#The Bugle

[theshadowrealmitself]

Peter Parker spends forever building up his “sleazy photographer” reputation so no one even thinks about connecting him to Spiderman, but because he really is a good person at heart, his true colors end up shining through anyways

Like some heroes who like Spiderman start badmouthing that “creep who sells terrible pics of Spidey,” and someone annoyedly points out that while those heroes are standing around gossiping, that “creep” is right over there, helping civilians out of a danger area

(The heroes weren’t being creeps themselves, they were just bantering to each other while trying to find the villain they were just fighting and didn’t notice the danger about to happen to some innocents behind them)

This ends up getting Peter some incredibly unwanted attention, making it harder to hide his identity

(The Bugle is loving this tho, their reporter helping some civilians while Spiderman is nowhere to be seen, Peter doesn’t know what he’s more annoyed at, them once again badmouthing his persona or the fact that the picture they used of him was from a different photographer)

#Spiderman #spider man #spider-man #peter parker #the bugle #Peter Parker thoughts #I love him so much

[lastweeksshirttonight]

LEE'S FAQ!

Over the past nearly-two years, I've noticed that I get some questions about John's work asked repeatedly. That doesn't bother me - half of his prominent work is somewhat lost media, Tumblr's search is super fucked, and I always want to help anyone falling down the JO rabbit hole - but I realized that one central pinned post would be helpful! I'll keep this up to date as much as possible.

I know I have a lot of international followers, and if you have any knowledge of where to stream or find some of these items, please let me know and I'll update this post.

WHERE CAN I FIND...?

Anything really, I've just started going down this rabbit hole:

The John Oliver Masterlist is an incredible resource - while it hasn't been updated since about 2017 and has some broken links (especially in the LWT sections), it has functional links to every JO clip from The Daily Show, all the main segments of LWT through 2017, radio shows, and lots of other material. This was made by @johnoliverphotos and @ilovejohnoliver, and I'm eternally grateful for it.

The Department:

YouTuber Ben Jennings has the entire series on his channel.

Player FM has the series uploaded here as well.

The Bugle:

The Bugle Archive has all Times Online era episodes available to download. PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE EPISODES DIRECTLY; DO NOT STREAM FROM THIS SITE.

The Bugle is starting to upload Times Online era episodes to their official channels, which can be found here. They're up to ep 75 as of May 2024.

All post-Times Online episodes (starting with episode 179) are available on The Bugle's official channels.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

Have you perused the John Oliver Masterlist above? This is the best way to find direct links to JO clips from The Daily Show on the Comedy Central website, because this shit is still not streaming anywhere else. Use a VPN if you're outside the US to view.

There are a small handful of TDS episodes available for purchase on Amazon Prime if you're in the US. I have no idea if any of them feature JO in any meaningful way - I will update this section once I review that.

Otherwise, you're gonna have to sail the high seas to watch this. I'm sorry that this is the state of the US' most important comedy show of the 2000s. Maybe Paramount will drop it on us when Stewart comes back to host TDS, who knows.

Community:

In the US, this can be streamed on Peacock. Individual episodes can be purchased on YouTube, Apple TV, and Amazon Prime.

Worldwide, I believe Community is now on Hulu.

Every season of Community is available on DVD and Blu-Ray.

John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show:

In the US, the whole show is on Paramount Plus and can be purchased through Amazon and Apple.

The godawful Comedy Central website has limited episodes for viewing. You'll need a US cable subscription to watch more than the first episode of every season, because of course you do.

Back catalog episodes of Last Week Tonight:

You can buy back catalog episodes on YouTube and Amazon in the US.

The first season of LWT has been uploaded fully on their YouTube in the US, with plans to upload future seasons during breaks in the show's current episodes!

In certain areas outside of the US, LWT is now being uploaded in full on their YouTube channel as well.

