Funny / Last Week Tonight With John Oliver Season Eight

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• "The Next Pandemic":
  • Before the main segment, John talks about the promotion Arizona Republican Party used to promote their agenda: Rambo's speech at Rambo IV ("Live for nothing, or die for something."). John is taken aback by this not because of how absurd the quote is, but because there are plenty of other quotes from other Sylvester Stallone characters that are better by a mile. Cue John listing several iconic quotes from other Stallone characters no matter how outlandish they seem.
  • At the start of the segment, John brings up how the next pandemic could come from any virus, demonstrating with a CGI virus which takes John's statement as words of encouragement and goes off to start infecting people. At the end of the episode, it comes back to start gloating about everything it's going to do and how John's going to get blamed for it.
  • When discussing chillingly foreshadowing footage from 2016 of a virus expert discussing the infection dangers of a bat cave in China frequented by tourists and how it could very likely cause a future pandemic, John questions who even thought it was a good idea to make a "walk-in bat toilet" a tourist attraction in the first place.
    John: That might be the worst tourist attraction since Disneyland put Johnny Depp animatronics in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Come on, Disney! There's kids here! They're here to watch some jolly nautical rapists and thieves! Not a weird, sad millionaire doing a B+ Keith Richards.
  • To demonstrate how new pathogens are spread by the destruction of wild habitats, John plays several clips of scientists explaining how much of the world's landmass has been pushed aside for human development. He then states that while some of this has been necessary, in many cases it's been to make room for things that are completely unneeded, like Salt Lake City.
• The segment on police raids opens with John remembering cop shows... including Cop Rock. Not only he has to point out the "musical police procedural" was a real failed show, but he makes sure to play a song sung by a child trafficker thrice during the episode!
• "Unemployment":
  • At the start of the segment, John engages in a little more Biting-the-Hand Humor:
  John: Unemployment: The thing that would absolutely happen to me, if AT&T executives found out what I have been saying about them. But on the other hand, what are they gonna do? Look up it up online? How? With their internet plan? And then what? Call someone? Using AT&T? I think I'm fine.
  • John opens the story with a Sesame Street clip wherein Elmo's mother is revealed to have lost her job, and she assures Elmo that it's not his fault; John questions if this is true, since Elmo's home seems like a bit of a stretch for a limited budget. At the end of the episode, John states that all the problems he's mentioned over the course of the segment are no one's fault... except maybe Elmo's.
• When discussing how a sports stadium is reopening for business, John mentions how it's made a habit of having screens depicting a CGI hand sanitizer bottle spraying all over attendees, which looks strikingly like it's ejaculating all over them. And then a couple of times throughout the episode, a similar CGI bottle appears over John and sprays over him, to his disgust.
  John: I feel dirtier now!
• John ridicules the Democratic Party for promoting their Covid-19 stimulus bill in an ad using the "cue card" scene from Love Actually, which he finds incredibly misguided for several reasons:
  John: No. There is simply no thematic or conceptual reason to use that scene. Start with the fact that the video was posted on March 10th, and depending on which direction you’re going, that’s either 290 days before, or 75 days after Christmas. Also, why would either of these people care about the stimulus bill? They live in London! And who are they even meant to represent in regards to it? Are we supposed to be Keira Knightley? Is this guy Nancy Pelosi? And if so, who is the husband in the other room we’re supposed to be hiding this interaction from? I mean, yeah, I’m pretty confident the elected official hounding a staffer is Andrew Cuomo, but other than that, nothing makes sense here.
• "The National Debt":
  • John revealing that the son of the man behind the Times Square debt clock is Robert Durst. Yes, THAT Robert Durst.
  • John replays Fox News reporter John Stossel's fear-mongering segment of Greek riots as a reaction to the Duke not returning on Bridgerton.
  • John buys a Nicolas Cage pillow where he's nude in a banana with two wolves around him. He later reveals he bought a second one:
    John: I was worried that my wife would get jealous, so this one is to replace my wife.
  • John's reaction to Ted Cruz summarizing the GOP's hypocrisy when it comes to the national debt and trying to deflect it:
    John: I do not like that man Ted Cruz, I do not like his far-right views. I do not like him in these reeds, I do not like him when he feeds. I do not like him by a wall, I do not like this shit at all. I do not like him as Santa's elf, that man Ted Cruz can go fuck himself.
