NEW YORK — John Oliver is looking for laughs, and promising the truth.
The funnyman returned to HBO Sunday night with the premiere episode of an all new season of “Last Week Tonight.” While Oliver is hoping the show’s ninth season is funny, he’s determined to make sure it’s at least factual. He worries there isn’t a lot of that going on these days.
“It’s not just (Joe) Rogan,” Oliver said. “It feels like there’s a much broader problem with people on podcasts and on TV very confidently passing along horses—. Whether they know it’s horses— or not, at some point, it doesn’t matter.”
The 44-year-old comic famously skewered fact-challenged Fox News star Tucker Carlson in a definitive TV moment last season. He can’t say whether or not Rogan will be in his crosshairs in coming months. But Oliver is interested in Spotify — the streaming outlet that carries “The Joe Rogan Experience” — being a “pretty visceral example of platforms that decide to be publishers” by paying Rogan a ton of cash, while dodging accountability for the things he says and does.
According to Oliver, his show’s researchers are usually working on a half-dozen investigative segments at a time with the goal of churning out 30 episodes per season. Not every report proves solid enough to broadcast, so he moves on.
“If I was Joe Rogan, and I am not emotionally or physically, I would employ a research department if I want to confidently say things and not just sit with a laptop next to me f—ing googling stuff as it occurs to me,” Oliver said. “I would be mortified if I passed on bad information.”
Last March, Oliver took aim at Carlson and Fox News, soundly labeling the conspiracy-theory-spouting cable host as a vessel for white-supremacist rhetoric. Oliver said that when making that episode, he decided it would be more effective to paint a big picture of Carlson than chasing the “drip, drip, drip” of the right-wing prime time host’s daily sound bytes.
“We felt there was a benefit to pulling it back a little bit so you’re not just reacting to what he said this week,” Oliver explained. “You’re getting a picture of what he says all the time and the broader argument he’s making.”
That argument of racial supremacy, Oliver said, “Is completely consistent and absolutely horrific.”
In 2020, Oliver’s show dragged the far-right cable outlet OANN over the coals for its sensational, agenda-driven programming. Now that the network is being sued over its shoddy election “fraud” coverage and dropped by its largest television distributor, Oliver feels no remorse.
“For humanity? No I don’t,” he smirked. “For the individuals involved? No, I don’t. For the audience? No. I still don’t.”
When an outlet like OANN gets kneecapped, another one simply takes its place, according to Oliver, the damage is already done.
“To the extent that they were acting as a sort of 100-proof Fox News, as soon as someone realizes that people will drink 100-proof Fox News, someone else is going to manufacture it for them,” he said. “Because at the end of the day, America, is nothing if not a country that honors supply and demand.”
Oliver, a Birmingham, England, native, became a U.S. citizen in 2019. While much of his show focuses on the issues his adopted nation faces, some of it is pure comedy.
Throughout 2020, Oliver repeatedly made comments about how attractive he found Adam Driver, calling the actor a “brooding mountain.” That season ended with a seemingly faux-agitated Driver appearing on the show telling the silly host to knock it off. Oliver said he hasn’t heard from the “rudely large man” since.
“I believe we promised him that joke was over,” Oliver said. “I can’t tell you whether or not we plan to honor that promise.”
He added that whatever Driver is up to, the 38-year-old movie star is “aging like a really expensive wine.”
Does that mean the joke isn’t over?
“To the extent that it was ever a joke, no,” Oliver said.
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