HBO Max no longer has back catalog episodes because capitalism is fucking ridiculous, I pay monthly for this service entirely for this show and I can't even watch old news from 5 years ago

The Horne Section:

The whole series is on Taskmaster Supermax+, which should work everywhere except the UK.

In the UK, you can stream this through Channel 4.

Taskmaster:

I've been trying to will this into existence for multiple seasons, no one can stop me

BLOG-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

How did you get into John Oliver?

I answered this in too much detail in two posts, here and here.

Where is your icon from?

UPDATED: It was made by the lovely @stalebagels for me. She is wonderful <3

Is this blog a bit?/Do you really find this man attractive?

No, this is not an ironic bit, I really like John Oliver and find him genuinely hot. (Tbf, I get this question way more in person than online.)

#john oliver #last week tonight #last week tonight with john oliver #the daily show #the daily show with jon stewart #the department #the bugle #the bugle podcast #john oliver's new york stand up show #john oliver's new york stand-up show #community #community nbc #nbc community #community tv show #the horne section #all my friends hate the comedy central website #but it's all we got sorry

[ahomoeroticopening]

I’m in an absolute emotional shitstorm at the moment. Panic disorder, social anxiety, depression, trying to stay sober and I just found out that my boyfriend of 6 months is married with high school aged kids. I’m struggling to sleep, eat, do anything really and my psychiatrist keeps rescheduling my appointments. I don’t want to post this to people I know, I just need some internet pals, so badly.

Looking to get into discords or wherever people are gathering, if these are the only things keeping me sane rn:

- Michael Sheen/David Tennant- anything they’re in either together or separately

- John Oliver/Andy Zaltzman

- No More Jockeys

- Death in Paradise… well… BEN MILLER

- 3 Bean Salad

- Anything League of Gentlemen

- Taskmaster

- Anything Six Idiots

- BritCom in all its forms

#michael sheen #david tennant #staged #good omens #masters of sex #bill masters #john oliver #andy zaltzman #the bugle #greg davies #alex horne #taskmaster #nmj #no more jockeys #tim key #mark watson #death in paradise #ben miller #mike wozniak #Henry paker #Benjamin partridge #three bean salad #reece shearsmith #steve pemberton #mark gatiss #jeremy dyson #tlog #six idiots #inside no 9 #bbc ghosts

[nyomkitten]

john oliver’s hate relationship with delta airlines: origin story!!!!

(from the bugle, episode 170)

#john oliver #andy zaltzman #the bugle #the bugle podcast #i am truly flying delta at work #last week tonight #last week tonight with john oliver

[theauthorpaula]

When a Bookstore Closes... by Paula Puddephatt Via Flickr: Blackwell's, Friar Street, Reading

#bookstore #books #The Bugle #pub #Reading #Berkshire #flickr

[youareworldsaway]

who has all the bugles on a google drive

#the bugle

[ohmysatan42]

Started listening to the bugle (with the first ep according to spotify) and yeah I was driving home from work crying laughing in the car and getting funny looks from other people driving. John oliver has never not been good!!!!

#john oliver #the bugle #andy zaltzman #podcasts #last week tonight #peak comedy #its the dead pan for me

[msfbgraves]

With all possible respect to both John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman separately, they unlock something so gleeful in each other it's a cosmic error they don't have their own HBO show. I've heard John on other podcasts, I like his show but he's never so deeply happy as when discussing world affairs with Andy. They both just riff and tease and go off like mad and that slight reserve, that constant talk about being English in the US? Gone. It's wicked smart analysis and utter silliness and it's amazing. Let the boys play!

