LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight". I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us. It has been a busy week,
from Lori Lightfoot losing her reelection bid in Chicago,
to Alec Murdaugh being found guilty of two murders.
Of all the ill-advised pieces of commentary
concerning this blockbuster trial,
perhaps none was less welcome than this.
A whole lot of people asking me what I think about this...
Alex Murdaugh trial.
I don't know why they think I'm an expert on it.
I do !
I do, O.J. There are two things you have expertise on in this life:
football and murdering wives.
No one's asking you for your take on Alec Murdaugh's rushing average,
so I'm guessing it's the second one there.
But we're going to start with our main story tonight,
which concerns Ron DeSantis, business Fred Flintstone.
DeSantis has been all over the news, as he is seemingly every week.
He appointed his political backers to a new Disney oversight board.
He released a new book "The Courage to Be Free",
and by the way, I have a little gift for our studio audience.
Look under your seats ! The gift is, it isn't there.
You don't have to read it. You're welcome.
And he also put out this eye-catching video.
Florida is proof positive
that we the people are not destined for failure.
DeSantis wins. He has made a promise, and he's making good on the promise.
Florida is leading the nation. Decline is a choice.
Success is attainable. And freedom is worth fighting for.
There is a lot there,
but "Florida's proof that we the people are not destined for failure ?"
I don't know about that, Ron. Last year alone in Florida,
a man tried to steal a crossbow by stuffing it down his pants,
a woman instigated a police chase
so she could cross "getting arrested" off her bucket list,
and a man was charged with battery for throwing a hot dog at a police officer.
We the people may not be destined for failure,
but a lot of individuals down there sure do seem drawn to it.
This all feels like part of a coordinated rollout
of DeSantis's inevitable presidential campaign.
Because even though he hasn't yet officially announced he's running,
he's already many conservatives' favorite candidate.
After his landslide reelection as governor last November,
the New York Post proclaimed him "DeFuture".
Which is depressing.
And he received this cringe-inducing introduction from Kari Lake.
I don't know if you've heard of this, but he's got BDE.
Anybody know what that means ?
Ask your kids about it later.
I call it Big DeSantis Energy.
Okay, that is obviously terrible, but just to be clear:
if you don't know what BDE is, please don't ask your kids later.
For the sake of those kids, I'll just tell you right now:
it stands for Big Dick Energy, a kind of easy, magnetic confidence
that doesn't necessarily mean you have a large penis,
or, indeed, a penis at all, it's just the energy associated.
A list of those with BDE would include Bryan Cranston,
Christine Baranski, the Pixar lamp, Charles Darwin, and Snoopy.
Does that make sense ? Please come to me and not your kids
if you need any penis-related slang explained in the future.
It is worth noting, in general,
you can't predict much about a presidential race 20 months out.
Previous early frontrunners include Jeb Bush...
The late Jeb Bush ? I don't know, it's unclear.
Howard Dean, and Rudy Giuliani,
who is wandering around Central Park covered in Thousand Island dressing
and screaming about election fraud to pigeons.
And DeSantis is eventually likely to have to go up against Donald Trump,
which history has shown is no easy task.
While Trump initially struggled to coin a damaging nickname for DeSantis,
with his first attempt being the weak "Ron DeSanctimonious",
he later unveiled something with a lot more punch.
According to the Times,
Trump has spent weeks trying to goad DeSantis into a fight,
describing him in conversations as "Meatball Ron".
Yeah. Apparently, he was calling him Meatball Ron.
I hate to say it, but Trump's still got it !
It's perfectly stupid, childish, and hurtful
in a way that's genuinely difficult to articulate.
Also, it's a pretty good name on its own.
If you asked me to describe the perfect "Meatball Ron",
I'd say, I don't know, maybe a round little hamster.
Or this smiley cartoon character. Little arms and legs, little mustache,
maybe voiced by Chris Pratt in a straight-to-streaming kids movie
with weirdly Christian undertones that feels anti-Italian somehow.
But then, if you simply showed me a picture of this guy,
I'd say, "Forget everything that I just said,
that is my Meatball Ron right there, that is my meatball".
