While the Eurovision Song Contest, which took place over the weekend, may have been shrouded in serious news, comedian John Oliver still managed to relish in the annual international competition's inherent goofiness.
Oliver opened Sunday night's episode of "Last Week Tonight" by briefly jesting about a few of the many punchy U.S. news headlines in the past week. He noted how Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, has elected to suspend her book tour, "allowing her more time at home, which should be concerning to any of her remaining pets," jabbing at her recent revelation that she'd once shot her pet dog. Oliver also underscored news of how more than a decade ago, doctors determined that a parasitic worm had eaten part of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s brain, which he claimed "honestly sounds like a terrible experience for that worm."
From there, the late-night host pivoted to Eurovision, which saw a nonbinary artist from Switzerland, Nemo, take home the victory.
“The Eurovision Song Contest took place amid a slew of controversies, from calls for boycotts over Israel's participation to the last-minute elimination of this Dutch contestant for alleged unlawful threats backstage,” Oliver said. “It was a lot of serious news around what is usually a magnificently silly competition, which to be fair still had some striking contestants, from Baby Lasagna from Croatia to Bambi Thug from Ireland to my absolute favorite, this guy from Finland.”
Oliver then proceeded to show a clip of Finnish contestant Windows95man emerging from a giant denim egg while performing his song, "No Rules."
“Yes! 14,000 out of 10," Oliver said, rating the production. "A man with flowing blonde locks and pervert glasses hatching out of a denim egg? It’s like Botticelli’s 'Birth of Venus' — only this time, it’s actually good.”
Oliver continued by discussing the Windows95man, whose real name is Teemu Keisteri, and his stage persona.
“The name of that artist — and I do mean artist — is Windows95man,” Oliver said. “His stage costume consists of a Windows95 T-shirt, hat, and, importantly, not much else, which is why performances basically consisted of doing an extended Austin Powers bit."
"But maybe the best thing about Windows95man — other than his name, face outfit, and partial nudity — is that during Finland’s contest to pick its representative at Eurovision, the jury ranked him dead last," he continued. "But he took the audience vote by such a large margin, he won anyway — which makes sense to me. The people of Finland are naturals at ski jumping, sauna and knowing a f**king star when they see one.
“I don’t know what their other contestants were like, but I highly doubt that they had stagecraft like a pair of jean shorts descending from the ceiling followed by this,” he added, showing the bit where Windows95man shoots fireworks out of what looks like rope attached to his jean shorts after he puts them on.
“F**k all other music. It is dead to me now,” Oliver said, concluding his Eurovision segment by referencing "No Rules" lyrics: “To quote a great poet clad in exploding denim: ‘I don’t care what’s wrong or right, it’s how I live my life,’ and that is my champion right there.”
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver airs on Sundays at 11 p.m. ET on Max.
