According to a document obtained by
Vice, the military government of Thailand listed Oliver as "
undermining the royal institution" for calling Crown Prince
Vajiralongkorn a "buffoon" and an "idiot". During the June 17, 2018, episode, Oliver spoke at length about
Xi Jinping,
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, in part criticizing his
censorship of Chinese media, his dictatorship and consolidation of power. Both "John Oliver" and "Last Week Tonight" were blocked from Chinese social media platform
Sina Weibo immediately following the segment. The HBO website and content from the network were also blocked, although
Last Week Tonight had already been excluded from
HBO Asia.
John Oliver effect On several occasions, show segments on major societal issues, such as the "Chickens" or "Bail" segments, were soon followed by real-world change and action on said issues by the public, policymakers and/or other institutions. Several media outlets, noticing this pattern, suggested that attention from the show had instigated these changes, going so far as to dub the phenomenon the "John Oliver Effect". A
June 2014 segment about
net neutrality in the United States was thought to spur over 45,000 comments on the
Federal Communications Commission's electronic filing page about a net neutrality proposal that, if implemented, would have priority "lanes" for certain internet traffic. The FCC also received an extra 300,000 comments in an email inbox designated specifically for the proposal. It was thought that Oliver's segment had a major role in the FCC's ultimate reversal of stance on that proposal, with the FCC instead implementing net-neutrality rules that prohibited priority "lanes". A sequel in 2017 inspired over 150,000 comments on a subsequent proposal to scrap the new net neutrality rules. In a segment about
public defenders and how some offices are extremely underfunded, the New Orleans Public Defense office's crowdfunding efforts to improve their conditions were featured. In the days following the episode's broadcast, thousands of dollars were donated to the office by the show's fans, helping them reach their goal four days after the show aired. Oliver himself does not believe the effect to be real and has openly ridiculed the idea on the show, even calling the term "completely meaningless".
Tobacco "Tobacco" is a segment about the tobacco industry, which aired on February 15, 2015, as part of the second episode of the second season. During the eighteen-minute segment, Oliver discusses tobacco industry trends and practices. He also introduces Jeff the Diseased Lung, a mascot he created for the American global cigarette and tobacco company
Philip Morris International, the makers of
Marlboro brand of cigarettes. The anthropomorphic diseased lung, who smokes and coughs, has been compared to Joe Camel and the
Marlboro Man. Oliver and his team promoted the cartoon character by sending shirts with Jeff's image to
Togo and displaying billboards in Uruguay, and by encouraging use of the hashtag #JeffWeCan, which trended on Twitter following the broadcast. The segment received widespread media coverage, with several outlets praising Oliver's ability to launch successful marketing campaigns and change perceptions about smoking through the creation of the mascot. The mascot later made an appearance at a protest organized by the "Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids" in New York City in May 2015. Philip Morris International issued a response to the segment, stating that it included "many mischaracterizations" of the company.
Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption In August 2015, Oliver hired a professional tax lawyer for his "Televangelists" segment to set up a church called
Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption as a legal entity. He did this partly as a way to demonstrate how "disturbingly easy" it is, in terms of paperwork, to set up a tax-exempt religious organization as viewed by the
Internal Revenue Service. As Oliver explained, the requirements needed to be defined as a "church" are quite broad. Since regulatory guidelines require an established location for a church, Oliver chose his studio location in New York City as its official location, although he registered the nonprofit organization in the state of Texas. Oliver's "
megachurch" had a toll-free phone number which allowed callers to donate to the church, and said that any money collected would be redistributed to the charitable relief organization
Doctors Without Borders. Oliver announced the formation of his church on the episode of the show that aired on August 16, 2015. Matt Wilstein, writing for
Mediaite, saw Oliver's stunt as being along the same lines as comedian
Stephen Colbert's setting up of a 501(c)(4) organization
Colbert Super PACas a way to "test the absurd limits of the Supreme Court's
Citizens United decision"; Oliver's megachurch, in contrast, is a way to test whether the IRS might view his "megachurch" as a tax-exempt organization. Leonardo Blair, writing for
Christian Post, described Oliver's segment as a "brutal takedown" of televangelists and churches which preach "the
prosperity gospel," a message that dupes people into thinking that cash donations will solve medical or financial problems, while in fact the donations go to the personal aggrandizement of televangelists who buy expensive jets or large mansions. A week later, on the following episode, Oliver devoted a short segment to the donations the church had received, which included money from around the world. Oliver said he had received "thousands of envelopes with thousands of dollars" from donors. Displayed were several US Post Office containers full of mail. Oliver told viewers that the more money they sent in, the more "blessings" would be returned to them, adding that "that is still something I'mamazinglylegally allowed to say." Oliver announced that the Church would be shutting down during his show on September 13, 2015. All monetary donations have been forwarded to Doctors Without Borders.
