{"id":628361,"date":"2026-10-12T14:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T14:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/628361\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T14:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T14:36:12","slug":"john-oliver-declares-war-on-liberty-biberty-and-wants-the-internets-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/628361\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver Declares War on ‘Liberty Biberty’\u2014And Wants the Internet’s Help"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Oliver <\/a>welcomed his new \u201cbusiness daddy\u201d Sunday night in perhaps the most Last Week Tonight<\/a> way possible: by ending his show with a series of increasingly sexualized drawings of Liberty Mutual\u2019s new mascot.<\/p>\n

Oliver devoted the show\u2019s closing segment to \u201cLiberty Biberty,\u201d the fuzzy puppet currently appearing in a barrage of Liberty Mutual commercials<\/a>\u2014and made it clear he would very much like it to go away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat right there is a fuzzy testicle with teeth,\u201d Oliver said of the creature. \u201cIt looks like Big Bird\u2019s sleep paralysis demon.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s apparently not alone. Oliver played a montage of social media users pleading with Liberty Mutual to retire the mascot, including one who declared, \u201cNeither of us can live while the other survives.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Oliver thinks all that hatred may be counterproductive. If outrage only gives brands more attention, he reasoned, getting rid of Biberty might require a different approach.<\/p>\n

He found his blueprint in New Zealand\u2019s Kiwibank, whose green sheep mascot Buck became the subject of sexualized social media posts over the summer. After the bank issued copyright takedowns, the jokes only multiplied\u2014and Kiwibank stopped posting Buck to its social feeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Kiwibank has taught us, love can do what hate can\u2019t,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhat I\u2019m saying is, it may be time to thirst openly and enthusiastically after this atrocity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver then displayed a series of suggestive illustrations of Liberty Biberty, drawn by someone on the show\u2019s staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe asked him for a four out of ten, and this is what he gave us,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cLiberty Mutual: Don\u2019t make me ask him to go higher. You don\u2019t want to know what a six looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

He urged viewers to join the effort, warning others \u201cmight want to mute the word \u2018Biberty\u2019\u201d on social media for the next week.<\/p>\n

Then came his message for another corporation\u2014and his first public remarks since Paramount Skydance completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO\u2019s parent company, last Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thrilled to be part of the Skydance family!\u201d Oliver shouted as the show ended. \u201cHope you\u2019re happy with what you bought, guys. We\u2019re never gonna change!\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the full segment at the top of this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Oliver welcomed his new \u201cbusiness daddy\u201d Sunday night in perhaps the most Last Week Tonight way possible:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[24109,95012,140012,308353,308354,111,139,69,12795,213],"class_list":["post-628361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-john-oliver","tag-kiwibank","tag-last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver","tag-liberty-biberty","tag-liberty-mutual","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-skydance","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}