• Vaccine hesitancy:
  • John saying one of few side effects he had after the second shot was being a "boss ass bitch", a Call-Back to a video earlier in the episode.
  • After showing a lame "get vaccinated" PSA from Lousiana Senator John N. Kennedy, John says that's the worst thing to come out of a Kennedy's mouth since the back of a Kennedy's head.
  • John goes on an absurd and strangely tranquil tangent about how comfortable it would be to live inside an egg, yolk included, whether the egg is giant or he's shrunken down. Even odder, he's saying this as an example of something Bill Gates wouldn't tell his then-wife.
• John's reaction to seeing that the White Void Room in Mortal Kombat (2021) looks just like the one the show's used throughout the pandemic.
  John: What the fuck? The void is taking other jobs now? Although it’s clearly been the Breakout Character of this show in the last year, so I shouldn’t really be surprised it’s doing cameos elsewhere on HBO Max. It is so white and depressing, I genuinely confused it for Mare of Easttown.
• In the Stand Your Ground segment, John points out that NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer (largely credited for the adoption of Stand Your Ground laws across the United States) also once helped kill a petition to make the scrub jay the state bird of Florida partially on the grounds that "I don't think scrub jays can even sing."
  John: Scrub jays can't sing? You might want to tell that to the scrub jay, Marion!
  [plays a clip of a scrub jay chirping with no particular melody]
  John: See? That's fine! Is it great? No, it's not great. It's fine. It is perfectly fine. Sure, the bird is no Mariah, but it's also no Roseanne. If that bird is anyone, it's Fergie. You heard me, the scrub jay is Fergie. Tweet it, talk it, put it in your pocket, I've made a flimsy take and I'm proud of it.
• Sponsored Content:
  • A real newscast from New York:
    Sue Simmons: At eleven, pay more at the grocer, but getting less. We'll tell you how to get the most. (over footage of a cruise liner) The fuck are you doing?!
  • John shows an old newscast from the 1960's where it awkwardly cuts from a teaser to a story about a race crime to an ad where an actor looks a little too excited about a ham he's sponsoring.
    John: ...A man who is, no matter what he says, definitely fucking that ham.
  • John is grossed out by a man's hand gesture that looks like fondling balls.
    John: That is unnecessarily gross. This isn't how you represent "cake and icing"; this is how you bring a mash's ham to orgasm. You give it the old wiggle and squeeze and then a twist and a snap.
• The Cheerios saga: In a week the show was off, they released a web-exclusive about cereal in which John issued Cheerios a challenge to tweet "Fuck you" on their official account in return for him donating $50,000 to a charity of their choice. Cheerios tweeted back a counter-challenge (since they refused to drop an F-bomb, stating they're a family-friendly brand) to tweet "Families make good go round". The Last Week Tonight account obliged, posting photos of the Manson family, Menendez brothers and a plaque reading "the Sackler Wing", before acknowledging all their photos were of murderers and tweeting "Fuck you" to a random Twitter user AlexPon21.
• Asian-Americans:
  • John notes that a poll asking Americans to name a famous Asian-American resulted in the majority (42%) saying they didn't know one, followed by 11% saying Jackie Chan (who's actually from Hong Kong) and 9% mentioning Bruce Lee (who's been dead since 1973). John notes that this is particularly embarrassing since the poll was conducted while Kamala Harris, who's Asian-American,^note (being born from an Indian mother) was U.S. vice president, saying that it would be like asking Americans to name a famous Joe and getting back 72% asking "Who's Joe?", 17% saying John Krasinski, and 11% Joe Millionaire.
  • When discussing the Chinese Exclusion Act, John notes a poster announcing its passing reading at the top "Hip! Hurrah!" followed in the middle by "Hip! Hurrah! The White Man is on Top." John claims that it's redundant.
    John: If you said "Hip! Hurrah!" twice, you really don't need to say "The White Man is on Top." It's like saying "Blue Lives Matter" or "Welcome to Carrie Bradshaw's bedroom"; the "white man on top" part is very much implied.