Donald Trump "Donald Trump" is a segment discussing American businessman Donald Trump. It aired on February 28, 2016, as part of the third episode of the third season. During the 22-minute segment, Oliver discusses
Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and his long career in business. He also reveals that the Trump family name was changed at one point from the ancestral name 'Drumpf'. Although the changing of names was once a common practice among many non-English immigrants to the United States, the segment popularized the term "Donald Drumpf" and started a campaign urging viewers to "Make Donald Drumpf Again," a play on Trump's own campaign slogan, "
Make America Great Again." The segment garnered more than 85 million views on Facebook and YouTube combined which, an HBO spokesman has said, "is a record for any piece of HBO content." Throughout the
2016 presidential election and following
Trump's inauguration, Oliver made additional segments regarding Trump.
Debt buyers "Debt Buyers" is a segment discussing the business and questionable practice of
debt buyers. It aired on June 5, 2016, as part of the fourteenth episode of the third season. Oliver announced he had purchased nearly $15 million in medical debt that belonged to 9,000 debtors. He did this through a company he had created, called "Central Asset Recovery Professionals Inc." (CARP), which he described as being "for
the bottom-feeding fish". Oliver stated that it was "pretty clear by now [that] debt buying is a grimy business, and badly needs more oversight" and went to point out that starting such a business was "disturbingly easy." It cost him $50 to register the business in Mississippi, while it cost less than $60,000 to purchase almost $15 million in bad debt, medical debt from Texas. Oliver forgave the debt in its entirety, and claimed that it was the largest single giveaway in American television history, eclipsing that of
General Motors on
The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2004 where it gifted cars to Winfrey's studio audience, worth an estimated $8 million in total. Writing for
Slate, Jordan Weissmann disputed the $15 million figure: "[Oliver] says CARP paid around $60,000 ... for its paper, which was 'out-of-statute'meaning the debts were so old that creditors technically couldn't even sue over them anymore. That suggests the seller thought the debts were worth no more than, well, $60,000." The show partnered with
RIP Medical Debt, Inc. to abolish the debt.
A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo On March 18, 2018, Oliver announced the publication of a children's book,
A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, which parodies a book that
Mike Pence's family wrote about their family rabbit,
Marlon Bundo. Oliver used his book as a platform to criticize Pence's positions on LGBT issues, as it featured a rabbit in a same-sex relationship. The book became the number-one book and e-book on
Amazon the next day, and the top-selling audiobook on
Audible.
Russell Crowe's jockstrap Russell Crowe's jockstrap was purchased by the
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver staff and then donated to a Blockbuster Video shop. The jockstrap reappeared in a skit in the final episode of the 2018 season of the show.
Guinness World Records The main story of the August 11, 2019, episode was
Turkmenistan and its autocratic leader
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow. The last portion of the segment centered around Berdimuhamedow's obsession with
Guinness World Records, with the Turkmen capital of
Ashgabat being home to the most buildings with white marble cladding, the largest indoor
Ferris wheel, and the largest statue of a horse's head, among others. Oliver found that
Guinness World Records received sums of money ranging from US$12,000 to US$500,000 from companies and authoritarian nations to set records for publicity. He ended the show with a 600 square foot marble cake adorned with a picture of Berdimuhamedow falling from a horse; he had requested a Guinness adjudicator to certify it as the world's largest marble cake, a record previously set by
Betty Crocker in Saudi Arabia in 2017. Guinness refused, stating that because their brand was "aligned with kids and families", they would not send an adjudicator; Oliver mockingly commented that he did not "run a brutal enough dictatorship to meet Guinness World Records' high ethical standards". Oliver claimed that Guinness offered to certify it after the fact only if he signed an agreement not to criticize their practices on the show, which Oliver dismissed as "ridiculous". Guinness called Oliver's allegations "false and unfair", claiming that they did not send an adjudicator because they felt the cake was specifically for the purpose of mocking a record holder, stating it was their policy "not to partake in any activities which may belittle their achievements or subject them to ridicule".
Narendra Modi John Oliver extensively satirized Indian prime minister
Narendra Modi in a segment which was broadcast on February 23, 2020, calling him a "temporary symbol of hate". This was during a visit of US president
Donald Trump to India, and in
an organized rally that coincided with
large-scale violence in Delhi. He criticized Modi's "increasingly controversial reputation and
widespread protests against his government's citizenship measures", as well as the
BJP's condoning of widespread
violence against Muslims in India. Oliver addressed the censorship in the March 8, 2020, episode, also noting that since the acquisition of Hotstar by
The Walt Disney Company (which occurred as part of its
acquisition of 21st Century Fox), Hotstar had begun to censor jokes regarding Disney characters from the program, such as his "factually-accurate" claim that
Donald Duck had a
corkscrew penis.
