-Our guest tonight hosts the Emmy- and Peabody-winning
show "Last Week Tonight," which airs Sunday nights on HBO
and streams on HBO Max.
Please welcome back to the show, our friend, our good friend,
John Oliver.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Thank you. Thank you.
-I wanted to make it clear.
-Yeah, that was good. My stomach's --
Stop them. Stop them.
-You stop it! -Stop it.
-This -- -You have the power.
-Let me explain something to you.
-You have the power.
-What you're doing right now is Kryptonite to this British man.
-That's right, he doesn't -- I do --
-He does not want your praise or attention.
-I do not thrive on that. I'm diminished by it.
Yeah, thank you for the correction.
-Yeah. -Good friend, not friend.
I will be listening so carefully when you introduce someone
as "friend" in the future and leave it there.
-Yeah. I'm just going to be real dead.
I'm, "Please welcome our friend."
-[ Laughs ] -And that's it.
-That's right.
-Interestingly, the last couple times you were here
have been big days for the royal family news.
Last time you were here was the funeral of the Queen.
And the time before that -- -Thank you for that.
-You're very welcome. -Thank you, yeah.
-It was a couple days after Prince Philip died.
-Thank you, thank you. -You're very welcome.
-Wow. You're coming at me with a lot there.
-We kind of have a vacuum of royal family news right now.
-Well, we have a vacuum as we not --
I mean, you tape hours before broadcast.
-That's true. -We don't know what's going
to happen between now and this show goes out.
Maybe Charles has thrown himself off the roof
of Buckingham Palace, saying, "My family is built on blood."
It would be terrible. It would be terrible.
I would respect it, but it would be terrible.
-Okay. -Also, before the royal deaths,
before natural selection went 2 for 2.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-The time before that I was here and COVID was breaking out.
-Yes, that's true.
-We do tend -- it's not like there's going to be a run
on the banks, right? -Yeah.
-Right, Seth? -You're sort of a news reaper.
[ Laughter ]
-Or a crisis fluffer. -Yeah.
You're a crisis fluffer. You make us feel a little better.
-I'm sure the banks are going to be fine.
That segment was great.
-Well, thank you very much.
I mean, if they weren't going to be fine,
I think that segment fixed it.
-I think what we all need, more than anything right now,
is for Jim Cramer to shut the [bleep] up.
He's in this building, right?
-He might be in this building.
You can sometimes hear him based on -- yeah.
-Someone in this building needs to take
a tranquillizer dart and just [blows]
get that right.
-Although he does feel like one of those gorillas
that can actually -- -Fight through it.
-Throw it down. -Throw it back at you.
-"Buy! Buy Chase Bank. Everything's gonna be fine!"
Oh, no, Jim, not like this.
[ Laughter ]
-You were counterprogrammed last night
with a pretty big event.
The Oscars were your competition last night.
-Yeah, that's right. -Yeah.
-I mean, you're stretching the definition of the term
"competition" there. [ Laughs ]
Oscars is one of the most glamorous nights that humanity
produces each year.
We counterprogram that with talking about the temporary
assistance for needy families program for 22 minutes.
yeah, we were the opposite of the Oscars.
-And you didn't have a red carpet last night?
I can't remember. -I mean, we did.
But it didn't get any of the attention, yeah.
-I thought our colleague, Jimmy Kimmel,
did a fantastic job last night. -He did great.
Yeah, I watched him, and then -- Yeah, awesome.
He's great at it.
-Would you ever want to host an event like that?
-No. And I don't -- It's not even that I wouldn't want to.
I don't think it would be a net benefit for anyone involved.
'Cause the great thing about Kimmel, right,
is that he is obviously funny, but also, he has, like --
you're confident that there is this low-lying contempt
for the whole event. -Yep.
-And you're confident that it's there,
but he somehow doesn't manage to poison the room.
-Yes. -With that visible contempt.
And that is a kind of magic trick I couldn't do.
I could not at any point say,
"It's going to be a magical night."
I'd say, "It's not, though, is it?"
These are some of the most over-praised people on Earth,
and we're going to give them shiny trophies
like they're dogs.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah. I couldn't --
[ Cheers and applause ]
-It's not me. No one wants it.
-I couldn't ever imagine you saying anything is gonna be
magical without you being ironic or sarcastic.
-I couldn't do it. I tried.
Sometimes even at benefit gigs.
-Yeah, we do charitable events.
-Yeah, you're good at them. -Oh, that's very kind.
-You have the Kimmel skill of not ruining everyone's evening.
I really struggle with that.
The only one I can kind of do functionally
is the "Sesame Street" Gala because they're nice, right?
So they need a bad guy.
They need a bad cop,
and I'm willing to be Elmo's bad cop.
So they can say, "Oh, we're all here to have fun."
And I can say, "We're not, actually, Elmo.
We're here to squeeze that table of bankers at Goldman Sachs
for more money than they're willing to spend.
Go away.
Don't be here when the transaction happens, Elmo.
Mafia rules only here."
-Do you feel like you have a good working relationship
with the Muppets now, based on your time at those benefits?
-Yeah, actually. Not bad.
Like, I really love them.
The first time I met one, and I still can't really think of it
as the puppeteer, I did something with Cookie Monster.
And he was so funny.
And I had heard that one of the old writers of "The Daily Show,"
Rich Blomquist, had met Fozzy Bear once
when Kristen Schaal was in the Muppet movie.
And he'd said he wanted to meet Fozzy Bear.
And so he's talking to him and he just instantly forgets
there's a guy underneath him and starts saying to him,
"I think you're the reason I got into comedy, Fozzy."
[ Laughter ]
-And you can feel the puppeteer, he said he could feel him go,
"Oh, [bleep], this is one of those conversations.
Okay. Oh.
You're welcome, waka waka waka."
But he said, he just had this very sincere monologue
about, "I think you fundamentally changed
the way my life has gone."
-I did a Weekend Update feature once with Kermit.
And one of my favorite photos at my time at "SNL,"
is -- it was during rehearsal, and I'm just looking --
I'm giving a note to Kermit.
And it's just this picture of me talking to him
like he's listening. -Yeah.
-And I know the dude is right there, and I'm like --
-It's incredible. -Yeah.
-That is how amazing they are.
I was doing that whole thing with Cookie Monster.
I never once did I look that poor guy in the face.
[ Laughter ]
It's just straight like, "Oh, I'm getting on well
with Cookie Monster. It's a bit weird that this guy
is around all the time.
-Later you say to that guy, "What's it like working
with Cookie Monster everyday?" He's like, "It's me!"
-No, it's not you. It's not you.
You seem angrier.
[ Laughter ]
-Hey, we'll be right back with more from John Oliver.