But whatever Trump calls him in the future,
the fact is, Meatball Ron
remains a strong contender for the Republican nomination.
And while many commentators insist on framing him
solely in opposition to Trump,
saying things like he's "Donald Trump with a brain",
that doesn't seem particularly meaningful.
It's like saying, "That new restaurant is better than this chicken pot pie
that fell on the sidewalk".
It is, but you're not really giving me much useful information there.
If I may quote Tom Brady's publicist while reviewing his old golf photos,
"Let's take Trump out of the picture".
And tonight, let's examine DeSantis on his own merits,
and look at just some of what he's done to
and for the over 20 million people of Florida.
It's sometimes less than he claims, sometimes less than his critics claim,
and sometimes worse than you may know.
Let's skip over his early life.
He grew up in Florida, was a standout baseball player,
got to the Little League World Series with his local team.
He then went to Yale, then Harvard Law School,
and subsequently joined the Navy as an attorney.
Eventually, he married his wife, Casey,
despite having the most bizarre dating tactic I have ever heard.
According to a former classmate, DeSantis would apparently tell dates
that he liked Thai food, but pronounced it "thigh".
If they corrected him, he would make up an excuse and leave,
because, quote, "He didn't want a girlfriend who corrected him".
If that is true, wow !
Just imagine being on that date. You're out at dinner,
and your date tells you that he really likes "thigh" food.
And you think, "Wait, did he just call Thai food 'thigh' food ?"
But he goes on to say that he knows a great "thigh" food restaurant,
all while staring very intently at you, almost studying your reaction.
So, as politely as you can, you say, "Thai food ? From Thailand ?"
And then suddenly, his face drops, and he says,
"Sorry, I forgot I have a doctor's appointment tonight",
and he leaves, leaving you both with the check,
and the single greatest first-date disaster story of all time.
Then, flashing forward, in 2012, DeSantis was elected to Congress,
though while there, a former colleague says
that he always had his earbuds in, to keep people away.
And if you're picking up on a theme of:
"Ron DeSantis doesn't like hearing anyone's voice but his own",
you're on to something, because since becoming Florida governor,
he's made shutting down dissenting voices something of a feature.
Here is a campaign ad from last year,
in which he shows off his skill at battling the media.
Good morning. This is your governor speaking.
Today's training evolution: dogfighting. Taking on the corporate media.
Number one: don't fire unless fired upon,
but when they fire, you fire back with overwhelming force.
Does it say that in the bill ? I'm asking to tell me what's in the bill.
Number two: never, ever back down from a fight.
- If I could complete the question... - It is a speech or a question ?
Number three: don't accept their narrative.
It's wrong, it's a fake narrative, I disabused you of the narrative,
and you don't care about the facts.
Until around 40 seconds ago,
"Top Gun: Maverick" was my favorite movie of last year,
but now, I'm sad to say, it's my least favorite movie of all time,
tied with "Cats" and the Zapruder film.
DeSantis is constantly complaining the media is taking him out of context.
Although it is worth noting that in that ad,
he's removing some pretty important context from the media.
Take that clip where he said,
"Are you gonna give a speech or ask a question ?"
You'll notice that only one person is doing the fighting there.
Governor, what has gone wrong with the rollout of the vaccine
that we've seen phone lines jammed, websites crashing...
It's a lot of demand. I think at the end of the day...
- Excuse me! - If I could finish my question...
You just said, "What has gone wrong ?" So, I'm answering the question.
- If I could complete the question. - It is a speech or a question ?
You asked a question. I'm going to answer it.
- I'm trying to finish my question. - No, you asked a question.
- I am trying to ask you the... - You get three questions ?
They only got one question. Why do you get three ?
- I'm asking if I could finish it. - You finished the question.
No, she didn't !
And all she's asking you for is some basic accountability.
When you see that in context, that's a pretty gross case
of someone "meatball-splaining" to a journalist
who's just trying to do her fucking job.
Though, to be clear, DeSantis doesn't hate all media.
There is one notable exception. It's the exact one you're thinking of.
DeSantis is on Fox News all the time, morning, noon, and night.
Even by Republican standards,
the mutual affection between him and Fox is pretty extreme.
