Last Week Tonight & John Oliver in the Media

[OneWhoLurks]

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The host of HBO's Last Week Tonight will be making a guest appearance on The Russell Howard Hour next month.

Oliver will be on the last episode of series one, due to air on Sky One on December 21 at 10pm – his first appearance on British TV since being a panellist  on Mock The Week in 2006.

 

http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2017/11/28/38558/john_oliver_to_make_his_first_appearance_on_a_british_tv_show_in_12_years

[OneWhoLurks]

 

[ahisma]

I love that John just continues his HBO levels of swearing and they just have to bleep. :D

[peeayebee]

Thanks. Seeing John again made me feel a little better.

[vibeology]

The tweets coming out about this event are just crazy but I trust WaPo to give a good overview:

John Oliver grills Dustin Hoffman over sexual harassment allegation

John is a good egg.

[Annber03]

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He said he had not engaged in groping, didn’t recall meeting Graham Hunter and that all his comments on set were simply how members of “a family” talked to one another.

*Raises eyebrow* Really?

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“It’s ‘not reflective of who I am.’ It’s that kind of response to this stuff that pisses me off,” Oliver said.  “It is reflective of who you were. If you’ve given no evidence to show it didn’t [happen,] there was a period of time for a while when you were a creeper around women. It feels like a cop-out to say ‘it wasn’t me.’ Do you understand how that feels like a dismissal?”

We need an applause gif here or something. A-fucking-men. 

Go, Oliver. 

[purist]

[attica]

OMG, so good. Here's Deadline's coverage.

Killer pull quote:

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“I can’t leave certain things unaddressed,” Oliver conceded. “That leads to me at home later tonight hating myself, asking, ‘Why the f–k didn’t I say something? No one stands up to powerful men.'” Hoffman asked Levinson, “Am I the powerful man?”

Yes, Dustin, you whining piece of shit. You're the powerful man being stood up to by our hero John Oliver.

[Xantar]

Even if I were a beloved comedian and trusted news source, I still wouldn't have had the guts to confront Dustin Hoffman (or really anybody) in such a public manner like that. Holy shit. That may have been the ballsiest confrontation since Stephen Colbert hosted the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Edited December 5, 2017 by Xantar

[possibilities]

So Hoffman's family asks for soft-boiled clits with their breakfasts? Really?

Why can't he just apologize and acknowledge that was terrible? There's no world in which apologizing for that comment would be wrong. And saying it to a teenager, no less? A minor?

Gross.

[Robert Lynch]

I wonder if John Oliver would use this in his Last Week Tonight for January of next year? A segment on Hollywood's powerful men..

[peeayebee]

5 hours ago, possibilities said:

So Hoffman's family asks for soft-boiled clits with their breakfasts? Really?

I guess I need to read up on what the specific allegations are.

[OneWhoLurks]

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Alec Baldwin has some thoughts on the recent, contentious celebrity interviews conducted by John Oliver and Stephen Colbert.

On Wednesday morning, the actor tweeted, seemingly in criticism, that the two late-night hosts are contributing to a climate where celebrity “pit stops” are beginning to resemble something much more intense. “Talk shows were once promotional pit stops for some blithe chit chat about movies, etc,” Baldwin wrote. “Now the likes of [Oliver] and [Colbert] have flipped that and they are beginning to resemble grand juries.”

 

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Oliver’s interaction with Hoffman proved sharply divisive. While many praised his dogged effort to challenge Hoffman on the subject, noting that it’s not something men publicly do to other men often, Oliver also faced a backlash for not letting an actor off the hook at what was intended to be a celebratory event. Actor Michael Rapaport had particularly choice language for Oliver: “This Motherf–ka John Oliver calling Dustin Hoffman ‘Dustin,'” he tweeted. “Motherf–ka you address this man as Mr. Hoffman. You came to moderate a discussion about a movie #JohnOliver, you selfish f–k, you ruined paying customers evening [sic] out in Manhattan.”

Alec Baldwin compares John Oliver, Stephen Colbert to 'grand juries' after sexual harassment confrontations
 

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NEW YORK — When the former film-production intern heard that TV personality John Oliver had grilled Dustin Hoffman about sexual harassment on a New York stage Monday night, she had a distinct reaction. 

“I felt cheerful — almost giddy,” she said.

 That intern wasn’t just an anonymous ex-Hollywood grunt — she was Anna Graham Hunter, the Hoffman accuser whose allegations prompted the showdown.

 

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Even among boldface interviewers, Oliver remains an exception. Ira Madison III, a writer at the Daily Beast and popular social-media pundit, said that the fact that Oliver’s HBO show doesn’t rely on guests — most of the segments are long-form issue-based monologues — keeps him uniquely free of restraints. 

