Let me start this evening with a word of warning for you.
You are going to hear some swearing this evening.
There are going to be cuss words.
In fact, just for easy's sake, I'll get us started now.
(beep) There you go.
That just happened.
(crowd laughs)
Okay? At home, all you will have heard there
is a short bleep
but underneath that bleep was the word (beep)
so that, there you go.
It was the same thing again.
(beep) was the word that, I'm sorry you had to hear it
a few times.
(crowd laughs)
Here's a little background about me before we begin.
I came to America much like, much like Eddie Murphy.
(crowd laughs)
I too am a fictional African prince.
I came to America three and a half years ago
and I loved it here straight away.
And now I say that with some surprise because to be honest
I wasn't sure I would.
It was, it was strange falling in love with a country
at a point that many people and history
(all laugh)
may yet judge to be it at its worst.
It was like falling in love
with a girl who was just throwing up all over herself
(all laugh)
Softly holding her hair back and whispering to her
that everything was gonna be all right.
To me, that's what the last eight years were like here
in America.
You were just projectile vomiting all over yourself
(crowd cheers)
as as the rest of the world rubbed your back saying,
"Shh, that's it.
Let it all out.
Oh, that was a big one, there."
And just a year ago you had that final dry wretch,
emptied your stomach brushed your teeth
and now you and the world are making out once more.
Oh, never do that to me again.
I missed you. (crowd laughs)
Whatever your politics are,
it was an incredibly dramatic day.
The last election for me, even more so
it was an emotional roller coaster.
I was excited, yes,
I was nervous, definitely
I was hungry.
I hadn't eaten breakfast that morning.
(crowd laughs)
And I was also filled
with this deep burning anger in the pit
of my stomach because frankly I could not
believe I was not allowed to vote.
(all laugh)
Three and a half years I have lived here.
I work hard, relatively speaking
for someone who does this for a living.
(crowd laughs)
I pay my taxes, I try to fit in.
I've learnt your rudimentary language.
(audience laughs)
I dunno what more he can reasonably expect me to do.
And that's when it hit me.
I know why I'm so angry. I know what this is.
Taxation without representation.
(audience cheers)
Now I get it now.
Now I see why you got so pissy about it all those years ago.
It is annoying. You were right. It is annoying.
And consider that as close to an apology
as you are ever going to get.
Ever.
(crowd laughs)
Before I came out here tonight,
I thought let's try a little experiment.
So I wrote into Google, John Oliver is
and then let it auto correct the most popular responses.
That was a huge mistake.
(crowd laughs)
Because I cannot unsee what I saw in that moment.
These were the top three most popular results on
Google when you write that in.
Result number one:
John Oliver is not funny. Number one!
Result number one, this is my (beep) job!
(crowd laughs)
If I'm not funny, this is pointless!
It's just me spewing off a series of factually
inaccurate statements and then pausing for silence.
(audience cheers)
Result number two was this: John Oliver is Jewish.
(audience laughs)
Now here's the thing about that, I'm not actually Jewish
I just like the look, but that's not the point.
(crowd laughs)
That's not the point is it?
I love what they've done with their facial features
and I've tried to emulate that as much as I can
since puberty and it's gone very well.
It's objectively gone very well.
I don't wanna argue with how well it's gone
'cause it's gone great.
And finally, result number three, I swear
to you this is true, was this: John Oliver is a smurf.
A smurf!
A sm--
That's the third most popular result on the internet
of my time on this earth.
That is the legacy.
My lifetime will leave history.
That's what my gravestone will read.
John Oliver:
Not funny, maybe Jewish.
Definitely a smurf.
(crowd laughs)
That's my life!
When I first came here to America
I didn't know anyone here and my best friend Dan could see
that I was upset before I left England.
And he said, I bought you this teddy bear.
(crowd laughs)
Don't squeeze his tummy until you get to your new apartment
in New York.
So I flew to this strange city in a strange land
and it was very hot that summer as a British person
I'm just not equipped to deal with those kind
of temperatures,
either physically or emotionally.
(crowd laughs)
And I unpacked my things and I felt very rootless
and lost and alone.
And there at the bottom of the case was the teddy bear
and I picked him up and I gazed into his button eyes
and I squeezed him.
I did.
I'm not ashamed to say that.
I squeezed him in the tummy.
(crowd laughs)
And these are the exact words that bear said to me.
He said, "You will die on your own in a dark cold room."
(audience laughs and cheers)
And I have never loved my friend Dan
like I loved him in that moment.
Mainly because I know how those bears are made.
You record the personalized message into the little box
then you take it over to the teddy bear man
who then test it to check it's working
before sewing it into the bear's stomach.
So I knew there had to be that moment between my friend Dan
and the teddy bear man
(crowd laughs)
as he pressed the button
listened to the message and then just stared at him,
(crowd laughs)
with an instinctive decision to make:
Was this a maverick active friendship
or was this a serial killer?