In just one four-month stretch,
"the network asked him to appear on its airwaves 113 times,
or nearly once a day,"
with one Fox producer even offering to let him pick the subject matter
if he agreed to come on, which is just pathetic.
If Fox News ever went on a date with Ron DeSantis,
they definitely wouldn't correct him when he called it "thigh" food.
But DeSantis isn't just another Fox talking head,
he sells himself as someone with a proven track record.
He has done some terrible stuff. For instance, at his urging,
his state's medical board banned gender-affirming care for minors.
And he signed a 15-week abortion ban into law,
while recently suggesting he'd sign a six-week one if it reached his desk.
Lots of Republican governors have done things like that.
What makes DeSantis extra popular on the right
is his willingness to wage big, symbolic culture wars.
He's bragged that he's made Florida "the freest state" in America,
while defending its residents from the greatest scourge of our time.
Wokeism is really a form of cultural Marxism.
The wokeism is the new religion of the left.
We are not, and will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.
Florida is where woke goes to die.
First, Florida is not where woke goes to die.
It's where wealthy Upper East Side New Yorkers go to die.
But second, DeSantis says "woke" so often it begins to lose all meaning,
but if you're wondering what he thinks it actually stands for,
his general counsel once helpfully defined "woke" in court as,
"the view that there are systemic injustices in American society
and the need to have policies that address them."
Which is a hell of a thing
for someone to admit to everyone that you are against.
DeSantis might really want to invest in a lawyer more willing to lie for him.
I understand there's one currently wandering around Central Park
who is available, if you can catch him.
But you'll have to be careful. He's slippy !
DeSantis expends a lot of energy
decrying wokeness and empty virtue signaling,
although he also seems to spend a huge amount of time
doing the right-wing version of exactly that.
There was the time that he waded in on Lia Thomas,
a trans woman who'd won an event in an NCAA swimming championship.
The second-place finisher happened to be from Florida,
which DeSantis then took as an excuse to come out and do this shit.
If you look at what the NCAA has done
by allowing basically men to compete in women's athletics,
in this case, the swimming,
you had the number one woman who finished was from Sarasota.
We're going to be doing a proclamation
saying that Emma is the best female swimmer in the 500-meter freestyle
because she earned that.
Okay, aside from being fucking gross and awful, to be very clear:
"DeSantis doesn't have the power
to declare or disqualify winners in college sports,"
rendering that proclamation completely pointless.
But since men in suits seem to be using their platforms
to invalidate past athletic achievements out of pure spite,
I hereby declare that by signing this,
Ron DeSantis's Little League team, the Swingin' Meatballs,
did not, in fact, ever make the Little League World Series.
Instead, his team's place will from henceforth
be taken by the season-six cast of "RuPaul's Drag Race".
I declare it ! It is declared ! It is done !
But it's gone way beyond empty, hateful proclamations.
DeSantis has also signed a bunch of attention-grabbing bills
that seem designed to delight conservatives and enrage liberals.
And while the announcements of these bills
tend to get a lot of national media coverage,
the actual implementation of them can get far less scrutiny.
Take DeSantis's so-called "anti-riot law",
which he passed following the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
The law, among other things, strengthens criminal penalties
for those deemed rioters at demonstrations.
And he loves to brag to conservative audiences
about just how mad it's made people.
And I have to say, brag a little bit.
Our anti-riot legislation was recently criticized by the United Nations.
I wear that as a badge of honor.
Okay !
But being chastised by the UN isn't innately positive.
What other admonitions
would fill DeSantis with a misplaced sense of pride ?
"I was also criticized by the Holocaust Museum,
Lego called me a scumbag, and Malala Yousafzai
said she'd punch me in the throat if she ever got the chance.
I wear that as a badge of honor."
But it is not just the UN that had a problem with that law.
A judge issued a preliminary injunction
blocking the key part of it from being enforced,
arguing that it could effectively criminalize legal, protected speech,
and that it was "vague to the point of unconstitutionality".
The same thing happened to his "Stop Social Media Censorship Act",
which, again, got a huge amount of attention when he first signed it.
