Last Week Tonight: the Sequel, Bird Division

Yesterday, we posted the Main Story here from this past Sunday's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, a serious look at Abortion Rights, with the show's usual comic perspective.  This is not that again.  It's just something else the show did that was too much fun not to include.

Generally, the show has a standard order.  They open with a few headlines, then go to "And now this..." which is an amusing few minutes on a specific theme, and then end with the Main Story.  On occasion, they'll have a funny final story.

On Sunday, however, they went directly from the headlines to the Main Story, which was surprising.  There were still almost 35 minutes to go, which would have been a very long time for a Main Story.  It turned out, however, that there was a good reason for all this.

That's because after the Main Story they did another story for 12 minutes.  And for reasons that will be clear, it had to come after the Main Story -- not before -- because it was one of those things for which the phrase, "I wouldn't want to follow that," was coined.

It was a story about a "Bird of the Year" contest in New Zealand.  Or this year, a "Bird of the Century" contest.  The report was a lot of fun and very funny.  And then got funnier as it went out, building to wonderful hilarity in a way that only Last Week Tonight does.  And then...it topped even that.

You couldn't have gone from that to a Main Story on Abortion Rights.  In fact, you wouldn't have wanted anything to go after it.  For reasons that will be clear.

The problem is that while Last Week Tonight always posts the Main Story, that's usually all they make available.  And such was the case with this report on the bird contest in New Zealand.  But I search for it, to see if somewhere what got posted, somehow.  I found a few short clips, but that was it.

And then finally, I found someone who seems to have recorded the report on the phone, and then posted it on Tik-Tok.  The audio quality isn't great, a bit tinny, and the image is much smaller than ideal -- but a) the audio and image are fine, and b) this is too funny not to use it and be grateful it exists.  But do click on the "diagonal arrows" in the lower-right corner of the video to make the image it a bit larger.

I'll just say to keep an ear open for a two-word phrase that begins with the word "alarmingly."

This cuts off right before the end, but I'll post the final line below.  However, for those who want the full, brilliant experience, I found a video of the final minute -- with the last line intact.  So, when he starts to get up from his desk, stop the video here and then scroll down.  (However, if you just want to watch this Tik-Tok video alone, fine, I'll post the cut-off line under the second video.  I trust this is all clear...)

And fun, too, I'll have a brief follow-up on some of the reaction to this, which I'll post underneath the video, as well.  We are a full, information service, after all.


But it's best to watch this first with unsuspecting eyes...

As I said, if you want to see the final line that gets cut off here -- and also see the final minute in glorious full screen -- here's the video of it.  And as before, just click on the "diagonal arrows" in the lower right corner once the video starts to fill the screen.  It's worth it...

(But if you've already watched most of that final minute and only want to know the last line, I'll post it directly below.)

Okay, for those who only want to know the final line, it's when Oliver says, "This is what democracy is all about – America interfering in foreign elections!!"

I also want to reiterate that I think the phrase "alarmingly aggressive” is one of the funniest that the show has used.  And the show may have blown its promotion budget for the year.

Finally, while there has been some criticism of the show getting involved with, basically, hijacking the contest, I'm happy to note that the organization running it was not only fine with it, but they appreciated it.  And surprisingly, as you'll see, it turns out that the show responsibly gave the organization an idea ahead of time that they would be getting involved.  So, the organization was not caught totally unawares.  And...was fine with it.

From two articles I found --

"Quoting Forest and Bird’s response at the time, he said: “'We’re not mad, just impressed that someone cares enough about New Zealand’s native birds to rig the competition. This all speaks to how much the people of New Zealand justifiably love this competition.'”
 
And...

​"Forest & Bird CEO Nicola Toki told Morning Report she was unperturbed by Oliver's attempt at fixing the vote, and their website had held up.
 
"'It's fair to say that a fair amount of weight was applied to work on it. My team working on it has had very little sleep. We're pretty impressed that the website held up, given the thousands and thousands of votes that came in.'
 
"The vote-rigging was not unexpected, as the team behind Oliver's show had been in touch earlier this year.
 
"'They were keen to be involved and we said, 'Go for it!'"
 
"All votes would need to be verified, but the bar to entry was low, she added.
 
"'You need to be a bird lover and someone with a valid email address. As John Oliver figured out, it doesn't matter where in the world you are.'
 
"The controversy around this latest flurry of votes did not bother Toki.
 
"'We rise to a challenge here in New Zealand - let's treat this as our new Everest, to show we can punch above our weight.'"

In fact, the organization even happily promoted their contest on social media with a nod to Last Week Tonight​'s efforts.