John Oliver Knocks Apple TV+ as ‘Something You Can Just Ignore’: ‘It’s Apple TV, Where Celebrities Go to Hide’

November 20, 2023 at 9:37 am

John Oliver set his sights on an unexpected target on the latest episode of “Last Week Tonight”: Apple TV+.

Sunday’s episode of HBO’s late-night series focused on working conditions at dollar stores. As Oliver reported, these stores are often so understaffed that only one or two employees are working at a time — and the employees who are working are underpaid and don’t receive adequate support. An employee explained that after an armed robbery at her store, her district manager’s second question was how quickly the employee could reopen the store.

“This is ridiculous. “An armed robbery is a traumatic event that people need time to recover from,” Oliver said. “It’s not something you can just ignore, like a spam call, a broken light bulb or any show on Apple TV.”

“Did you know that Octavia Spencer was a true crime podcaster on Truth Be Told for three seasons?” The late-night host continued. “Of course you didn’t. It’s Apple TV where celebrities hide.”

Oliver isn’t the only late-night host who has recently poked fun at Apple TV+. After making a joke about Chinese labor last week, Colbert joked that Apple had “canceled Jon Stewart again,” a reference to the streamer’s recent cancellation of “The Problem with Jon Stewart.” The famous host reportedly left the series after receiving guidance from Apple about its coverage of China and artificial intelligence.

As usual, Oliver has also made a name for himself for his own parent channel, Warner Bros. Discovery. Earlier in the episode, he mocked Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos for saying his stores are “fabulous” during bad times. Oliver focused on Vasos’ use of that particular word.

“Fabulous is best used to describe a quirky hat or the cast of The Golden Bachelor or the fact that Kim Cattrall made a million dollars to sit in a car and not talk to Sarah Jessica Parker said Oliver.

This third example is a reference to the final episode of the second season of And Just Like That. After nearly two full seasons of fans begging for Cattrall to return as Samantha to Max’s Sex and the City reboot, the actor appeared in a brief scene to briefly call Parker’s Carrie. The brief cameo, which sees the characters canonically spread across the world from each other, became one of the most hyped and discussed moments in the series’ second season.