It threatened social media platforms with fines for banning candidates,
and he proposed it shortly after a number of them
had removed Trump in the wake of January 6th.
'Cause of, you know, that thing.
But that law is also under a preliminary injunction,
from a judge who at one point told the DeSantis administration's lawyers,
"I won't put you on the spot and ask you if you've ever dealt with a statute
that was more poorly drafted."
And look, he is still fighting those lawsuits,
and future decisions could wind up going his way.
These cases are going through higher courts that range
from "fairly conservative" all the way up to "overturned Roe v. Wade."
But even when DeSantis has existing laws on his side,
his application of them can be slapdash and gross.
Just last year, he made a big show of announcing
his new "Elections Crime and Security Office"
had spearheaded the arrests of 20 people who'd voted illegally.
These were largely people who the state had cleared to join the voter rolls,
so they assumed they were eligible to vote,
despite the fact that they technically weren't.
One way of dealing with that would've been to simply contact those people,
explain the mistake, and remove them from the rolls.
But instead, DeSantis chose to send armed cops to conduct arrests,
with bodycam video later revealing police, with guns drawn,
pulling people out of their houses.
If you listen to cops involved, even they seem
annoyed and embarrassed at what they're having to do.
They just dumped this shit on me.
I had to plan three operations in four hours.
I ain't commit no fraud.
So that's the thing. I don't know exactly what happened with it,
but you do have a warrant, and that's what it's for.
Why is y'all doing this now, and this happened years ago ?
I have no idea, man.
Do you have any idea
how sketchy your order needs to be for cops to enforce it reluctantly ?
Enforcing laws on scared people is one of their favorite things to do !
It's that, make siren go "wee-woo, wee-woo, wee-woo",
and end of list.
Now, since then, several of those cases,
including all those we just showed you, have been dropped or dismissed.
But it really feels like DeSantis's main aim there,
as in so many cases, was just to instill fear.
To make people afraid to protest, or to moderate content,
or even to vote.
Even his sloppily written laws can end up doing real harm.
And maybe the clearest place to see all of this in action
is in Florida's schools, he has been very busy there.
You probably remember last year's passage of HB 1557,
the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act,
also known as the Don't Say Gay bill.
Though DeSantis says that name pushes a "false narrative",
and has claimed that the bill simply says
no sexual instruction to kids pre-K through three.
But the truth is, the bill is not as narrow as that at all,
as this DeSantis supporter openly acknowledges.
What this bill's trying to prevent is indoctrination of our children.
But the bill is a sweeping, general piece of legislation
that doesn't apply to young children, it applies throughout the school age,
where it says "age-appropriate teaching of gender identity and sexuality".
The bill targets kindergarten to third grade
and it says "or age appropriate".
So, when is it age appropriate to talk about homosexuality ?
It varies by the individual.
You would sue a teacher if they started talking to your daughter
about same-sex marriage or LGBTQ issues at the age of 17 ?
If they don't have my consent and I think it's not appropriate, yes.
I think a lot of people would be quite shocked to hear that.
- It's kind of a mainstream... - That is the law !
Exactly. I know that's rough to hear, but he is technically right there.
Thanks to Ron DeSantis, right now, it is the law in Florida.
And quick sidenote,
it's funny how it's always the people who think homosexuality as a concept
needs to be taught at an "appropriate age"
that don't give a second thought
to when they teach their kids what heterosexuality is.
I could be wrong. Maybe in that guy's family, his kid asks every day
"Who are you people living in my house ?" and he responds:
"My name is Dad, that lady is Mom, and we're friends.
Don't ask me any more questions 'til you're 18 or I will sue you !"
And it is not just sexuality in DeSantis's crosshairs,
he's also passed an act called the Stop WOKE Act,
which limits the ways concepts related to systemic racism
and sex discrimination can be discussed in schools.
And to hear him tell it, laws like that are badly needed
because the wokeness in schools goes way deeper than anyone might think.
I will have math books sent to my department of education
for review, these textbooks, and they will do things like woke math.
And I'm thinking to myself, two plus two equals four.
It's not, "Two plus two. Let's have a struggle session over that.