“John Oliver isn’t beholden to many of the things that other late-night hosts have to deal with,” Madison III said in an interview. “I appreciate the fact that he’s taking advantage of it. But a lot of people can’t do that.”

Not all were convinced that Oliver was in the right. One woman in the audience yelled that he needed to move on; some on social media called him out for ego and “sanctimony”; a number of others said he was convicting Hoffman with an absence of proof; and one high-profile entertainment player said privately that Oliver was walking too convenient a line between comedian and journalist, choreography that sometimes tripped up Oliver’s mentor, Jon Stewart.

 

After showdown between John Oliver and Dustin Hoffman, Hollywood has no ‘safe space’ from hard conversations about sexual harassment

ETA: John met the Olsen twin!
 

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Over the past decade, sightings of Ashley Olsen and her sister Mary-Kate have been increasingly rare. The two actresses turned creative directors of The Row and Elizabeth and James have made their spotlight aversion one of their signatures. Along with that, they have also opted out of the Full House reunion series Fuller House, as well as some of the social events around them. Though, tis not because of bad blood. Last night, Ashley made that clear as she joined her former TV parent Bob Saget at a 30th anniversary event for the Scleroderma Research Foundation's Cool Comedy - Hot Cuisine fundraising series in New York City. Olsen actually looked thrilled to be in attendance too. In a forest green coat draped over herself, Ashley posed next to Saget, as well as John Oliver and George Lopez who also came out to support the man we all remember as Danny Tanner.

"So honored my dear friend Ashley Olsen came@to support my@Scleroderma Research Foundation @SRFcure Event as she has all these years and here we share a photo with my friend John Oliver generously performing at #CoolComedyHotCuisine - Thank you for your support, John and Ashley!!," Saget wrote on Facebook, where he shared images from the event.

 

Ashley Olsen Had a Full House Reunion with Bob Saget

Edited December 7, 2017 by OneWhoLurks

[Snipsa]

3 hours ago, OneWhoLurks said:

 

ETA: John met the Olsen twin!
 

Ashley Olsen Had a Full House Reunion with Bob Saget

Haha! And it was only Ashley!  You KNOW he is going to use that photo as proof of his "theory" next season!

[attica]

7 hours ago, OneWhoLurks said:

they are beginning to resemble grand juries.”

Well, geez, it's not like actual grand juries are ever going to hear these cases (more's the pity). It's also not like John Oliver can put Hoffman in jail, or make him pay a fine. All he does is hurt his feelings, and maaaaybe sway public opinion some. In other words, stfu, Baldwin/Rappoport, thanks.

3 hours ago, Snipsa said:

And it was only Ashley!

She didn't seem to be moving very quickly back and forth. Probably hard to do in a crowd like that...

[dusang]

3 hours ago, Snipsa said:

Haha! And it was only Ashley!  You KNOW he is going to use that photo as proof of his "theory" next season!

I wonder if she's aware of his theory and/or what (if anything) was said between them.

[OneWhoLurks]

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“You certainly want to see everybody who’s guilty of something — who’ve done bad things, wrong things, and hurt people — get punished. But I don’t want to see other people get pulled into that. There’s a lot of accusations and no proof yet. I don’t want to see people get hurt… A lot of people, by the way, endorse [Oliver’s grilling of Hoffman]. They think that the hosts of those show are not only perfectly within their rights, but also find it very attractive or very necessary for them to be pressing this cause. I just don’t want to see people who are innocent get into trouble.”

As an example of the kinds of people he wanted to see punished, Baldwin name-dropped Weinstein, whom he described as “in a rehab hiding behind millions of dollars’ worth of lawyers.” “I want to see the people who really did something get convicted,” he said. “I want the people who wrong to be punished, but I don’t want to see innocent people get hurt either.” As for Hoffman, however, both he and Kelly appeared more skeptical of the accusations levied against him.

Baldwin even offered a possible explanation for the allegations, saying that “40 years ago, there was a kind of way that people had a sexualized bi-play. A kind of fooling around that was wrong.” He stressed this was “never an excuse,” but then went on to claim the older era’s attitude “seemed to be less problematic than it is now.” Which is weird, since it sounds awfully similar to the excuse Weinstein offered in his initial letter of apology.

 

Alec Baldwin Doubles Down On His ‘Grand Juries’ Criticism Of John Oliver With Megyn Kelly

[attica]

Well, Alec, sweetie, have a gander at This.

Edited December 9, 2017 by attica

[peeayebee]

Just sickening. The world these day is making me sick.

