Jay Leno, the comedian who spent years talking about practically nothing but the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal as host of The Tonight Show in the ’90s and 2000s, thinks comedians are too political these days.
And John Oliver, the host of Last Week Tonight, is having none of it.
Leno made his comments while bloviating about The Late Show with Stephen Colbert being canceled for political reasons.
Leno seemed to blame Colbert’s political humor for the cancellation instead of, you know, what appears to be a move by the corporate ownership of the show to kowtow to the fascistic whims of a wannabe dictator.
And in a recent Hollywood Reporter profile, Oliver had precisely nothing nice to say about Leno’s ridiculous hot take.
Leno’s advice to late-night hosts was to avoid politics and focus on their “whole” audience instead.
Which is funny since nobody ever gives that advice to, say, Greg Gutfeld, whose very right-wing Fox News show Gutfeld!, a program composed entirely of mocking liberals and everything they stand for, has been the number one show in late night for most of its run.
Anyway, Colbert told THR he had no interest whatsoever in Leno’s take on anything, let alone the content of a late-night show:
“I’m going to take a hard pass on taking comedic advice from Jay Leno.”
Pressed further by THR on whether late-night shows should “still try to be for everyone,” Oliver was even more blunt.
“Who thinks that way? Executives?…”
“It’s inherently subjective. So, yeah, when you do stand-up, some people try to play to a broader audience, which is completely legitimate. Others decide not to, which is equally legitimate.”
“I guess I don’t think it’s a question of what you should do because I don’t think comedy is prescriptive in that way. It’s just what people want.”
On social media, many applauded Oliver for his take on Leno’s advice.
Oliver also told THR that the part of his show that is most important to him is the long-form investigative segments, which are usually about systemic issues and which lay blame at both sides of the political aisle.
He told THR that his goal with these segments is to “actually reach across people’s political persuasions” to focus on the real issues.
Which seems a lot loftier than spending years slut-shaming the intern the president took advantage of, but whatever you say, Mr. Leno.
