{"id":478272,"date":"2026-02-16T09:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T09:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/478272\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T09:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T09:57:08","slug":"john-oliver-takes-shots-at-riyadh-comedy-festival-netflix-wbd-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/478272\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver Takes Shots At Riyadh Comedy Festival, Netflix-WBD Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJohn Oliver<\/a> had a lot of life, and politics, to catch up on in the premiere episode of Last Week Tonight<\/a> Season 13. Coming back after a typical three-month holiday hiatus, the political comic speed-ran through various headlines, from the biathlete drama emerging from the 2026 Winter Olympics to the U.S. kidnapping of Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n

\n\tA majority of the episode was dedicated to a bird\u2019s eye view of what is unfolding in Minneapolis as a result of ICE crackdowns and killings, stemming from the creation of the Department of Homeland Security post-9\/11.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the immediate aftermath of the most devastating terrorist attack in its history, America started screaming, and didn\u2019t really stop for a decade,\u201d the host began, before switching gears: \u201cAnd while, thankfully, the Riyadh Comedy Festival<\/a> has since healed the world through comedy, we don\u2019t need to be worried about who or what was actually responsible for 9\/11.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t(Numerous comics condemned their fellow colleagues\u00a0\u2014 like Aziz Ansari, Whitney Cummings, Pete Davidson and Dave Chappelle \u2014 for participating in the Saudi Arabia-sponsored event, which many see as a continuation of its long-critiqued sportswashing, whereby high-profile entertainment events are utilized to distract from the nation\u2019s historical human rights abuses.)<\/p>\n

\n\tElsewhere, while discussing the mismanagement of the then-recently created DHS, Oliver drew similarities between the agency and his experience: \u201cHaving an endless cavalcade of rapidly changing bosses would clearly be a distraction, though I gotta say, you do eventually get used to it,\u201d he quipped, flashing an image of Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s logo. <\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued, \u201cI don\u2019t even know which of these companies [Paramount<\/a> or Netflix] is gonna be my new business daddy yet. It\u2019s like a Mamma Mia! situation except less fun and way less sexy. But incidentally, if it is indeed Netflix, sorry for all the times I called your catalog a \u2018who\u2019s who of who the fuck is this?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOliver concluded cheekily, \u201cLoved the ending of Stranger Things, by the way\u00a0\u2014 very brown,\u201d roasting the color grading of the erstwhile streamer hit. \u201cAnd good luck with Detective Hole; it sounds great.\u201d (In the latest update, WBD may play ball with Paramount after all<\/a>, despite having signed a deal with Netflix.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe host, who has previously sung Bad Bunny\u2019s praises<\/a>, also commented on the King of Latin Trap\u2019s megawatt halftime show performance<\/a> while making a point about ICE\u2019s rapid expansion resulting in lessened worker standards, including making Spanish-language lessons optional: \u201cwhich is a bad idea for many reasons, including those agents now won\u2019t get to understand even a little bit of Bad Bunny\u2019s music, which is sad for them; they\u2019re missing out on a lot of joy, plenty of political commentary and a metric ton of blowjob descriptions. There is a lot \u2014 it\u2019s a rich text!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a final message, he said, in part, \u201cWe need to get rid of ICE, period. Public trust in it right now is hovering somewhere between Purdue Pharma and the Titan submersible \u2014 it is just not salvageable. And if you\u2019re thinking, \u2018Well, who will enforce immigration law if ICE is gone?\u2019 I don\u2019t know, maybe the agencies that did it for decades before 2003.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Oliver had a lot of life, and politics, to catch up on in the premiere episode of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,5862,10939,11590,11591,144964,9489,90968,8093],"class_list":{"0":"post-478272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hbo","12":"tag-john-oliver","13":"tag-last-week-tonight","14":"tag-last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver","15":"tag-netflix-wb","16":"tag-paramount","17":"tag-riyadh-comedy-festival","18":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}