[snowwhyte]

[OneWhoLurks]

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Seven women who accused Dustin Hoffman of sexual misconduct have thanked British comedian John Oliver for confronting the Oscar-winning actor over the allegations and over Hoffman’s apology, which Oliver said “feels like a dismissal.”

The statement was posted to Twitter by Anna Graham Hunter, who in a guest column in The Hollywood Reporter, accused Hoffman of harassing her as a 17-year-old intern on the set of Death of a Salesman. The letter was signed by Wendy Riss Gatsiounis, Kathryn Rossetter, Melissa Kester and Cori Thomas and two anonymous women. “We want to thank you for confronting Dustin Hoffman,” the statement read. “While the questions you asked may not have lento the constructive conversation you hoped for, the fact that you asked them at all is what matters most.”

“Women can continue to tell our stories, but ultimately, change will depend on men reflecting on their own behavior and challenging other men to do the same,” the statement concludes.

 

Dustin Hoffman Accusers Thank John Oliver for Confronting Him Over Harassment Allegations

[OneWhoLurks]

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British comedian John Oliver rang in the new year with a Baltimore dining tour — chowing down at Hersh’s just after midnight and enjoying a New Year’s Day brunch at Alexander’s Tavern.

Hersh’s owner and chef Josh Hershkovitz said his longtime friend who works with major comedy tours brought Oliver and friends for a smorgasbord of food around 12:45 a.m. Monday. The “Last Week Tonight” host was in town for four shows at the Hippodrome Theatre.

“Generally, we’re not a party spot,” Hershkovitz said, adding that the South Baltimore restaurant typically closes at midnight on New Year’s Eve. But after hearing about the comedian, Hershkovitz immediately thought, for “John Oliver and his entourage — yeah, we can stay open for that.”

 

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“I was kicking myself after. I said something to the effect of ‘I’m your biggest fan.’ I love what he does. You don’t see a lot of comedy that riles you up,” said Hershkovitz, who said he explained to Oliver that sometimes he has to pause the show because he’s laughing so hard. “I don’t want to miss anything.”

Hershkovitz said the restaurant strives to be socially active, and the staff was honored to have Oliver as a guest.

“He’s a champion of ours. He’s pointing all sorts of stuff and getting people to stand up and take action. … That philosophically jives with us, too.”

 

Comedian John Oliver celebrates new year at Baltimore restaurants Hersh's, Alexander's Tavern

[OneWhoLurks]

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HBO has slotted Sunday, February 18 at 11 PM for the Season 5 premiere of Emmy-winning Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.

The series, which presents a satirical look at the week in news, politics and current events, as well as addressing broader issues, was previously renewed for an additional two seasons through 2020. The only weekly news-oriented comedy series to air on Sunday night, Last Week is taped in New York a few hours before it debuts on HBO and  features a mix of Oliver’s topical commentary and pre-taped pieces.

Last Week Tonight has received a total of eight Primetime Emmys since its 2015 premiere. In 2015, the show also was honored at the 21st Critics Choice Awards in the category of Best Talk Show, and received a Peabody Award, as well as Writers Guild Award in the category of Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series.

 

‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ Gets Season 5 Premiere Date On HBO – TCA

[Annber03]

Wow, I didn't really consider how many seasons the show's been on already-season 5? That's pretty cool. 

Good to have an official return date. I look forward to February 18th, then :D. 

[OneWhoLurks]

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The star of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” explained that during a USO performance, a soldier sat in the front row with his finger on the trigger of his gun during Oliver’s set.

“Does your finger have to be there? Does it have to be on the trigger right now?” Oliver recalled saying. “He looked up at me and said, ‘No,’ and left his finger on his trigger.”

 

John Oliver’s worst heckler experience

[Popples]

Season 5 trailer has dropped!!

 

This one just says "RUN".

[GHScorpiosRule]

1 minute ago, Popples said:

Season 5 trailer has dropped!!

 

 

This one just says "RUN".

It's hilarious!

[purist]

I love Ollie's ridiculous running action there at the end. Hee!

[OneWhoLurks]

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Gorman had been asked to help put together a new topical show, as he had previously  been script editor on the broadcaster’s previous attempt at the format, the much-maligned 11 O’Clock Show, and because he hosted the occasional segment for The Daily Show.

He turned down the approach from an independent production house, but told them: ‘My top tip would be to  hire John Oliver. I think he’s brilliant, he’s the only working comic on the circuit at the moment who’s got the gravitas and who is actually a satirist – actually doing proper satire rather than pointing out that particular politicians are ugly or fat or whatever…’

According to Gorman, the producers replied: ‘Yeah, we told Channel 4 that and they’re not interested. They said they didn’t like his voice.’