(crowd laughs)
And I know what my friend Dan looks
like and he took a gamble that day.
(crowd laughs)
Not an insignificant gamble.
Every generation is defined by its greatest invention.
You've seen this throughout history.
You know, the generation that created the wheel
the telephone, the panini, the nuclear bomb,
all of the greatest inventions of all time.
And I was wondering the other day
what will our generation's legacy be as an invention?
I thought it's the T-shirt cannon.
(crowd laughs)
Yes, the T-shirt cannon.
The cannon that fires T-shirts.
This is how much we love T-shirt cannons.
People have died falling out of arenas
reaching for T-shirts, fired their way.
And yet we still have T-shirt cannons.
And I don't recall any discussion
of T-shirt cannons getting banned.
Almost as if collectively
we all thought, you know what?
It's not that bad a way to die.
(crowd laughs)
That's a noble death.
That is a proud, honest death.
You are guaranteed to get
into heaven if you're walking up there
with a pulled up T-shirt in your hand
saying I (beep) caught it.
(crowd laughs)
Step aside, I'm coming through.
I've got my passport to paradise right here.
(audience laughs)
Overconfidence is better than no confidence at all.
Look back to that terrible earthquake that took
place last year that sent the tsunami to Japan.
You might remember there was a point
that we were very concerned
about what was gonna happen to Hawaii.
And they had mandatory evacuations on all the beaches
in Hawaii and fixed cameras broadcasting live images
of these deserted beaches onto the news.
And there were journalists narrating the footage saying
"Look, we don't know how big this wave is gonna be.
We just know it will strike sometime
in the next five minutes.
And that our thoughts and our prayers must be
with the people of Hawaii at this truly frightening time."
And then in the corner of the screen,
out walked this one man
seemingly completely unconcerned.
Once one of the world's most popular beaches currently had
zero people on it.
(crowd laughs)
And I've never heard two journalists try harder
not to say the words, "What the -- is he doing?"
(crowd laughs)
What the actual --- is that man doing?
And then this man walked up
right to the edge of the water
and he did this.
(crowd laughs)
Overconfidence is better than no confidence at all.
(crowd applauds)
Everything's gonna be fine America.
America has nothing to fear but America itself.
I don't understand people that don't swear.
Because if you don't swear, I'm intrigued.
What exactly are you waiting for?
(crowd laughs)
Has nothing sufficiently bad happened to the world
during your lifetime that you are willing to
uncork the bottle of potty mouth that you've been keeping
for a special occasion?
Because let me tell you, if something has,
something bad has (beep) happened.
The fact that politicians don't swear is something
I've always found inherently untrustworthy.
Now look at Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the UN.
If he doesn't swear considering what he hears
about every single day during his job,
if he doesn't swear that is a real problem.
If the first thing out of his mouth
in the morning when he walks into his office at the UN
when the phone starts to ring
before he is even had a chance to sit down,
if the first thing out of his mouth is not, "What?
What the fuck do you want?"
Can I not just drink my (beep) coffee
and eat my (beep) bagel?
Before you tell me what (beep) calamity
has just befallen mankind!
I (beep) hate this (beep) job!
(crowd laughs)
If my wife, if my wife Mrs. Ki-moon,
if she asked me one more time,
"How was work today, darling, I'm gonna lose my shit!"
How was work today?
It was (beep) harrowing sweetheart!
How is it being married to the shell of a man?
(beep) (beep)
If that is not the first thing outta his face,
he should be fired on the spot.
Swearing is not as bad as we give it credit for.
It can do great things.
I can prove this to you.
Recently, I was in a flight, I was
on airplane and I was sitting in the row
in front of three eight-year-old boys and
I presume they were flying with their parents.
If I'm honest, I never actually saw those parents.
So they might have just been taking a vacation
from kindergarten, I don't know.
I don't know.
Rough term. Rough term.
And this commute is killing me.
Why am I going to kindergarten? Three states away?
Crazy.
But they were having, they were just talking
to each other through the flight and they're been charming.
And I was just listening to them.
And then this one amazing exchange took place
that I've never been able to forget
'cause one little boy turned
to the kid next to him and he said, "I hate you."
And the other boy laughed and said, "No you don't.
No you don't.
You don't mean that,
you don't hate me."
And he said, "Oh no no. Oh, I mean it.
I absolutely hate you."
And this kid was devastated.
He started crying those kind of tears
you can only sob as a child.
You know where you're almost hyperventilating in grief.
He was saying, "I-don't-know -why -you -hate -me.
I-don't -know -what -I -have -done -to -make -you -hate -me.
(sobs loudly)
And then softly, so quietly, you had to strain to hear it.
He said, (beep)
And the first boy heard him and said,
"Hold on, do you swear?"
And he said yes.
And they were friends again.
(crowd laughs and applauds)
(upbeat tune plays)