#andy zaltzman #john oliver #the bugle

[z34l0t]

#john oliver #andy zaltzman #the bugle #iron sheik #pour one out you jabronis #Youtube

[nyomdiary]

[ID: a quote from The Bugle podcast, episode 199. The text is in white on a green-brown gradient background. the quote is “america loves democracy, andy. they love democracy as much as they love hitting baseballs off aircraft carriers, and almost as much as they love chasing after those baseballs on jetskis. they love it so much that their own elections, once every four years, just aren't quite enough for them. they've got a wandering electoral eye, andy, and they love meddling in other people's elections too. they've had an itchy meddle-finger for a while where egypt's concerned.”.] obsessively making Bugle fanart on weird abstract gradient backgrounds, 03/x

#202206 #the bugle #john oliver #andy zaltzman #satire #podcasting #the bugle podcast #2022

[aleatoryw]

cannot believe there are people who aren't familiar with the 2002 movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. it's not remembered as one of the animated classics of the early 00s because it's so different than other beloved movies - no talking animals, no fantasy settings, limited comedic elements - but my god did it shine in so many other ways. arguably some of the best 2D animation ever created, outstanding soundtrack, an hour and a half of pure anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism in a kid friendly story about horseys.

#spirit stallion of the cimarron #you look at those horses running with every joint animated spot on and tell me this isn't the pinnacle of animation #you listen to sound the bugle now and tell me this isn't THE movie soundtrack of the decade

[whaliiwatching]

diagnoses u with fanfic tags

yeah i caved. welcome spideysona

their universe is 1990s san francisco. by day they work as a struggling writer for the bugle, sort of following in the footsteps of (movie-adjacent) eddie brock; by night they’re spider-scrawl, fighting systemic injustice, writers’ block, and the occasional mad scientist invention. his world is less rife with supernatural evils than most, but he’s also fucking with the government and corporations and all, so it balances out

their unique thing is that they have, like, shitty meta clairvoyance in the form of inherently understanding tropes, clichés, story structure, etc. like if cinemasins/wins were a superhero. they were approached to join the society because miguel thought they’d be chill or even helpful with canon events—unfortunately scribble here is not whatsoever into following rigid plot structure for the sake of unnecessary thematic suffering, saw the plot twist a miles away, and peaced. but not before snagging a day pass so they could watch atsv in person

they never take off their mask, and no one knows their name—he says it’s because he doesn’t want to lose his identity in a sea of spider-people, leading most to theorize that san-fran-spidey is some flavor of peter parker, but who’s to say for sure? the doylist reason, which he is in fact aware of, is that i don’t know either lol

#spider man: across the spiderverse #spidersona #spider scrawl #spider punk #spider noir #hobie brown #noirpunk #just a tad ;) #brass tacks means facts! #haha do you get it miles like a mile away but miles was the one wh— #so anyway sona shit #eddie in their universe has left the bugle for better things (read: got fired movie style) #still a bangin journalist tho and scrawl aspires to be like him #their deadpool is just as meta as them. they’re buddies #usually i’m not one for sonas but this was fun #static and colors inspired by that can u ever forgive me movie from 2018 #scrawl puts on the mask to feel more confident about fighting the system #hopin & prayin it’ll do the same for me :’)

[lastweeksshirttonight]

Hey uh remember when I did retrospectives of Last Week Tonight episodes? Let's bring it back to 140.

Last Lee Tonight (wherein I'm definitely showing United Passions at my next bad movie night) Season One, Episode Six

(original air date: 6/8/2014) Major topics covered: FIFA, Bashar al-Assad's incredible iTunes library

"And speaking of Germans losing things, it was the 70th anniversary of D-Day this week."

It's really nice to throw this show back on again, on a note unrelated to the purpose of this project. I don't talk much about myself but it's been a rough few months with work scheduling, my chronic illnesses, and my mental health. For every "I'm taking a very spontaneous and ill-thought-out trip to New York to see John Oliver WOOO!" moment, there's been at least five "why can't I catch a break"s. When I'm not being beaten down by the collective forces of capitalism, I genuinely haven't been watching much John at all, mainly in an effort to play the large backlog of video games and read the large pile of books lying around my house. I've been moderately successful there (hey y'all should give Cassette Beasts a go, it's delightful), but there's nothing like going back home, so to speak. (I hesitate to call LWT a comfort show for me, given that it's basically A Record of the Decline of the United States in Real Time, but it kinda serves that function to some degree. I am a psychopath.)

