John Oliver took a subtle swipe at Deadline’s coverage of Last Week Tonight in the latest episode of his HBO show.
The British comedian mocked this very publication in a segment about medicine, doctors and state medical boards.
We were the latest television target after Oliver slammed Dancing with the Stars in a segment about North Carolina Republican Mark Robinson, who compared it to Stalin’s showtrials.
Deadline regularly covers Oliver’s salvos on a Sunday and we found ourselves in a somewhat meta situation, recapping his jolly jab at us. It was not unlike our coverage of Hasan Minhaj’s speech at the Independent Spirit Awards, where he said that we have the “web layout of a Craigslist ad” but admitted this site “governs our lives”.
The Deadline reference came after a clip from Fox’s 9-1-1: Lone Star (the second ding at Disney given that 20th Television produces the Rob Lowe-fronted procedural), where the Parks and Recreation star caved in a man’s chest following an in-home cryotherapy chamber accident.
“The human body after all is a sloppy puzzle of wet nooks and dry crannies, every inch of this skin sack is confusing. Let me be clear, this isn’t going to be a takedown of medicine,” Oliver said before posting the photo above of a fake Deadline story.
“I don’t want anyone to spin this into a headline that says ‘John Oliver, Champion of Illness and Death, Finally Destroys Doctors’.”
In terms of Dancing with the Stars, Oliver discovered some rather odd views about reality shows from Robinson, the Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, who was compared to “Martin Luther King on steroids” by Donald Trump.
“I know this may sound paranoid and crazy, but I truly believe that the “judgement” format of these “reality” competition shows (i.e. American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Chopped etc.) is a sign of things to come in the REALITY of the New World Order,” wrote Robinson on his Facebook page.
Oliver called this a “bonkers” take. But there was more. Robinson compared these reality shows to Stalin’s show trials. “Sometimes I think these shows are setting people’s mind on this type of format for a more sinister reason,” he said.
This is when Oliver took aim at the ABC dancing show. “If we did learn that Dancing with the Stars was secretly a state-led brainwashing campaign to get us more comfortable with public executions, I’d immediately have a hell of a lot more respect for that show. At least it’d be trying something daring, rather than having a Chmerkovskiy brother form yet another uninspired foxtrot.”
