John Oliver‘s Last Week Tonight last night went deep on Donald Trump‘s use of presidential pardon power. Spoiler alert: it has not been ethical or equitable.
One particular part of the full-30-minute dissection took a left turn — and took a buzzsaw to new BuzzFeed owner Byron Allen. No, the media mogul has not been on the receiving end of a Trump pardon — the only crime Allen has committed here is replacing Stephen Colbert’s CBS late night show.
Oliver and Colbert are old buds, both from the Jon Stewart Daily Show family tree. Allen is the comedian-turned-Weather Channel owner who now leases The Late Show‘s vacated time slot from Paramount. His Comics Unleashed is a pretty milquetoast panel show, inoffensive to Presidents and advertisers alike. Clearly, Oliver takes offense to what CBS has does with the 11:30 p.m. slot.
It took a while to get there, but Allen eventually got his. Mocking a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter, who was draped in a comically large scarf, Oliver commented, “He looks like what had happened if Steve Carell fucked Gru, which must be something that Steve’s thought about, right?”
“Doesn’t every voice actor wonder what it’d be like to have sex with the cartoon character that they voice? I know I have,” he continued. “I’ve thought about what it would be like to fuck Vanity Smurf and what it would be like to fuck Zazu. It’s not because I find it arousing, I don’t, but you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t be curious what it’d be like to fuck someone and hear your own voice coming out of their mouths. It’ll be so strange.”
It sure would be. Oliver voiced Vanity Smurf in 2011 film The Smurfs and its 2013 sequel The Smurfs 2, and Zazu the bird in 2019’s The Lion King. He’s also voiced “Ian” on a pair of Bob’s Burgers episodes, “Thumb Bringer” in an episode of Love, Death & Robots, “Weather-Loving Winston” on Helpsters, “Henry” on Big Mouth, “Steve” in Wonder Park, “Augustus P. Crumhorn IV” on Danger Mouse, “Booth Wilkes-John” on The Simpsons, “Dr. Xenon Bloom” on Rick and Morty, and others.
“And if you’re thinking, ‘Why would you find a cartoon character sexually attractive in the first place?’ First, lots of people do, but that’s not what this thought exercise is asking, really,” Oliver said. “For the record, I don’t find either of these characters attractive, but let’s suppose there was a universe where I did, and they found me attractive — could I go through with it if they sounded exactly like me? Because it’s not like I’d be fucking myself, is it? I’d be fucking someone else that just has my voice. How would that feel? How would I react if, mid-coitus, I heard my own pleasure moments coming out of Zazu’s beak? Would it ruin the whole thing? Would I somehow enjoy it? And if so, does that make me a narcissist?”
It would definitely make you… something.
“Also, would it be weird for them? Because to Vanity Smurf and Zazu, I have their voices, don’t I? So, could they do it?” he went on. “Of course, they’re cartoon characters. This could just be me projecting my own humanity onto a Smurf and a talking bird when they exist on their own planes of morality and biological impulse that don’t necessarily conform to what we’d say is right or wrong, you know? After a lot of thought and consideration, ultimately I think I would be able to power through and have sex with Vanity Smurf and Zazu, but I’d feel really guilty about it afterwards, and I’m not totally sure why.”
“Anyway, I would love to talk about this more, but we don’t have time,” Oliver said, “so I’ll just conclude by saying this: Let’s see Byron Allen do that on Comics Unleashed.”
If Allen did, FCC chair Brendan Carr would have an actual late night problem on its hands, and not just some petty personal beef with Jimmy Kimmel.
Watch the Oliver segment here:
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