 

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Gorman mused: ‘So the Americans who do the show that Channel 4 were trying to copy had looked at everyone  in England and gone, "He’s the man." And when Channel 4 were trying to copy them, they couldn’t even copy that!

‘They could have had him do that show over here, had they the appetite for it, but someone at Channel 4 decided he had an Estuary accent they weren’t happy with.’

Oliver joined the Daily Show in July 2016, with Ricky Gervais also recommending him for the job.

 

Revealed: Why John Oliver had to go to America to find success

[OneWhoLurks]

[OneWhoLurks]

[OneWhoLurks]

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“I’m surprised he turned up in the first place,” Oliver said, noting that Hoffman had been honored the previous night at the Gotham Awards but elected to skip red carpet interviews. “It felt like he should have been aware that he was going to have to answer to this. … I’m staggered that he would think that I wouldn’t bring it up. I don’t know how little you would have to think of me.” Luck of the draw, not any kind of Mike Wallace tenacity, was the main driver. “The first person who got to talk to him was going to have to ask him the first questions about it,” Oliver said. “Unfortunately, that was me. But if it wasn’t, it was going to be someone else.” The reason the exchange lasted for an agonizing 20 minutes, he said, “was that his responses were pretty bad. I wanted to try get him to a point of self-reflection, to try to get something out of the conversation at all. That didn’t happen.”

During the hourlong morning media session ahead of the HBO series’ February 18 return, Oliver emphasized the intensity of the show’s research process, noting that the staff has maintained a steady in-office work clip during the show’s three-month “hiatus.” He declined to tease any of the show’s hefty main segments in detail, but said no major changes are planned to the look and feel of the show, which continues to avoid the ensemble-driven correspondent-and-anchor approach common to other satirical programs.

Asked how much cable news he has been watching, he said, “Far less than I used to,” when he was a correspondent on the Daily Show. “Journalism is not cable news. If it was, we’d all be f*cked.”

 

John Oliver On ‘Last Week Tonight’s’ 5th Season, His Dustin Hoffman Dust-Up And Whether He Is A Journalist
 

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Much in the media industry will change if the U.S. government approves AT&T’s pending $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc., but John Oliver insists his HBO series, “Last Week Tonight,” won’t be one of them.

“I do not anticipate the ground underneath us shifting,” Oliver told reporters at a press event Monday. “If it does, that’s going to be a problem. We’ll go down screaming.”

Oliver’s weekly HBO series, which returns for a new cycle this Sunday, has gained renown for its in-depth treatment of serious subjects – although it is ostensibly a comedy program. Among the topics Oliver and his team have explored in recent months are net neutrality; the Equifax security breach; corporate consolidation; and the effect the growing power that Sinclair Broadcast Group has on local news. It’s fair to assume that AT&T could have an interest in or an opinion on several of those subjects.

 

John Oliver Vows AT&T’s Buy of Time Warner Won’t Change ‘Last Week Tonight’

ETA:
 

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“It’s a bit of a sales job,” he said in an interview Monday, to lure viewers and only then demonstrate “the scale of the problem and the human collateral” in a way that keeps them from getting bored by the seemingly dry topics.

Over four seasons, “we’ve built up a certain amount of trust so that people, when we start talking about something, will think it’s worth listening to, even if we’re talking about flood insurance.”  Seven Emmy awards, 6 million cumulative viewers and many YouTube clips later, the British-born Oliver, 40, has succeeded, and the show recently was renewed through a seventh season in 2020.

 

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Also on his vacation calendar: A memorably tense (and quickly viral) December sitdown with Dustin Hoffman, at a panel promoting the 20th anniversary of political satire Wag the Dog, shortly after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced against the actor.  Things did not go well, especially after Hoffman quickly followed his mea culpa with a denial.

“He’d had his publicist-written tacit apology,” Oliver says, and “because that was a de facto admission of certain kinds of misbehavior, I felt you can’t step backwards from there, but that’s what he did.  To go from there to ‘this is all lies’ is the one thing I was not anticipating. Also, it’s in a room of his fans. It was not a fun evening.”

 

John Oliver on 'Last Week Tonight' return, and that infamous sitdown with Dustin Hoffman
 

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For Oliver, whose HBO political comedy show Last Week Tonight returns from hiatus on Sunday (Feb. 18), avoiding the 24-hour news cycle of American politics to focus on lesser known injustices around the world is nothing new. When the rest of the news media were covering the US president’s baseless accusation that his predecessor wiretapped Trump Tower, Oliver was discussing human rights in Tibet. When cable news reveled in the report that Trump’s secretary of state Rex Tillerson allegedly called the president “a moron,” Oliver was investigating the Equifax security breach that impacted 150 million Americans.

