Last Week Tonight on Key

Written By: notices and features - Date published: - 70 comments
Categories: john key, Minister for International Embarrassment - Tags: , ,

Last Week Tonight (John Oliver) on Key and his pathetic excuses.

When it’s available in embeddable form will include it here, in the mean time view here.

70 comments on “Last Week Tonight on Key”

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  2. 2

    “if you’re a full grown adult male, there’s a very short list of things that you can describe as tantalising without creeping out everyone.”

    “You can’t just pull someone’s hair for months, then make it all good with a bottle of wine. You’re the Prime Minister of New Zealand, not a Real Housewife of New Jersey.”

  4. 4

    ….and John Key’s lackeys (e.g.Fisi er al.) like to come here and state this is a non-story! Glad that the rest of the world finds Key’s behaviour so bizarre.

  6. 6

    I’ve been waiting for this since the story went international – I just expected it to be on the Daily Show (since it was broken on TDB). Thank you John Oliver for this satire, we don’t seem to have any on our own screens for some reason.

    Previous show’s segments:

    “Pretty Legal”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e25YmpQiEEY
    Vegetarian Pirate Flag

    1. 6.1

      Yeah, kind of weird, we’re relying on an overseas TV channel to take the piss out of our own Prime Minister because our own channels can’t. Are we still in a democracy…. Say if Jono & Ben spent a chunk of time ripping into the PM would their show be on the chopping block too, like Campbell Live?

                    2. 6.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.2

                      They won’t air satire like that in NZ – the Nats really do have broadcasting on lock-down.

                      The best critique is probably Media Take, but they’re not very funny.

      2. 6.1.2

        Even under Muldoon we had political satire on tv. I left Aotearoa in 1997 and I’m sure there was something on then. When did it disappear?

            1. 6.1.3.1.1.1

              Guy’s Apology Wine was indeed good. Also this; from Jono & Rose, because Key’s creepiness isn’t confined to just unwanted touching:

      5. 6.1.5

        We desperately need political satire to return to our screens, it’s a healthy and essential part of a democracy that has the ability and freedom to hold a mirror to those in power.

        Despite this vacuum of humour, 7 Days last Friday did manage to have a real go at Key in regard to his sustained abuse of Amanda Bailey, and have a go in general by wandering in the territory of abuse with Chopper referring to both Tony Abbot and John Key as a pair of fuckwit leaders. Paul Ego said to Judith Collins on “Yes Minister” “Judith you have a lovely complexion, do you keep your skin young by applying whaleoil?” (words to that effect). He had on her her toes throughout the segment.

        Then on the Comedy Gala on tv3 on Sunday night Wilson Dixon incorporated Ponytailgate into his intro in a way that was respectful of Amanda Bailey and critical of Key and very funny.

        Sadly such comedic denigration of Key is only a fleeting thing on our screens.

        2. 6.1.5.2

          hi anne, here here. we need more satire.

          for me, the bar was set very high growing up with john clarke, aak grant, jon gadsby david mc phail etc.

          radio had a good series- down the list, but it’s disappeared from the airwaves.

      6. 6.1.6

        Are we still in a democracy…

        Nope. We have an elected dictatorship because someone has to make the hard decisions*.

        * Hard decisions seems to translate to enriching the already rich while putting the boot into the poor.

        1. 6.1.6.1

          I’ve never seen a politician make anything except easy decisions. Enriching their mates and enlarging their own privileges is not hard at all.

        1. 6.1.8.1

          I don’t really think that’s fair. I think they could do a decent, sustained job at it, if they tried. But that’s not the intention of their show, especially now it’s been moved to 7:30 instead of 10.

          1. 6.1.8.1.1

            I try to watch them but the silly slapstick crap is just old. And i haven’t seen anything to change that view of them. To be honest I still wonder how the hell they even got funding for their ‘show’

            1. 6.1.8.1.1.1

              It’s not old. I’m old and I know what old is.

              Their humour is too juvenile to watch, and stale and derivative as well.

        1. 6.2.2.1

          If it did, nobody would be trying to introduce legislative change to fix the situation. The US have constitutional exemptions to copyright for satire and parody. We don’t.

          1. 6.2.2.1.1

            which constitutional exemptions deal with copyright issues relating to satire and parody?