Where we last left off in... May, Jesus Christ, I'm so bad at scheduling and writing and content creation - when we last left off in May at Episode 5, things were finally starting to coalesce into the modern LWT experience. We had our first viral segment on Net Neutrality, the first time a segment was uploaded in full to the LWT YouTube, and an opening news roundup that was starting to feel more thoughtful and themed. This episode continues that theme and gives us our second big viral topic.

There is a variant on the desk-slapping here, where John doesn't do it to open the show, but does a milder version of it to get the audience to shut up so he can move on with doing the show. One of my favorite things about him is his constant desire to barrel through clapping or any audience praise of anything he's done at a given moment in time and this opener is a pretty good example of that.

We open on John calling the week disappointing because California Chrome, a horse competing for the Triple Crown, did not win the Triple Crown. You can tell this is an early episode of LWT because there is no prerequisite horse-fucking/bestiality joke, just John angrily saying "fuck that horse" about Tonalist, the horse that defeated California Chrome. All of these horses sound like indie bands from my college years. I feel like Tonalist opened when I saw MGMT live.

We then move into German Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. This gives John an opportunity to plumb one of his favorite comedic depths, making fun of the musicality, smoothness, and romanticism of the German language. A German man used his lifeline to call Chancellor Merkle, who, thankfully, did not answer, as she was busy running Germany.

This transitions into China hiding the events of Tiananmen Square from their populace, including by censoring the Internet.

Attempts by protestors to use different trending words - and to put facts about Tiananmen Square in a sex tape - to get around that were also clamped down on, leading to this absolutely glorious screenshot of John's hypothetical romance novel:

I feel like someone on Reddit probably wrote When Spring Turns to Summer recently.

We also learn that Friends is incredibly popular with Chinese youth. I'm not really shocked by this, Friends has a weird international reach. I know multiple Korean idols who learned English partially through watching Friends. The fact that there's a Chinese replica of Central Perk? That's wild. The show edits a Friends clip to include historical facts about the massacre, and then we move to our central story.

I'm a big fan of whenever John talks about FIFA and football in general. Recently in one of her "posts relevant to my interests", @tellthemeerkatsitsfine noted that there's a strain with John and his contemporaries with them being nerds who really wanted to be jocks, and I think that dichotomy really helps John come off credibly when he talks about the deep-rooted corruption in this particular organization. The sport is something that is literally rooted into him, hardwired as something he deeply cares about... but there's the rest of it to consider.

In my opinion, someone who deeply loves something can really be the best at describing everything wrong with it. You don't really find the grime if you're only on the surface of something. I know that critical observation of a fandom while in said fandom is in short supply these days, but I wish it was more common.

Anyways. I think FIFA's corruption and grotesqueries are pretty known in 2023, but at the time, knowledge of their fuckery wasn't as widespread. Socially, we've definitely spoken a lot more about the cost-benefit analysis of the Olympics and taxpayer-funded stadiums, which is comparative to John's opening about the issues with FIFA and claims that World Cups bring money to the areas hosting them. (Not true!) Other items I'd completely forgotten about, like FIFA Court and their boardroom looking like something out of Dr. Strangelove.

The "And Now This" is "Chris Matthews Reminds Everyone Who He Used to Work For". (Answer: Tip O'Neill.) My abiding memory of Chris Matthews is Zell Miller accusing him of beating a woman and challenging him to a duel at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

SNL had a pretty great sketch of this where Will Forte played Miller that I can't find right now. PISTOLS AT DAAAAAAAAWN MATTHEWS!!!!

The final segment is on Bashar al-Assad's campaign of terror against Syria, rigged electioneering, and chemical warfare. More importantly, al-Assad's life history and iTunes library are discussed.