How do you feel about it ?" No. There's a right answer here.
Out of context, he's completely right there.
Numbers don't have feelings.
If they did, this one would be sad, this one would be giggly,
and this one would be exciting for a few minutes,
but then the novelty wears off and it mostly just gets tired and sore.
DeSantis has claimed that his state had to reject math books
for containing "indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism,
especially, bizarrely, for elementary school students."
Now, that is a big claim.
If it sounds like bullshit to you, that's because it absolutely is.
Reporters for these outlets combed through thousands of pages
of elementary school textbooks and their reviews,
and couldn't find any such examples.
And when the DeSantis administration eventually produced
just four tiny snippets of what they claimed was objectionable material,
for the two that came from grade-school books,
there is nothing about race, although one does suggest students
"practice with empathizing with classmates"
while they fulfill a lesson objective
of "identify numbers from one to five in sequence".
So, his big claim of "woke math" and "race essentialism" in grade schools
is regular math and trying to teach kids not to be dicks to each other.
A kind of math education that DeSantis frankly might've benefited from,
as his solution to figuring out the difference between one and three questions
seems to be, "yell until the other person stops talking".
And the most recent thing you may have heard about
are books being pulled from shelves in Florida schools,
with viral images like these making the rounds online.
In classic fashion, DeSantis has pushed back on those images hard.
They've tried to create in Florida a narrative,
it's basically a book ban hoax, it's a hoax, what they're doing.
And they're trying to say that because we have parental rights
and because we have curriculum transparency,
if you have a book that has hardcore pornography
in a library that ten-year-olds can access,
and a parent objects to that, that does not satisfy Florida standards,
it should not be in the library with those young kids.
And I think 99 percent of parents agree with that.
Okay, first, let's debunk the most egregious claim there
because 99 percent of parents don't agree on anything.
I'm pretty sure you can find at least ten percent of parents
who are against covering electrical sockets in reach of toddlers.
They're called zap moms and they're all about
letting kids discover their own limits of electricity.
But I will give DeSantis this,
there has been some misinformation floating around online.
This viral list of books supposedly banned statewide in Florida,
circulated widely, but it's nonsense.
Having said that, those images of empty shelves are very real,
and are the direct result of DeSantis's actions.
He signed legislation mandating that only approved books
could be included in any school or classroom library,
and that approval must come from a certified media specialist.
That led some districts, including the ones those photos are from,
to tell teachers to remove or cover books.
Not because they were pushing a false narrative,
but because they were trying to comply with DeSantis's stupid law.
And while DeSantis might say, "This is an overreaction
because those books will return once they are approved",
not all of them.
Thanks to his new law,
as well as that Don't Say Gay bill and his Stop WOKE Act,
he has turbocharged a movement among conservatives
to get books removed from libraries that they just don't like.
And this goes way beyond removing hardcore pornography
or the usual kind of give-and-take between parents and school boards
that has been going on for decades now.
What DeSantis has done is make it so anyone in a community
can challenge these books.
Reporters tracked down one woman
who submitted 21 book challenges in one county,
only to find that she's a retiree with no children
who fully admits that she hasn't read all of them,
but "I've read them in partial".
So, she skimmed them and said, "I'm sure nobody should read this".
Which is exactly how I feel about Ron DeSantis's new book,
but I'm not trying to get it taken out of libraries, am I ?
This teacher in Escambia County, Florida,
challenged around 115 books, among them titles like
"And Tango Makes Three", a picture book based on the true story
of two male penguins at the Zoo who raised a baby chick together.
Apparently, one of her objections to it is that a second grader could read it,
"and the idea would pop into their mind
that these are two people of the same sex that love each other".
And the problem is, schools are acting on those sorts of complaints.
There was a recent school board meeting in that county
to address the calls to ban three of the books on that teacher's list,
including the penguin one.
Multiple community members came to testify in favor of banning it,
and some made it abundantly clear what law they felt empowered them.
I probably wouldn't even talk about this book
except for right and wrong as a clear line and it's not gray,
so it is black and white.
It's black and white with the law when we talk about HB 1557.
I think we're talking about indoctrination.