Rather than get sucked into the increasingly crazy antics of a presidency now in its second chaotic year, Oliver plans to double down on his commitment to spotlight global corruption—a tactic even more imperative at a time of American isolationism and xenophobia.

Such issues may be “pretty irrelevant in terms of the week [of news],” Oliver said, but nonetheless “extremely relevant in terms of the concept of being alive.”

 

John Oliver is staying sane by turning away from Trump's "fire hose of bullshit"
 

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“If we say to people, ‘Look, we’re going to talk about Sinclair Broadcasting,’” he suggested, “you’ll think, ‘Good, that’s a half-hour extra sleep I’ll have.’”

The show constantly has to weigh how much of the day-to-day actions of the Trump administration to address, both because he doesn’t want to change its formula, and since many topics are picked clean by daily topical comedy shows.

News, and the humor pulled out of it, moves so fast, he said, that programs like the “Late Show” had to go live after Trump’s State of the Union address because the jokes would seem stale 24 hours later.

 

Oliver relishes being able to do show without restrictions
 

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But there’s one issue the comedian is perfectly fine letting others handle: the legendary “Trump pee tape.” When asked whether the “Last Week Tonight” team is close to locating the alleged tape, Oliver replied:

We’re not that close. If I had it, I’d play it for you on my phone right now. Yeah, I don’t know. I will say we’ve not been looking. I think there are other people that really should be doing that.

That’s just one possible leak he’s not touching.

 

John Oliver Is Surprised Dustin Hoffman Didn’t Expect Harassment Questions
 

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He said: "I think that any time late night comedians are this prevalent in the national conversation, that's probably not a great sign of national health.

"If there's a canary in the coal mine it's choking at that point.

"When late night shows are just a side show, generally things are going better."

 

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"He is taking an axe to some pretty fundamental parts of American governance.

"What he's doing with the State Department is going to have ramifications for years after he has gone.

"There's a brain drain in government that is going to take generations to recover from."

 

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"If I told you the stories that we did last year ahead of us doing them, you wouldn't watch because it would sound terrible, so like if I'd said to you last year, 'we're going to talk about vaccines for thirty minutes', you wouldn't watch because no-one wants to see that s**t.

"So part of the process of our show is selling to people in the moment, once we've already got your attention, why it's worth listening to us talk about flood insurance for another 20 minutes.

"So yeah, the ingredients of our show are so objectively repulsive they don't really work as a tease."

British comedian John Oliver talks of Trump 'brain drain'

Edited February 14, 2018 by OneWhoLurks

[OneWhoLurks]

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So what about him, personally, then? That “everything is fine” poster telegraphs one mood about the current state of affairs. But how does he really feel about what’s going on? Does he have any hope?

“I feel some hope,” he says “You don’t want to feel too much hope, because you’d be crazy if you did. Too much optimism isn’t always a great idea. I realize that’s the most British thing I’ve said: ‘Too much optimism is a grand mistake.’”

After a quick break to laugh at himself, he continues: “But especially now, I would not assume that everything was going to be OK unless you actively made steps to make it that way. Too much hope can be an anesthetic. You want to know how much pain you’re in.”

 

How John Oliver Will Tackle Trump’s ‘Firehose of Bullshit’ on ‘Last Week Tonight’
 

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On this week’s installment of his Pandora podcast “Questlove Supreme,” Roots drummer and “Late Show” bandleader Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and his crew talk with “Daily Show” veteran and “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver, who speaks at length about the challenges of putting together topical comedy, about his first-ever trip to a Walmart and why it was his most profound cultural clash in coming to America, and perhaps most entertainingly, of how he ended up hosting “The Daily Show” for several weeks in 2013 when Jon Stewart went on hiatus to make the film “Rosewater.”

“It was terrifying,” Oliver recalled. “Because he called me and said, ‘I’ve got that movie I’ve been working on. I’m going to direct it.’ So I was kind of, ‘Oh, that’s nice’ — I didn’t see what was coming. I said, ‘Well, that’s an odd thing, to decide to call me– how many people are you calling today?’ And then he said, ‘So I’m going to be gone for a few months. Will you host the show?’ So I just said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do whatever you want.’ And then hung up the phone and went, ‘Oh, sh–!’ I just said yes because I would just say yes to anything he ever asked me. But I did not think about what I’d just said yes to until I put the phone down.”

 

Questlove Remembers His ‘Surreal’ Dinner With O.J. Simpson

Edited February 15, 2018 by OneWhoLurks

[BuyMoreAndSave]

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"If I told you the stories that we did last year ahead of us doing them, you wouldn't watch because it would sound terrible, so like if I'd said to you last year, 'we're going to talk about vaccines for thirty minutes', you wouldn't watch because no-one wants to see that s**t.