            Did you actually read what article 14 says?

              1. 6.2.2.1.1.1.1

                No, I am very familiar with this area.
                The NZ Bill of Rights gives us broader free speech than the 1st amendment does interestingly and I’m pretty sure there is nothing in the constitution that deals with copyright issues relating to satire and parody.

                You do not seem familiar in this area.

    3. 6.3

      Damn right, you’re not the only one missing the political satire we used to have on TV. What happened to the irreverent unapologetic piss-taking we used to give politicians? I don’t get it, the closest to this I see is 7-days.

  8. 8

    I am sorry that I am a New Zealander. Nah. Just ashamed and embarrassed that we have a clownish man/boy as PM.
    Well done John Oliver!

  13. 13

    Nailed it.

    International diplomatic negotiations,

    “we’d very much like you to end the sanctions”

    “we’re not going to do that, and I’ll tell you why, you’re a creepy individual who pulls women’s hair”

    Am also grateful for the slow motion of the CL clip. I don’t think he is pulling the child’s hair so much as feeling it. I hadn’t seen that before (at normal speed it looks like him just moving her hair off her shoulder).

    1. 13.1

      Many unwelcome fondlers know just how quickly they can do something creepy and still disguise it as innocent. As you just noticed, what he did was easy to miss at normal speed.

      1. 13.1.1

        On some clips you can see a “faraway” look on John’s face and to my eyes he is usually fondling rather than tugging.

    2. 13.2

      It is THAT clip which has made me very angry that the media keep calling it ponytail tugging or pulling… he caresses… a child…not known to him… without permission.

  14. 14

    And just flicked past the late TV1 News to see a large part of John Oliver’s clip and then flicked to late TV3 to see another edited version of it.
    Wonder if it will make the 6 oclock news?

  15. 15

    You can tell from the number of times he blinks during an interview just how much he’s ‘holding it in’ or ‘holding it all back’. The blink rate drops to zero and he just stares unblinkingly while talking when he’s under pressure. Its been apparent from his first days as PM.

    He’d pretty much learned to avoid it (i.e to akshully allow himself blink while being interviewed) more recently. But he slips back into the unblinking stare during a lot of the ponytail interviews. . . . . . Interesting . . . !

    1. 16.1

      Hang on. Just now @ The Herald:
      “John Key’s hair-pulling has generated headlines around the world, and comedian John Oliver is the latest to take a shot at it on his HBO show.

      In a new episode of HBO’s popular satirical news show Last Week Tonight, which screened yesterday in the US, Oliver led his audience through a basic rundown of the controversy, before adding his own comedic spin on it.”
      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11439359

  18. 18

    Here is a thought about satire. The entry bar to making it has never been lower. Pretty much anyone can make videos, cartoons, images etc for the internet. Most maybe a majority of people can watch these on their phones any time of the day.

    Maybe sites like this should be encouraging a new internet version of political satire. The best like ‘Planet Key’ could be very effective.

    P.S I would love a ‘Planet Key -the ponytail’ episode.

    1. 18.1

      That’s the point Brendon, apart from a rare toe fleetingly dipped in the water, the internet is the only place where such satire about NZ politics et al is being produced.

    2. 18.2

      We need a “The Onion”. Cleverist thing I ever read was their inauguration speech of G W Bush a month before he made it… and how frighteningly similar the two turned out to be.

  19. 19

    I honestly did not think Keys could top Abbott as Oceania’s standing diplomatic dunderhead. Well done mate.

  20. 20

    From most peoples posts above there has been the observation of the sad lack of satire associated with ponygate on TV. Odd, they had the comedy festival on TV, I think only 1 person (an American) made any reference to it.

    How odd, last week TV3 ran a “think piece” on bondage and hair pulling” during prime time.

    The sad, sad thing was, it was not satire…

    It was more like “Hey, if its good enough for Mr X, its good enough for you too Mr/Mrs Purveyor of Crap News & Media Manipulation

    The thought police are with us…. the PR marketing people are with us…..

    Have our Kawee comedians chuckened out to (or where they edited)…..

    In the immortal words of Bill Hicks:

    “Do a commercial, you’re off the artistic roll call, every word you say is suspect, you’re a corporate whore and eh, end of story.”

    By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising..http://www.endevil.com/billhickslines.html

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