  • After showing a clip about how America's fear of the economic ascent of Japan in The '80s led people in Detroit organize contests in which they smashed Japanese cars, John is not impressed.
    John: Wow, that's stupid. I honestly can't think of a single good reason to beat up a car, except maybe if Lightning McQueen owes you money, and to be honest, even then, if you really want to hurt him, you don't beat him with a sledgehammer; you light Mater on fire and you make him watch, that's what you do, everybody knows that. Where's my fucking money, McQueen!
• 2021 NYC Mayoral election:
  • When discussing how this is the first election since New York started using Ranked Choice Voting, John plays a clip of Bill De Blasio explaining the system using the metaphor of ranking your favorite pizza toppings. John lambastes De Blasio for the ridiculous nature of this explanation, then going on a rant about De Blasio's first topping choices being green peppers and onions.
  • After showing a clip of Eric Adams giving a tour of his apartment to the media in order to prove he's a NYC resident, John dissects the appearance of the apartment compared to past views of it Adams has posted on social media, stating that it looks more like Adams' son lives there and Adams himself doesn't.
  • John notes that being ridiculous seems like a key way to getting elected Mayor of New York, bringing up Rudy Giuliani ("9/11 Nosferatu"), Mike Bloomberg ("Billionaire elf"), and De Blasio (reiterating the bizarre pizza topping metaphor).
• The episode about Health Care Sharing Ministries ends with the return of Rachel Dratch as Wanda Jo Oliver to promote the Our Lady of Perpetual Health church, a spinoff of Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption, and its own HCSM, JohnnyCare.
• John opens the July 25th episode with an announcement that the show is a few weeks away from being able to leave the white void and return to their old studio. Cue an animated face appearing in the void, revealing it to be alive and grateful to get rid of John, who comments on how odd it is that the void hasn't made its presence known for the last year and a half he's been there. The void says that it's because it doesn't find John funny.
• In the third segment on Opiods, John notes the Sackler family opened a site called judgeforyourselves.info to spread propaganda on how they're not killing people. John is aghast at the fact this multi-billion dollar empire didn't even pay to get judgeforyourselves.com, and it was only $2,500. So of course, this meant John swooped in and bought the URL himself. It goes to a video of Richard Kind reprising his role as Richard Sackler from the last segment, and provides info and evidence that Purdue Pharma is responsible for a massive number of deaths.
• In "Afghanistan", the blank white void where John's been filming—which has turned out to be sentient, with animated eyes and a mouth—is disappointed that John isn't going to have a bigger, more elaborate sendoff to the void now that he's going back to his old studio. When John walks off-camera, the void begins to sing "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables", making pointed jabs at John, who grows increasingly exasperated. When he finishes, the void very quickly adds "Queen Elizabeth had Princess Diana murdered", and John cries out a Rapid-Fire "No!" as he runs back into frame, knocking over one of the stage lights as the episode cuts to black.
• On the Texas abortion ban:
  • John notes that the ban is such a huge piece of news that even TMZ, of all people, covered it.
    John: What the fuck?! Congratulations Texas, I think you just broke TMZ! They shouldn't be having to be covering this story, they should be doing what they do best: Gather around in a circle of America's worst bachelor and bachelorette party attendants, while Harvey [Levin] hydrates from a large container, and they all dissect something like whether or not Katherine Heigl's dog got butt implants! You know, what they're good at!
  • John then follows that joke by saying that, if TMZ is doing his job, he'll get to do theirs, showing a picture of abs and asking his (newly-returned) audience to identify "which hot Hollywood hunk has these summer-ready abs."
    John: And guys? [produces a large container and drinks from it] Guys? It's Wallace Shawn.
    [shows Shawn's head photoshopped into the abs' body]
  • John notes that after the ban went into effect, a pro-life group set up a website to report abortions, which was promply flooded with critics of the ban trolling it, including reporting the characters from Marvel's Avengers getting abortions, which John says "is a hell of a pitch for an episode of What If...?"
  • After John notes that another way the anti-abortion report website was trolled was by Tik Tok users bombarding it with Shrek porn.