"So part of the process of our show is selling to people in the moment, once we've already got your attention, why it's worth listening to us talk about flood insurance for another 20 minutes.

"So yeah, the ingredients of our show are so objectively repulsive they don't really work as a tease."

I mean, maybe I'm a weirdo, but I find vaccines, flood insurance, and Sinclair Broadcasting to be fascinating topics. I even watched the entire Frontline episode on how the insurance companies profited from Hurricane Sandy that (IIRC) John Oliver based a lot of his episode on -- it's very good and with climate change, will make you think twice about buying a house if you haven't already.

(That's my one nitpick about John Oliver -- I love his show, but like half the episodes are pretty much a more succinct and humorous take on Frontline episodes, complete with including clips and quotes from the episodes themselves. I wish that he would present more original journalism, especially as I've seen most of those episodes already.)

[OneWhoLurks]

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I was absolutely in awe of what [Jimmy] Kimmel did [in talking about his infant son Billy's health] because it was so funny, so honest and something that I was physically incapable of doing. My wife had a really difficult pregnancy, my son was in intensive care for a while afterwards and it was very difficult and I just buried it.

When we did the piece about vaccines, I didn't want people to feel like I was just throwing information at them. I wanted to be sure there was some kind of emotional engagement in how scary it can be to have a child anyway. It felt like it was worthwhile ... [takes a deep breath] to kind of walk the walk as well as talk the talk and say look, not just that I had vaccinated my child but we vaccinated him despite the fact he didn't have an easy entry into the world. It wasn't easy to do, right? But it felt worthwhile because it was kind of acknowledging the vulnerability that you feel and yet you should cling to the stability of science on this.

It did not come naturally and it was not easy. But it's part of the reason why I personally found [Jimmy] Kimmel's thing so cathartic, aside from the broader points that he was making. I was in absolute awe of him doing that and being able to make it funny. It was immensely valuable for me to watch him render his emotions publicly because I hadn't really rendered them privately. I will forever be in awe of him. It was incredible to watch that.

 

John Oliver returns to 'Last Week Tonight,' talks Trump, Alec Baldwin and why he's in awe of Jimmy Kimmel

[Annber03]

Well said re: Kimmel. I think we need to hear more stories in general of how all these issues impact people on a personal level. Putting a human face on these topics makes them more real and immediate, and makes it easier to show why we should care. 

On a lighter note...

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"I realize the Westminster Dog Show is on today. The fact you're here and not there means a great deal,"

LOL :D.

Nice interview in general. I've been really enjoying the articles shared here lately, guys, thanks for posting them :). Looking forward to Sunday. 

[OneWhoLurks]

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He says, "It was not something that came remotely naturally" to him, but as with Kimmel, it put a human face on a potent issue. "It felt like, in a piece when we're trying to reach out to people's anxieties, it might be meaningful to say, 'I'm as panicked about everything as anyone is, but we did this.' ... It felt like there was a tangible value" to revealing his own family's struggle, "and the Jimmy Kimmel thing really solidified it in my mind. And it was personally very helpful to me watching him suffer publicly. And it was funny."

In a separate interview, Kimmel said he appreciated the compliment, and returned it.

"He definitely has taught me many, many things I did not know about in an entertaining way, and I think that's very valuable," Kimmel says. "It's the same reason they make medicine for children flavored like bubble gum. Sometimes it still tastes like medicine, and in John Oliver's case, it tastes like bubble gum."

 

How Jimmy Kimmel inspired John Oliver to share his own son's health scare

 

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A complaint I sometimes hear is that late-night shows have all become the same, too political and reflexively anti-Trump. Is it possible to do a topical comedy show anymore that doesn’t fit this description?

The idea that people are being turned off to the concept of comedy that’s on at night is kind of absurd to me. I wouldn’t make it a general argument. We’re just tending our own garden. We were doing this kind of show before the Trump presidency, even before the Trump candidacy, and hopefully we’ll be doing it after he’s gone, whether that’s in four, eight, 12 or 16 years.

It can take several weeks to research and produce the segments for your show. How do you keep them timely?

A lot of the segments don’t feel that timely, really. I don’t know if anyone watches a comedy show going, “It’s crazy that they didn’t talk about Sinclair Broadcast Group enough.” That’s the problem with letting a Trump presidency cannibalize everything — those things are happening. It’s sometimes harder to detect because they’re throwing out so many verbal smoke bombs, it can obfuscate some very important things that are happening behind them.

 

 

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Does a moment like that start to blur the line between your identity on the show and in real life — now you have to be a radical truth-teller in all situations?

