John Oliver doesn't care about Jay Leno's opinions.
The "Last Week Tonight" host, 48, responded to Leno, 75, recently criticizing late-night TV hosts for alienating half their audience with one-sided political jabs.
"I'm going to take a hard pass on taking comedic advice from Jay Leno," Oliver told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Tuesday.
Jay Leno was one of the most successful comedians in world history. He never even touched his Tonight Show salary, living entirely on his comedy show income, which he continued doing well past the Tonight Show gig.
He made the brilliant calculation to never do a comedy show for broadcast, figuring, correctly, that his act was worth tens of millions of dollars over a lifetime, whereas releasing a DVD would net him maybe $100,000.
He made so much money from his road gigs that it was nothing to him to give up $10 million per year of his NBC salary to keep his entire staff on without any firings or salary reductions.
I'm a mid-tier fan of Leno's comedy. I never had any interest in his Tonight Show stuff, but as an actual working comedian, there are few in history who have made the fortune he has just standing on stage, one man one mic, telling jokes he wrote.
How snotty and overly fond of oneself do you have to be to proclaim that Jay Leno has nothing of value to say about comedy?
The British comedian also defended sometimes upsetting viewers with jokes on his show.
He literally never insulted viewers. He's a coward who only placates and flatters his leftwing audience.
He insults non-viewers.
...
"I guess I don't think it's a question of what you should do because I don't think comedy is prescriptive in that way," he added. "It's just what people want. I think our show clearly comes from a point of view, but most of those long stories we do are not party political. They're about systemic issues."
"Systemic issues" like racism and transphobia. Totally not "party political."
In addition, 90% of his "stories" end in an explicit activist call to action. John Oliver's gimmick was to rouse the audience to join in some stupid hastag or internet trend to push certain political outcomes.
But not "party political" at all!
Oliver, who has hosted "Last Week Tonight" since 2014, pointed out that he doesn't only discuss divisive political issues on the HBO show.
The British comedian defended sometimes upsetting viewers with jokes on his show.
"Our last few shows were about gang databases, AI slop, juvenile justice, med spas, air traffic control," he said. "I'm not saying that these don't have a point of view in them. Of course they do. But I hope a lot of them actually reach across people's political persuasions."
These are his examples of stories he does that might upset liberals? He knocks air traffic controllers (almost certainly in a story attacking Trump for defunding the FAA or some nonsense) and he wants us to believe his braindead liberal clapping seals are really "upset" by jokes about air traffic controllers?
Hey, if you really want to be edgy and rile up your viewers, tell jokes about airplane food. Have you tasted it?! It's not very good at all!
Zing! Got 'em!
"You want people to at least be able to agree on the problem," Oliver added, "even if you disagree on what the solution to it is."
LOL. We just want people to agree that liberal panic issues are real stories -- global warming, "white supremacy," Israel's "genocide," Trump's "authoritarianism," six year olds unable to receive "gender affirming care" -- while agreeing that things conservatives care about like uncontrolled immigration and unpunished violent crime are "fake issues" that Republicans make up to divide us and push their racist agenda.
...
Oliver said after Colbert's show was axed that the decision was "terrible news for the world of comedy."
What a surprising opinion that is sure to upset many of John Oliver's viewers.
I wanted to update the Howard Stern story: Many people are reporting he's been "cancelled." He hasn't been. There is merely reported to be talk that Sirius doesn't want to pay him any longer, and Stern is meanwhile claiming he may retire.
I now realize that all of this talk is happening around a contract renegotiation. As a longtime fan of James Bond since the Roger Moore years (wait, how can I possibly be 28 years old?!), I remember well the dance that Roger Moore and Cubby Broccoli would do every couple of years. Moore would say "I'm thinking of turning in my Walther PPK" and Cubby Broccoli would say he's ready to go in a new direction and leak to the media that he had screentested actors to replace Bond. (Like... American actor James Brolin?! In the scene, he and First Tier Bond Girl Maude Adams play out a key scene from From Russia With Love. Adams would impress them so much that they'd just cast her, for the second time, as a Bond girl, this time in Octopussy.)
And then they'd come to terms. Broccoli would give Moore a raise and he would sign on to do another Bond film. (And he agreed to do one more Bond film too many.)
I just wanted to point this out because people are psyched that Starn is being cancelled. He may be. But Sirius might just be saying they don't want to sign him to get Stern to reduce his demands.
And they may be the ones who leaked his current (alleged) ratings of 125,000, down from 20 million.
I do think he might well end up being cancelled because there just may be no number that the perverted narcissist Howard Stern is prepared to swallow his pride and accept, which Sirius could also agree to.
But he might not be. Unfortunately.
Other news going around that is, sadly, Fake News is the claim that The View has been cancelled.
Clickbaiters are claiming that Rosie O'Donnell "confirmed" that the View had been canceled.
Well:
1, Rosie O'Donnell was kicked off the show long ago
2, Rosie O'Donnell is an idiot who has a general expertise in being wrong about everything
3, Rosie O'Donnell is mentally ill and hysterical
4, Rosie O'Donnell routinely makes hysterical claims WITHOUT EVIDENCE to feed her obsessive hatred of Trump
She doesn't know anything. I think this idiot was taking The View's hiatus -- a summer break from taping their idiot carny show -- as a "cancellation."
Don't fall for the clickbait. This show may be cancelled down the line, but Rosie O'Donnell's claim is premature and simply more conniptions from a hateful, hysterical madwoman.
Jimmy Kimmel lacks all self-awareness. He says that "loud," "repulsive" voices of the intolerant left are pushing people out of the Democrat Party.
He has no idea.
Oh, and both he and Sarah Silverman are finally fixin' to leave the country. Because Authoritarianism. I'll believe it when I see it.
One more stupid thing: The producers of The Office (US version) have a new show.
It's about a local newsroom.
No, it's not about how stupid "journalists" are.* It's about how vital they are.
Pass.
- In fairness, you can't do a show about people you despise. But of all the people to valorize -- the news media? Are you kidding? How out of touch do you have to be?