    John: "Tik Tok users bombard anti-abortion website with Shrek porn" is one of those sentences I never thought I'd have to say, like "Everyone needs to stop talking about Kim Jong-un's sexy bod"^note Around the time the episode was aired, Kim Jong-un made a public appearance in which he was noted to have drastically lost weight. and "Ben Affleck looks so happy right now."^note Around the time the episode was aired, Affleck reunited with his early-2000s girlfriend Jennifer Lopez.
• As usual, the upcoming 2021 fall season is marked by a "And Now, This…" segment with the crazed excitement of the show's pumpkin spice latte announcer… until Bud Light announces their pumpkin spice latte-flavored seltzer and the camera cuts to the announcer behind the mic, who is visibly disgusted by the news to the point of tears.
• On Alexander Lukashenko:
  • John starts the segment with a map of Europe with a country labled Belarus, lampshading the fact that he knows his audience is expecting him to do his "a country you think so little about" Running Gag. But he says it was meant to encourage people to learn some basic geography, but feels like people just grew to enjoy the humiliation...which is why those people will be happy to know that the country highlighted isn't actually Belarus.
  • A middle-aged, balding and somewhat rotund BBC journalist demonstrated how Belarusian political dissidents were forced to strip naked in freezing conditions by stripping naked and leaning against a Cold Store wall, arms outstretched and spreadeagle. John is stunned into silence at the Squick of it.
  • A year ago, Belarusian broadcasters abruptly resigned and walked off their show, leaving viewers watching an empty set of desks and upbeat music. John praised it as a brave act of protest and everyone's dream panel on The View.
• On COVID Misinformation among immigrant diaspora communities:
  • An Indian Tiktoker made a video on him making a fake poster advertising Samosa as a cancer cure, which leads John to remark how it takes "a few superficial labels and style choices to convince people that something with no real substance is actually meaningful and good."
    John: Or as it's known in America, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (audience laughs and groans) Grow up!
• On Homelessness:
  • Early in the episode, John shows a clip from The Tyra Banks Show where she goes undercover as a homeless person. Later on, he shows a different clip from another episode, where she's foaming at the mouth and "bites" an audience member.
    John: There is some context for that, but the truth is, it honestly wouldn't make it make much more sense.
  • John goes on a short tangent discussing how Charlie Bucket's grandparents are able to have sex in their shared bed.
• On Taiwan:
  • He shows a clip of a Taiwanese heavy metal singer ranting about Taiwan being forced to call itself "Chinese Taipei" in the Olympics, or as the singer describes it, "Chinese Fucking Taipei". John jokes that, given Taiwan's relationship with mainland China, if their official Olmpics name really was "Chinese Fucking Taipei, that would a be "at least a little more accurate, vis-a-vis who is fucking whom." He later reveals that the singer is now a member of Parliament!
  • John's coverage of Taiwan Parliament brawls. Yes, plural. They include water balloons, pig guts, and even someone eating a bill.
• On the Power Grid:
  • Before the main segment, John opens up the episode by mentioning that among the news of the week, ABBA released its first album in 40 years, "so you know your parents are fucking tonight."
  • "All casseroles are shit."
• On Union Busting:
  • John notes the irony of Amazon's classes dedicated to discourage workers from forming an union being called "union training"
    John: It's not "union training" if the explicit goal is to kill the union. It'd be like taking a dog training class from Cruella de Vil. [shows a picture of Emma Stone from Cruella] Although, no, not the one that's a misunderstood "bohemian" or whatever, I'm talking about the real Cruella. [shows Cruella from the animated 101 Dalmatians] Yeah, that one! The original, doggie-cidal bad bitch.
  • Since the previous week's episode about America's power grid ended with an on-set explosion, the last show of the season couldn't end with an explosion like last season's finale. Thus, instead, John uses his finger-snapping to call on George Clooney (something he'd done throughout this season), who, in turn, gives John the power to call on any celebrity of his choosing, calling Jennifer Coolidge (who assumed she was invited by either Jimmy Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel Live! or James Corden on The Late Late Show with James Corden), Will Ferrell, Ru Paul, Cardi B (who mistakenly thought there was something wrong with her home's Alexa), and Leslie Jones.