The best comedians are more than funny: They have a way of making you feel like their jokes are private ones that only they, and you, individually, understand. A great joke is like a nudge in the ribs — a way for you and the joke-teller to stand outside the madness of the world as if you’re the only two reasonable people left. That kind of comedian — no matter what they’re talking about — can express something you didn’t even know you were thinking. They can feel like your best friend, sitting in the back of class with you, tossing spit wads and cracking wise. Like the two of you are in it together.
Which is how I found myself the other day watching a week of episodes of “General Hospital” — an ABC soap opera I didn’t know was still on the air — just so I could see John Oliver get slapped. It’s like he was doing it just for me.
I could explain to you why it was a delight to see an absurdly hair-dyed Oliver playing “Z,” the director of the World Security Bureau, in a three-episode arc — and why I can’t wait to see him play an entirely different character on “Days of Our Lives” next week — but honestly, like many great jokes, you sort of had to be there. But trust me: It was brilliant. Just about everything Oliver does is.
Oliver and his HBO show “Last Week Tonight” are often lumped in with other late-night fare, particularly since he hosted a podcast called “Strike Force Five” with fellow hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers during the 2023 Hollywood writers strike and appeared on Colbert’s final CBS show in May. But I’m not sure “Last Week Tonight” is a late-night talk show at all.
Sure, there’s a studio audience, and Oliver sits at a desk. But there are no guests, band or interview segment. What the show is — and Oliver is clear about this — is a newsmagazine, and it does excellent investigative journalism. It just also happens to be hilarious. That it is able to do these two difficult things simultaneously seems like magic.
Oliver and his staff of Emmy-winning writers have figured out that, in this age of tumult, the wisecracking kid in the back of class can also be the person who reassures you that you’re not crazy. That’s how I feel when I watch “Last Week Tonight,” like I’m not imagining all the madness in the world, in America, in this administration. It makes me feel sane and — most important — like I’m not alone. That the show can do this while featuring a cute (and litigation-resistant!) mascot named Mr. Nutterbutter, and doing things like donating Russell Crowe’s jockstrap to a Blockbuster store in Anchorage before getting it back and auctioning it off to support public media (again, you had to be there!) is a gift from the universe. As the world careens, Oliver and his silly, deadly serious show offer safe harbor.
Much of this is because the show does its journalism exquisitely well, thanks largely to its format. A recent episode featured a 26-minute segment on the Trump family’s cryptocurrency ventures that laid out just how nefarious these are, and how much money the Trumps are getting from them, and it did so clearly, straightforwardly and devastatingly. I don’t think it’s possible to watch the segment and not consider the story a massive scandal. Other journalists have pursued this reporting — including at this newspaper last month — but “Last Week Tonight” clarified and magnified the issue, while still featuring some great jokes.
The show has been doing this work for years, but it hit a new stride in the second Trump administration. Much of the show’s success owes to Oliver’s skill as a performer, but it also benefits from Oliver avoiding the old trick of scoring political points then retreating to “Hey, I’m just a comedian, don’t take this so seriously!” when called out on it. This was long Jon Stewart’s escape hatch at “The Daily Show,” and Oliver doesn’t take it: “Last Week Tonight” is funny, but it’s also seeking real truth and pushing for real change. It refuses to give up, and it won’t allow you to either.
Last week, Oliver announced that he had re-upped his show through 2027, ensuring it will continue on HBO through its 14th season. This was rightfully seen as good news. But it should be noted that Oliver usually extends for three years, not one, and he admitted the court-paused merger of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO, and Paramount Skydance has him in “total denial.”
Oliver, unlike Kimmel and Colbert, hasn’t been much of a target for President Donald Trump; I like to think it’s because the show is too intelligent and absurdist for him to understand. (It’s also possible he just doesn’t have HBO.) But Oliver seems to know he might not dance between the raindrops forever: If the merger does go through, he and his show could be the next target. That such a thing is even conceivable is an indictment of our times. Best for Oliver to keep the extensions to one year at a time until we know whether he — and the rest of us — will make it through this.
I have never met John Oliver. We are not actually friends. He is not making his show specifically for me. But it feels that way, and if you’re a fan, I bet it does to you too. In a time when many have never felt more powerless, there is strength in being the wisenheimer in the back of the room, tossing spit wads … and always, always telling the truth. I’d be lost without that. We all would.
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