{"id":593706,"date":"2025-11-25T22:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T22:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/593706\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T22:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T22:32:11","slug":"john-oliver-raises-1-5-million-for-pbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/593706\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver raises $1.5 million for PBS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/john-oliver-pbs-auction\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Last week on Last Week Tonight<\/a>, John Oliver spent the episode detailing the incredible challenges the Trump administration has dealt public media in the United States. (Namely, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/house-of-representatives-cuts-public-broadcasting-pbs-npr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">elimination of $1.1 billion in funding<\/a>.) The episode ended with an auction offering a bunch of props from the Last Week Tonight archive and an original Bob Ross painting. Now, a week later, the auction has closed and it seems to have done quite well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This is <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/tv\/news\/john-oliver-bob-ross-painting-auction-raises-million-pbs-1236591263\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">per Variety<\/a>, which reports that the entire auction pulled in $1.54 million for the Public Media Bridge Fund, with the majority of that figure coming from Ross\u2019 \u201cCabin At Sunset\u201d painting. The painting received 35 bids and closed at $1,044,000, making it one of the more expensive paintings from Ross\u2019 oeuvre. The outlet reports that earlier this month, Bonhams Los Angeles auctioned off three Ross paintings which earned $114,800, $229,100, and $318,000. (That being said, an original Ross from the first episode of\u00a0Joy Of Painting was listed for just shy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2023\/09\/19\/1200353133\/bob-ross-painting-for-sale-episode-one-10-million\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">of $10 million in 2023<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Though the auction is now closed and the listings appear to have been taken down, Variety was able to document a few other highlights. Russell Crowe\u2019s jockstrap from Cinderella Man ultimately fetched $21,000, and the giant prop cabbage that Oliver married in a season 9 episode sold for $11,111. Oliver\u2019s giant golden sculpture of Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s ballsack pulled over $25,000. Five presidential wax figures were sold, with Bill Clinton nabbing the highest price and William Henry Harrison the lowest. Someone paid over $100,000 for VIP tickets and to have their photo featured in an episode of Last Week Tonight, and a trip to meet Oliver in New York raised $51,600. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week on Last Week Tonight, John Oliver spent the episode detailing the incredible challenges the Trump administration&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-593706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115612716331903458","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}