{"id":121667,"date":"2025-08-05T19:30:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T19:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/121667\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T19:30:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T19:30:16","slug":"john-oliver-shades-jay-lenos-late-show-cancellation-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/121667\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver Shades Jay Leno\u2019s \u2018Late Show\u2019 Cancellation Comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Oliver<\/a> and Jay Leno<\/a> have differing opinions when it comes to political comedy on late-night TV.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview<\/a> with David Trulio, president and CEO of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, Leno criticized late-night hosts<\/a> for alienating \u201chalf the audience\u201d with their personal political opinions. \u201cIt\u2019s funny when \u2026 you make fun of their side and they laugh at it. I don\u2019t think anybody wants to hear a lecture,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cI don\u2019t understand why you would alienate one particular group \u2026 just do what\u2019s funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver, however, told The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> in an interview published on Tuesday, August 5, that he will \u201ctake a hard pass on taking comedic advice from Jay Leno.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if late-night shows should appeal more to both sides of the political spectrum, Oliver stated, \u201cWho thinks that way? Executives? Comedy can\u2019t be for everyone. It\u2019s 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\u2019t think it\u2019s a question of what you should do because I don\u2019t think comedy is prescriptive in that way. It\u2019s just what people want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Referring to his own series, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver<\/a>, he said, \u201cI think our show clearly comes from a point of view, but most of those long stories we do are not party political. They\u2019re about systemic issues. Our last few shows were about gang databases, AI slop, juvenile justice, med spas, air traffic control. I\u2019m not saying that these don\u2019t have a point of view in them. Of course they do. But I hope a lot of them actually reach across people\u2019s political persuasions. You want people to at least be able to agree on the problem, even if you disagree on what the solution to it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John Oliver for ‘Last Week Tonight’<\/p>\n

HBO<\/p>\n

Oliver and Leno\u2019s interviews come on the heels of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/a>\u2018s cancellation<\/a> at CBS. The network claimed last month that the decision was purely financial, though some have speculated it was politically motivated. The cancellation occurred shortly after Paramount settled a $16 million lawsuit with President Donald Trump<\/a> over his claims that 60 Minutes<\/a> deceptively edited a 2024 interview featuring former Vice President Kamala Harris<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s happened to The Late Show is incredibly sad for comedy and, obviously, for the staff in that building, Oliver told THR of the cancellation. \u201cIt really resonated with me when Stephen said he was hoping to hand this show over to someone else. You hope that the franchise lives on partly because there are generations of teenagers watching those shows and deciding, \u2018Maybe I\u2019d like to be a comedy writer,\u2019 and then maybe writing on that show.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cJust as there are Colbert writers that watched Letterman, there will be future writers that watched Colbert, and you want that to continue. I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll find a way to exist in some form, we just don\u2019t yet know exactly what that\u2019s going to look like for network television.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver was one of several TV hosts \u2014 including Anderson Cooper<\/a>, Andy Cohen<\/a>, Jimmy Fallon<\/a>, Seth Meyers<\/a>, and Jon Stewart<\/a> \u2014 to show their support for Stephen Colbert<\/a> by making cameos<\/a> on The Late Show\u2018s July 21 episode. In a parody of the Coldplay kiss-cam scandal, Oliver and his fellow stars each had their own hilarious reactions to being caught on camera in the show\u2019s audience.<\/p>\n

Read the latest entertainment news on TV Insider<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Oliver and Jay Leno have differing opinions when it comes to political comedy on late-night TV. In…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":121668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[63621,171,63619,53747,75505,42708,19170,75504,13895,36770,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-121667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-david-trulio","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-jay-leno","11":"tag-john-oliver","12":"tag-political-comedy","13":"tag-political-opinions","14":"tag-political-spectrum","15":"tag-ronald-reagan-presidential-foundation","16":"tag-stephen-colbert","17":"tag-the-hollywood-reporter","18":"tag-tv","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114977821462473563","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}