I don’t think that was radical truth-telling, by any stretch of hyperbole. That was just asking some basic questions that had to be asked and then not backing down when the answers were bad. Where it intersects with this show is — it doesn’t, really. People are more than one thing. I don’t know if I subscribe to the idea that, because you take a stand on one issue, you must take a stand on all others. That feels absurd.

Are you getting fewer invitations to moderate these types of events?

I will say, I had almost no invitations beforehand, and I’m anticipating rolling snake eyes for the rest of my life. I’ve just freed up many evenings for myself in the future. That’s how you get rewarded for moments like that.

 

While ‘Last Week Tonight’ Was Away, John Oliver Was Busy
 

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Despite the jokes, a soon-to-be published study finds that Oliver’s work sways the opinion of people who watch him. One of the segments that brought Oliver to wider renown was an 11-minute examination of so-called “net neutrality,” or a policy that holds online service providers should offer equal access to all content and applications, no matter their origin. Researchers working with the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication found in 2015 that people who watched “Last Week Tonight” were moved more by Oliver’s program to support net neutrality protections than by any other mainstream media source, says Dannagal Young, an associate professor of communications who took part in the analysis.

“Exposure to his show had the strongest impact of all of the news media outlets we asked about,” says Young. “We did not find any effects of exposure to CNN, MSNBC, newspapers – none of those things were related to public opinion on net neutrality.”

 

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Oliver’s protests sound a lot like the introduction to Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” in which a narrator tells readers: “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”

That book, one of the most seminal works in American literature, does contain a motive, a moral and a plot – just as Oliver’s work serves some journalistic function. In the end, it’s up to the audience. In these days of social-media opinion being taken as the equivalent of hard, cold fact, if some people believe John Oliver’s a journalist, he might as well be one – no matter how regularly he protests.

 

And Now This: John Oliver Just Might Be a Journalist

Edited February 18, 2018 by OneWhoLurks

[OneWhoLurks]

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“Watching John Oliver repeatedly say ‘we’ & ‘us’ when discussing America is comical. Mate, you were born in the Midlands to a pair of Liverpudlian parents & speak in a thick Brummie accent,” Morgan wrote. “You’re about as American as cricket & mushy peas, you shameless old fraud!”

Piers Morgan Rips ‘Shameless Old Fraud’ John Oliver

[cpcathy]

Shut up, Piers. John SAYS in the episode he is an immigrant and he loves his adopted country.

[OneWhoLurks]

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From a distance of several months, Oliver said he still couldn’t believe that Hoffman — who told Oliver that night “it’s shocking to me you don’t see me more clearly” — was unwilling to engage in any soul-searching.

“Many men have followed [the #MeToo movement] and thought about things they’ve seen in the workplace or things they’ve said or done in the workplace. If you’re not being self-reflective this is just passing you by,” Oliver said. “And I was genuinely shocked by the lack of any kind of self-reflection on Hoffman’s part.”

 

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“It was more fun to sit where you were sitting,” he said to a reporter who was in the audience that day. “And you had no fun at all.”

Oliver continued: “I was very aware the conversation was happening before the movie [screening],” giving him a reason to wrap up quickly so people could watch the film. When it didn’t, he felt the audience had turned its ire on him, since many present were presumably fans of the movie and its star.

 

John Oliver says he was highly uncomfortable grilling Dustin Hoffman and thought most of the audience was against him
 

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'Allow me to explain how America works: We are more than just that place in which you suffered a humiliating career failure,' wrote Zuker. 

'We are a country of immigrants. When you’re done pud chugging Trump you should read up on us!'

Morgan quickly responded to that tweet by stating: 'Danny Zuker Allow ME to explain something: 'Modern Family sucks - I have laughed more at funerals.'

 

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He then tried to calm down those who seemed to be particularly offended about the tweet by writing: 'We Brits (and @IAMJohnOliver is most definitely British.. ) love taking the p*** out of each other - relax. It’s only Americans (and @IAmJohnOliver is most definitely not American) who go nuts about it.'

Morgan then managed to close out his case by posting a Rolling Stone interview in which olicer, who is married to an American woman and has an American child and green card said he was 'British.'

'I rest my case,' wrote Morgan.

 

Piers Morgan rips 'shameless fraud' John Oliver and tells Modern Family producer his show 'sucks' in ongoing Twitter debate over US citizenship

Edited February 23, 2018 by OneWhoLurks

[possibilities]

Piers Morgan calling someone else a shameless old fraud is one of the most ridiculous cases of rank projection ever.