This was also the subject of the classic Bugle episode 187, which has a chance to go far more in depth about his favorite music, like "Sexy and I Know It". (Andy Zaltzman describing Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes as a doubles tennis group is one of my favorite Bugle moments of all time incidentally.)

Right Said Fred coming out to perform an anti-Assad version of "I'm Too Sexy" gives us the first time John has had a celebrity come out basically to troll one single person, and thus almost the cornerstones of modern LWT have been established. Eagerly awaiting the first bestiality joke. Also, really love the changed lyrics, they put a hell of a lot of effort into this one. I wanna see Right Said Fred live now.

Random notes:

Lee will continue sexualizing one (1) older man damn it: light blue and dark blue checked shirt, black tie, and black jacket? I know I've said red is John's color but light blue is a very close second, 10/10

I feel like I made up for not doing these for two months by writing about five year's worth of unnecessary analysis of this damn episode. Hopefully you enjoyed it!

It was amazing seeing an ESPN ad for something not handegg-related. -groan-

LWT YouTube is still a bit confused, as we did get the two major topics as their own videos... and then 1 minute of the FIFA section as its own minisode. I really would love to know the logic behind why there specific jokes were isolated like this in the beginning of the show's airing.

My sausage, if anyone cares, is the Korean idol industry. It's an absolute cataclysmic nightmare and yet there's a lot there personally that changed me and a lot that I love out of it. It's complicated. Fuck SM Entertainment.

A reminder that John's LMFAO fandom has endured for a decade longer than the band itself lasted:

#john oliver #last week tonight #last week tonight with john oliver #last lee tonight #fifa world cup #seriously debating tagging zell miller in case anyone has that snl clip #zell miller #the bugle #the bugle podcast #andy zaltzman #Youtube

[ahomoeroticopening]

Do any OG Bugle fans know where I can find myself a clip or at least the ep that Andy does his football chants (from a vicar to a dead person)?

UNDERGROUND, UNDERGROUND, YOU’RE GOING IN A BOX AND YOU’RE GOING UNDERGROUND!

YOU’RE DEAD AND YOU KNOW YOU ARE!!

#andy zaltzman #the bugle #john oliver

[nyomkitten]

bugle episode 149: john oliver READS OUT THE FIRST VERSE OF JUSTIN BIEBER’S BABY. OH MY GOD. it’s 2AM heRE and it’s all i can do not to SCREAM OUT LOUD. this is a hundred times worse than his Party Rock Anthem phase because i used to ACTUALLY LIKE THIS SONG.

(link to episode; relevant bit starts 11:11)

#the bugle #john oliver #andy zaltzman #aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa #the actual subject of the podcast i.e. Palestine is unfortunately as relevant as ever

[egophiliac]

IT'S BUNNY TIME EVERYBODY

(feat. Dilla)

(bugle accompaniment by Yuu)

#art #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland spoilers #white rabbit festival #ah...the eternal dilemma of 'is it hair dye or whimsical anime hair'. and so we roll the dice again. #so it's canon now that yuu is inexplicably great at bugling. everybody get ready to incorporate that incredible trivia into your characters #anyway HELLO THERE madam spade #i think we have enough evidence now to say that you're not allowed into nrc unless you have an absolutely smoking mom #(riddle's mom has a smoking crater where her heart should be but we digress) #dilla likes two things: BIG VANS and also telling her son's friends all about how he used to literally refuse to not dress like a bunny #and yet now he does not wish to dress like a bunny. :( deuce what HAPPENED #meanwhile epel is too polite to whine at his best friend's mom so he's just hoping vil never finds out he wore a bonnet #silver is like 'i'm the handsomest little marching band boy. i'm taking this outfit back to show everyone.' #and ortho put all his points into POWERFUL THIGHS #he minmaxed leg day and is going to go kick a tree in half #can't wait for part 2 to see if they resolve the exciting cliffhanger of whether or not silver finds an alarm clock