Danbury, Connecticut John Oliver satirized the city of
Danbury, Connecticut on a broadcast that aired on August 16, 2020, by making fun of the general quaintness of the town, starting a feud with the town that would last a few weeks, involving the Mayor of Danbury
Mark Boughton, the city's hockey team called
Danbury Hat Tricks, and other various content creators in Danbury. The mayor of Danbury, in response, revealed that they would rename their sewer plant, which makes up more than 80% of their $127 million budget, the "John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant", saying "it's full of crap, just like you [John Oliver]". The mayor reneged on this statement later in the week, claiming it was a joke, but after John Oliver offered $55,000 to local charities on a broadcast that aired on August 30, 2020, in exchange for the sewage plant actually being named after him, Danbury accepted the offer.
Bird of the Century vote In 2023, the New Zealand conservation group
Forest & Bird ran its annual
Bird of the Year vote, renamed to the Bird of the Century vote to coincide with the 100-year celebration of Forest & Bird. John Oliver ran an extensive campaign for the
pūteketeke, during which he promoted the bird on his own show, dressed up as the bird in his interview with
Jimmy Fallon on
his show, and placed billboard ads across the globe, including in
Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo, Mumbai, and
Champs-Élysées, Paris. Mobile ads were also placed on a truck driving around
Westminster, London, encouraging participants to 'crown a real king'. A banner was also placed at the back of a plane which flew over the beaches in
Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. The pūteketeke ended up winning by a landslide, with 83% of the vote.
Clarence Thomas offer Amidst allegations that justices of the
Supreme Court of the United States, including
Clarence Thomas and
Samuel Alito, received gifts, meals, and vacations from right-wing billionaires and failed to disclose them, Oliver ran a segment on his show on the Supreme Court and the scandal. The piece was highly critical of the Supreme Court's supposedly unenforceable and weak ethics code. In particular, the show was critical of Thomas. At the end of the segment, Oliver offered Thomas rewards, including an
RV and $1,000,000 per year until either Thomas's or Oliver's death, if he resigned from the Supreme Court. According to experts that Oliver had consulted before the segment's airing, the proposal was "somehow legal". Other legal experts opined that it would be unlikely Oliver would be prosecuted for bribery because the offer was not made "corruptly" nor attempted to influence an "official act".
SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes John Oliver was very vocal during the
SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, voicing his support for actors, actresses and writers across the board. He pushed for fair compensation and better working conditions, and used his platform to highlight the inequalities faced by writers and actors. During the strike,
Last Week Tonight went on hiatus (for many months). This enabled both Oliver and the writing staff to help participate in the strike, as his absence from TV was a statement in itself. He has stated many times that he believes in collective action, and backed it up with numerous statements and appearances (both before, during and after the strike) in support of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. Taking a break this long challenged the production team, but they deemed it necessary. Oliver teamed with several other late night hosts for the podcast
Strike Force Five, which raised money for the staff of the shows while production was halted.
Defamation lawsuits against the show Coal mining and Bob Murray On June 18, 2017,
Last Week Tonights main segment was about coal mining and
Bob Murray. In his segment, Oliver talked about safety conditions inside coal mines, specifically the 2007
Crandall Canyon Mine collapse, which killed six miners. Oliver criticized Murray for claiming the collapse was caused by an earthquake, despite all evidence demonstrating otherwise. The show ended with a costumed squirrel named "Mr. Nutterbutter", portrayed by
Noel MacNeal, offering Murray with an oversized check for "3 acorns and 18 cents" with the phrase "Eat Shit, Bob" in response to Murray's company presenting its employees with low sums of money as bonusesto which many retaliated by returning the checks, including one who returned theirs with that exact phrase written on itand in reference to a claim that Murray supposedly got the idea to start his company from a talking squirrel. On June 22, Bob Murray presented a lawsuit against Oliver, HBO, and
Time Warner for defamation. HBO believed
Last Week Tonight had done nothing wrong, with a
First Amendment lawyer describing the lawsuit as "frivolous." After Murray's appeal to the
West Virginia Supreme Court was delayed due to the
impeachment of its judges, Murray offered to drop the charges and HBO accepted. On November 10, 2019, Oliver discussed the case in a segment about
SLAPP suits, revealing that the suit cost HBO $200,000 in legal costs and tripled the show's libel insurance fees. Oliver acknowledged that, despite the segment being vetted, the content would likely lead to another lawsuit, and that he would stand behind his team if it were to happen.
Brian Morley Almost a year after the broadcast of the April 2024 episode in which the main segment was about
Medicaid, former medical director of
AmeriHealth Caritas Brian Morley sued Oliver and his production company, Partially Important Productions, claiming
defamation for "knowingly manipulat[ing] the context" under which Morley's testimony was presented in the episode. == Notes ==