[BetterButter]

Judge dismisses coal mogul’s defamation lawsuit against John Oliver

[purist]

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If Jon Stewart, Oliver’s mentor, is urbane and unruffleable, with a comic style that involves a lot of leaning back in his chair, Oliver is the guy who leans feverishly forward, to whom we look for the “holy shit” reaction shot. It’s a tricky tone to nail given that Oliver is, to some extent, still a man with a British accent poking fun at another country.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of go-back-to-where-you-came-from,” he says. “Although that’s so reductive, to think that a single accent dictates whether you can talk about something or not. I think it’s what’s underneath that accent – the intent – which can either be jarring to people or reassuring. It was clear pretty early on that I was coming from a place of emotional investment, and was increasingly saying ‘we’ rather than ‘you’. When I started at The Daily Show, it was often ‘you’ this, ‘you’ that, because it was a simple outsider eye, making fun of something. And that shifted, because I stopped feeling as dislocated. Now I would always say ‘we’ when talking about America.”

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“As a kid I loved doing plays,” he says. “That’s how I got into it. And as soon as I started doing comedy, that overrode all things, but I’m” – he whispers it – “not a great actor.” He hoots with laughter. “I can act as long as the character is me with a different name. I did that NBC show Community and it was just me. I’m doing the voice of the bird in the [new movie of] The Lion King and it’s going to be me. It’s me. As a bird.”

John Oliver: ‘I’m used to audiences not liking me’ (really good article from The Guardian)

Edited February 25, 2018 by purist

[ahisma]

22 hours ago, BetterButter said:

Judge dismisses coal mogul’s defamation lawsuit against John Oliver

I cannot believe this idiot is going to appeal. What a moron. Are his lawyers not on salary/retainer, and believe they have found a gravy train? 

[biakbiak]

On 2/24/2018 at 6:44 PM, ahisma said:

I cannot believe this idiot is going to appeal. What a moron. Are his lawyers not on salary/retainer, and believe they have found a gravy train? 

He is the gravy train, part of his revenge in these ridiculous lawsuits is making the defendents spend money. 

[ahisma]

In a battle between the coal industry and the entertainment industry, I'm going to bet HBO's pockets are way deeper.

[OneWhoLurks]

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In 2014, Ashton joined up with Craig Antico, who also worked in debt collections, to form RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit organization, which focuses on buying and forgiving medical debt.

Their effort went slowly at first. “The first couple of years our wives were wondering why we were going into debt to get other people out of debt,” he said. “We were struggling.”

“If it had not been for John,” he said, “we would be standing on a street corner with a paper cup.”

 

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Soon others, inspired by Oliver, contacted RIP Medical Debt. Some donated anonymously—some very publicly.

Last June, the Minnesota Nurses Association announced they had purchased the medical debt of 1,800 Minnesotan families worth $2.6 million via RIP Medical Debt, paying just $28,000 to collection brokers.

“We’d had many discussions about how to repay the community for what they gave nurses during the strike [in 2016 against Allina Health],” Mary Turner, the association president, said in a statement announcing the debt buy-out. “The John Oliver show inspired us, and we decided to see if we could do the same thing.”

 

TV Stations Follow John Oliver’s Lead in the Movement to Forgive Medical Debt

[trow125]

From Mediaite:

NRA TV is not going to take John Oliver‘s treatment of it lying down.

Oh, no. They took to Twitter to give them a piece of their minds after Oliver called them “the dumbest, most transparent thing [the NRA] does” and simply “a vessel to sell America guns.”

[Annber03]

Of course they'd complain. *Rolls eyes*

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First of all, the shirt didn’t make John Oliver cry. 

Was gonna say, I have no memory of that happening, either. 

And seriously, if an organization's best response to a segment on a comedy show, a segment that provided valid critiques of the organization, is making obviously erroneous claims like the above and being all, "LOL socialist tears", then frankly, they deserve to be mocked. Grow the hell up and get over yourselves, guys. 

[OneWhoLurks]

 

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John Oliver jokes that his satirical news show, HBO's Last Week Tonight, does a 22-minute deep dive on news that "no one in their right mind wants to hear about." In recent weeks, the show has covered, among other things, the Italian parliamentary elections and NRA TV, an Internet channel with NRA programming.

"We like the idea of not just regurgitating stuff people have already seen," Oliver says. "The truth is, if you dig deep enough on anything, everything is interesting. So you just have to get to the point of a story where it becomes fascinating."

Oliver, who first became known as a correspondent on The Daily Show, started his HBO show in 2014. He describes the style of his long-form, heavily researched segments as "the slowest improv you've ever seen."

 

John Oliver Finds Humor In The News No One Wants To Hear About

Edited March 9, 2018 by OneWhoLurks