Late Night Last Week: John Oliver Talks AI Slop, KeKe Palmer Crushes Tonight Show Medley, and More

By Will DiGravio  |  June 23, 2025 | 12:46pm
TV Features john oliver
Late Night Last Week: John Oliver Talks AI Slop, KeKe Palmer Crushes Tonight Show Medley, and More

Each week,  ​Late Night Last Week highlights some of the best late night TV from the previous week. This week, John Oliver dissects AI slop, John Mulaney chats with Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel enlists the help of Cade Cunningham, and KeKe Palmer rocks The Tonight Show stage.

This week’s episode of Last Week Tonight began with a disclaimer: it was filmed on Saturday, June 21, 2025, just hours before the United States bombed Iran. Such is the fickle nature of news comedy. Thus, Oliver’s bit about the Israel-Iran-now-United States conflict was a bit outdated (though still worth watching). But his main monologue was easily one of this season’s best and will, unfortunately, not be old news any time soon. 

Oliver’s top story concerned what he generously called “AI Slop.” If you use social media of any kind, you will have noticed it: the seemingly endless stream of AI-generated nonsense created to clog up traffic and generate clicks. To illustrate this phenomenon, Oliver played a video made by a Pinterest user who discusses, for example, how the app, once a rich resource garden inspiration, is now just an endless flow of AI-generated greenery, aka useless crap.  

“I know she might seem calm there, but for a Pinterest user, that is white-hot rage,” Oliver said. “She is seconds away from knitting a full-blown manifesto.” 

The monologue then pivots to the business side of this phenomenon. Oliver details how creators are merely buying up already monetized social media accounts and then spamming them with AI-generated content, from crap music and home decor ideas, to “personal” anecdotes and fake news stories. It’s all bad in just about every way. 

Wisely, Oliver reminds his audience just how AI gets its content: stealing. For example, Oliver shows how images uploaded to Facebook by the British chainsaw sculptor, Michael Jones, have been appropriated to make images featuring worse versions of his own impressive work. Not only does such work deprive the original creators of credit, but it further complicates a user’s ability to discern what is real.  

But Oliver, a man with an HBO-sized budget and a mission, was not about to let AI win this one. At the end of the show, Oliver revealed that not only had the show flown out Jones to the studio, but that they had commissioned him to flip the script and create a sculpture based on an AI-generated image. No spoilers, but just know the sculpture has a bit to do with Oliver’s long-running love for … cabbage. 

Meanwhile, over at The Daily Show, John Mulaney stopped by to chat with our favorite Monday host, Jon Stewart. As always, Mulaney was curious to know more random bits of business about his interlocutor, more about the history of late night, that treasured medium that he himself has entered in recent years. 

“Hey,” Mulaney asked “did you ever have on that guy, remember that dude that threw his shoes at George W. Bush?” Stewart paused for a moment: “Did he do the circuit?” 

Mulaney was quick with praise. “Honestly, I’m a big fan of so many comedians who work at the craft,” he said, “but the funniest thing that’s ever happened on television in my life was that guy: shoe!” He then summed up the 16-year-old situation like no one else could: “And you saw this weird look in Bush’s eyes where he is like, ‘Oh, we playing shoes?’ Like, he knew it as a game.” 

Stewart, not one to easily praise Bush, offered his admiration for how quickly the then-president hit the ground, even recreating it for the audience. “Listen,” Mulaney added, “we both have our problems with him, but that guy could duck shoes.”

Mulaney then shared that once during rehab, he threatened a man who, during a group discussion, refused to take accountability for his actions and only blamed his wife. He insisted that the man take some responsibility or, Mulaney remembered saying, “I’m gonna throw my shoes at you, like that guy did at George W. Bush.”

The room thought it was a joke. The man continued to blame his wife. “One shoe,” Mulaney said, mimicking tossing one across the room. “That guy’s still sober.” 

 If only that was the only Bush comparison circulating in the news as of late.

An exciting NBA Finals reached an anticlimactic end last night, as the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Indiana Pacers by double digits. It also had a scary start, as Pacer point guard Tyrese Haliburton, who was without question the most exciting player of this year’s playoffs, injured his achilles. Just brutal. 

But before all that went down, Jimmy Kimmel had some fun with the NBA playoffs while pursuing a worthy cause: helping a local business. For the assist (drum noise), Kimmel turned to Pistons rising star Cade Cunningham, who paid a visit to Battery Hut in Burbank, CA. “I get my triple doubles on the court,” Cunningham said, “but I get my triple and double As here.” 

Who doesn’t love a pun? “I’m positive,” Cunningham said, after guiding we the viewers through the family-owned store, “you won’t have a negative experience.” 

Say what you will about the current version of The Tonight Show (its comedy ain’t that good), but the show does consistently offer some of the best live music performances. After all, the presence of Questlove and The Roots each night has served only to keep the show musically grounded. And the June 19 episode was no exception. KeKe Palmer delivered a stunning performance, singing a medley from her new album, Just KeKe. Just watch: 

 Will DiGravio is a Brooklyn-based critic, researcher, and late night comedy columnist, who first contributed to Paste in 2022. He is an assistant editor at Cineaste, a GALECA member, and since 2019 has hosted The Video Essay Podcast. You can follow and/or unfollow him on Twitter and learn more about him via his website.

 
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