Oliver and Company


Cookie Monster and John Oliver at news desk in suits

I praised the pleasant surprise that was John Oliver’s hosting of The Daily Show
when Jon Stewart took a sabbatical last summer. And I was not alone. Many TV critics predicted that Oliver would be promoted from correspondent to host of his own show — probably someplace other than Comedy Central, since a third half-hour* of satirical news and punditry there wasn’t likely. That someplace turned out to be HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Plankwalk Empire


Last Thursday was International “Talk Like a Pirate” Day, and Comedy Central’s @Midnight celebrated with an appropriate Hashtag Wars segment [bad link] . As current as it is, the show tapes a little while before it actually airs to allow for editing, so the producers post the subject of each night’s segment on Twitter at about 11:30 p.m. ET and invite fans to join the fun early. My old buddy and occasional Blam’s Blog commenter Arben noticed the night’s subject, liked it, and gave me a heads-up so that I could brainstorm along with him, then graciously let me to add some of his entries to mine for publication here for a total of our...

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