Still a
few weeks before we get a new Last Week
Tonight. One recurring comedy bit
from the show that I want to single out is John’s frequent use of completely
random hashtags during his stories.
Sometimes they’re a good encapsulation of the entire main story’s point,
like the classic #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain, but more often than not, they’re just
something fun, goofy, and/or pithy.
#Investifarted (after a typo on a newspaper’s Twitter feed) is a good
one, and the recurring #NotMyChristian (referring to Jamie Dornan in Fifty Shades of Gray) is always good for
a laugh. My favorite, though, is his
often off-the-wall inclusion of #Feminism, most memorably after Trump called
Clinton the “co-founder of ISIS” – the additional hashtag, naturally, being
#ISISWithHer. It seems John always pulls
one of these out when I least expect them (unless he’s talking about Jamie
Dornan,) and they’re always awesome.
Tuesday, September 6 – And we’re
back! The G20 Summit was up first, with
Obama not getting the red-carpet rollout on the tarmac in China. Trevor’s response to Trump’s take on the
matter was fantastic, from wondering if Trump thinks carpet on the staircase
protects the president’s feet, to tearing apart Trump’s assurance that, if if
had happened to him, he would have
thrown a tantrum and left the summit instead of doing his actual job as president. The story on Trump trying to earn points with
Black voters (or, per Roy, “white people with Black friends” voters) was good,
too. The best part, naturally, was Ben
Carson’s involvement: him exclaiming, “My
luggage!” and running away in the middle of a live interview was the funniest
thing I saw all week. Guest Jeff Ross
promoted his new special “roasting cops.” I liked his point about how much distrust
there is on both sides of the police violence issue.
Wednesday, September 7 – I appreciate
Trevor’s continuing disgust at Congress for not passing a bill for funds to
fight Zika. His plan here, to have a
Florida congressman lock the doors and smash his jar filled with mosquitoes,
seems sadly on the mark, and I loved him lamenting that he can’t have come all
the way from Africa only to die of a mosquito disease in New York. Amusing story on the iPhone 7 and the online
gnashing of teeth over the removed headphone jack. I liked Trevor’s point about how it was virtually
the same argument made by transphobic people – from “but it’s unnatural!” to “that’s
not how we did it in my day!” to “it
used to have a thing, and now…!” Weirdly
spot-on comparison. Ava DuVernay was the
guest and was awesome because she’s great (my completely unbiased opinion,
natch.) She was there to talk Queen Sugar and what it was like for her
creating/writing/directing for TV instead of film.
Thursday, September 8 – It’s crazy, but really,
of course Kim Jong-un would outlaw
sarcasm. So true. Most of the night was devoted to the
Commander-in-Chief Forum hosted (badly) by Matt Lauer. From spending a third of an interview about
military policy asking Clinton about her emails to ignoring Trump’s blatant
untruths, Trevor took Lauer to task and
proved how much more rigorous an interviewer he can be, citing Lauer’s grilling of One Direction over an absent
member. Desi did a great What the Actual Fact on the Trump portion of the forum.
For me, the best/worst was Trump claiming his recent visit to Mexico was
successful and non-destabilizing, specifically
referencing the finance minister who arranged the visit and was fired because
of how angry Mexican citizens were at Trump coming to their country. Starbucks
CEO Howard Schultz was a “meh” guest for me.
A lot of the interview felt like him patting himself on the back.
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