True Confessions with Jennifer Lawrence and John Oliver

[Kromm]

1 hour ago, OneWhoLurks said:

True Confessions with Jennifer Lawrence and John Oliver

Well that's the most random pairing ever.

I wonder if she had a clue who he was?

[peeayebee]

As expected, John's story was the best. I just wish his had gone on longer.

[OneWhoLurks]

Quote

 

"I was raised by Sesame Street," the British comedian told TODAY Parents at a benefit in New York for Sesame Workshop's autism initiative. "Even English people are raised by Sesame Street; we learn how to count in an American accent."

Oliver cozied up with Sesame Street's Elmo, Grover, Abby, Cookie Monster and the Count before hosting the Wednesday night gala to celebrate Sesame Workshop's newest initiative, aimed at reducing stigma around autism and supporting families of children with autism.

He spoke — or tried to speak — about how becoming a father has changed his life. "I'm British, so I am mostly dead inside, or I was until I had a baby," quipped Oliver, who had his first child with wife Kate Norley last fall.

 

How Sesame Street taught John Oliver to count in an American accent