And when you look up this book on Destiny Discover,
on the schools and county website
the book says this book is about two male penguins that fall in love.
Jesus said, "Go and sin no more", so this, this is against the law.
Thank you.
Just think about the work he put into that.
That man had to shower, put on a pair of pants,
decide what shirt to wear,
choose the light blue one that's two sizes too big,
drive to the meeting, park his car, walk into the building,
wait a while for his turn to speak,
all so that he could eventually stand behind a podium
and say out loud, as an adult, that he's mad about gay penguins.
You have to admire his dedication to being such a fucking idiot.
But the problem is, that fucking idiot won.
At that meeting, the board voted to ban
"And Tango Makes Three" from its schools.
When you take all of this together, the books being removed,
the inane proclamations to shame trans athletes,
the sloppy attempts to criminalize protestors,
and you combine it with everything else,
from the support for restrictive abortion bans,
to the efforts to stop gender-affirming care,
it really begins to feel like "the freest state" in America
is only free to the extent that anyone wants to behave
exactly the way that Ron DeSantis thinks they should.
In the months to come,
you're gonna hear a lot of DeSantis-versus-Trump comparisons.
And the truth is, he'll probably come out well in a lot of them,
more or less by default, but that cannot be the bar here.
It is important to consider DeSantis in his own right.
If Donald Trump never existed, and let's just all just pause
and enjoy that hypothetical, just for a second.
If Donald Trump never existed,
and you were forced to learn about Ron DeSantis,
from scratch, with no basis for comparison,
what you would see would justifiably horrify you.
Because you would be discovering a petty autocrat and a bully.
A man with no interest in hearing dissent, questions,
or indeed the correct pronunciation of "Thai food".
And all in all, a man who is, and I do not use this term lightly,
just a fucking meatball.
And now, this !
And Now...
Jerry O'Connell's Wife is a Scorpio, and He Needs Help.
I have to tell you, I did not believe in astrology either,
when I saw it, I didn't believe it, and then I married a Scorpio.
- If you marry a Scorpio... - You better know it.
A Scorpio, it's over, just do what they say.
All Scorpios do is vent, that's what they do.
You just can't ever get her mad because Mama Bear is a Scorpio.
My wife is a Scorpio.
Scorpios, I can tell you as someone who's married to one,
they're really good at fighting.
- I'm married to a Scorpio so... - Yay !
We are like one drunken lunch away from being, "That's it, I'm out !
I'm finished with you !"
My wife was breastfeeding and I dropped a couple of bags on the floor.
And my wife is a Scorpio,
so you can only imagine what I went through after that.
- Rebecca, who is a Scorpio... - No, Jerry wouldn't do it !
My wife is a Scorpio, sometimes my wife is, like,
"What's going on with you and Jacqueline ?"
I'm married to one.
You're married to a Scorpio as well ? We can talk after the show.
Moving on.
Before we go, I'd like to take a moment to discuss advertising.
We're all constantly bombarded by ads,
and it can be hard for a brand to cut through the noise
unless they're using a flashy celebrity endorsement
or making a massive fuck-up.
Like when Volkswagen Italy's Instagram account
combined the word "Volkswagen" and the word "Italia",
to spell something very different.
It's like what Optimus Prime looks for with safe search off.
But we discovered that a plumbing company from Austin, Texas
had made a commercial so bold it dared you not to pay attention.
There was a time where homeowners
dealt with unruly ACs, toilets, and water heaters.
No other team could handle the fight.
But there remained a beacon of hope in a group of superheroes
just one call away.
We'll take it from here.
Dispatch, I'm en route.
Just call Radiant.
Yeah. Exactly.
That "Avengers" parody is an ad for a local plumbing company.
And honestly, I've got no notes. Except, you know what, I do have one.
Who the fuck is the guy on the left supposed to be ?
I'm not an "Avengers" buff, but I'm pretty sure there's no dog guy.
But please, tell me I'm wrong, internet.
I would love to get a thousand tweets about this from you nerds,
"Actually, John, if you look closely in the 'Avengers' issue 457,
the existence of a radioactive dog is not in fact out of the question".
Tell me that ! I'm lookin' at this guy and I'm thinking there's no radioacti...
Shit, it's the raccoon isn't it ?
He's the raccoon with a dirty mouth and a tree for a friend.
It's my mistake. I take all of that back.
If all this company had made was that one movie-themed ad,
that would have been comfortably enough for me.
But it turns out, Radiant Plumbing does this a lot.
Because last year, they also managed to turn a certain transhumanist epic
about the dangers of messianic prophecies into an ad as well.
The people ask us to bring peace to the city of Austin.
House Radiant accepts !
I know you.
There's something awakening in your mind.
You must face your fears.
Come with me.
COMING TO A HOME NEAR YOU
You need to be ready.
Holy shit ! That "Dune" parody is incredible.
The casting alone ! Look at this guy.
He's more of a Timothée Chalamet-type than the real Timothée Chalamet.
He's got that signature Chalamet air of mystery
where you're not sure if he's about to white boy rap at you
or do whip-its in your mom's basement.
And as for ending with this giant toilet sandworm ?
"Avatar: Way of Wet" can go fuck itself,
the Oscar for best visual effects goes to Radiant Plumbing.
And the cherry on top of all of that
is the title that they chose for it on YouTube "Toilet Dune".
No need to think too hard on it. It's toilet and it's "Dune".
It's "Toilet Dune".
And when you start diving into Radiant's YouTube page,
you will quickly discover just how versatile they are
in the medium of toilet cinema.
They've done "Star Wars", in which R2-D2 is played by a toilet.
They've done a "Scream" parody for Halloween,
and three years ago, they even rolled out a series of ads
parodying "Napoleon Dynamite",
a movie that was, at that point, a mere 16 years old.
I'm not even getting into their movie-themed window displays,
which have included the Teenage Mutant Ninja Toilets, Mary Poopins,
and, in the clearest example of "we'll add toilet to anything",
Jurassic Toilet.
Look, let me be very clear at this point.
I have no idea how good at plumbing Radiant Plumbing is.
Given how much time they spend making these ads,
they could very well be terrible, but I couldn't care less.
They are now responsible for some of my favorite commercials ever produced,
including this final one that I'd like to show you.
It's a love letter to James Cameron's least wet film, "The Terminator".
We must destroy the mother toilet. We'll not stand for a toilet takeover !
We've got bowel movement. Turn on all frequencies.
- Alpha team, status report. - I can see the mother toilet now.
Go ! Now !
The toilet has taken over the squad commander.
Hasta la toilet, baby. You forgot to wipe the seat.
For all your plumbing... AC and drain needs...
Just call Radiant. What are you doing ? Pick up the phone, now !
That's just very good. It's very good.
From making the choice
that there will be not one Arnold Schwarzenegger, but eight,
to giving the evil toilet what I can describe as disturbingly human teeth.
Honestly, you watch enough of these, and you begin to wonder,
is there any movie that they can't turn into a commercial ?
And I guess, sadly, there's just no way to find out.
Except for one.
Because you may remember, a few years ago,
we offered local car dealers the chance to film a commercial that we wrote,
with the catch being that they couldn't look at the script before agreeing,
and one dealership, Zumbrota Ford of Minnesota,
actually took us up on our offer.
I have a similar proposition tonight, but with a crucial difference.
So, please, come with me. Because Radiant Plumbing,
I need you to listen to me very closely,
'cause I have a very important proposal for you.
Unlike the last time, I haven't written you a script.
Why would I,
when you are already swimming in a veritable toilet bowl of ideas.
Instead, in this envelope, I have the name of a film.
I won't say which one.
But I will say that if you agree to some basic terms and conditions,
a key one being that you agree to make your next movie commercial
inspired by the film in this envelope, sight unseen,
we will debut your ad on this show to millions of people,
and give a $10 000 donation to the Central Texas Food Bank.
The movie in here could be in your wheelhouse,
like an action film, or a costume-heavy horror.
Or it could be something else. So, it is a risk.
But as you might say, "with great risk comes great toilet."
So, please, get in touch, and let's make movie magic together !
You have exactly one week to reply.
Thank you so much for watching. We'll see you next week, good night !
Call us !