Late Night Last Week: John Oliver Tackles the Racist Lies About Springfield, Ohio

​​​​​​Late Night Last Week is a column highlighting some of the more notable segments from the previous week of late night television. Today’s installment features commentary from John Oliver and Seth Meyers on the racist lies about Springfield, Ohio, couch games hosted by Taylor Tomlinson, and Lewis Black roaring about the role of influencers in the presidential election.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was on The Tonight Show last week to promote—ha, you didn’t really think I was starting there did you? 

Following a well-deserved week off to bask in their wins at the Emmys, John Oliver and his team returned to the late night airwaves on Sunday, September 22. Last Week Tonight began by recapping the ongoing situation in Springfield, Ohio, where racist lies spread by Donald Trump and JD Vance (a “yassified chipmunk,” as Oliver called him) have led to bomb threats, school closures, and a national spotlight many fear will only lead to increased violence directed towards Haitian migrants. Not that it really matters, but Oliver noted that the migrants are there legally and moved there specifically after local businesses recruited them to address a labor shortage. 

What began as Trump screaming about migrants eating pets soon morphed into memes and TikTok remixes. But then neo-Nazi groups began to show up in town, threats of violence escalated, and Springfield itself started to shut down. This is a story that is as hilarious and absurd as it is racist and dangerous. All are essential to understanding the direction this story has taken on social media and through the official presidential discourse; despite pleas to stay away from the Republican mayor of Springfield, Trump himself plans on visiting the city this week. 

Early in the monologue, Oliver played a clip from a city council meeting, at which one of the neo-Nazi leaders was removed after delivering comments the council deemed threatening. The chair cut him off and then said, “You’re done. Thank you. That’s all. Thank you so much. Not really thank you.” Oliver got a real kick out of the comment, reminding his viewers that while it may not sound like a harsh burn, Ohio is the Midwest. “That’s the equivalent of them saying, ‘Get fucked you dime-store Nazi! Enjoy shoveling shit in Hell, you already dress like you shop there!’”  

To watch Oliver’s monologue on the situation was to witness his brilliance. He navigated the tonal paradox of the story with tremendous skill, finding the humor and simultaneously building towards a furious crescendo that condemned those spreading such vile, racist lies. Oliver ended with a simple line directed at Vance and Trump: “Thank you. You’re done. Not really thank you.” 

Lewis Black Responds to Influencers

A lot of people are quick to point out Lewis Black’s unique voice, which he so often bends into a high-pitched, well-reasoned scream. But what about his beautiful eyes? I couldn’t take mine off them as I watched his most recent segment on The Daily Show. Black monologued about the role of social media influencers in this year’s presidential election. He played a clip of the duo Grant Hill and Ashley Gibbs, aka “A Twink and a Redhead,” singing about “getting dicked down” at the DNC. “If anyone got dicked down at the DNC,” Black said, “It’s Joe Biden.”

But back to his eyes. The monologue was structured so that an influencer video played and Black reacted, seemingly looking down at the monitor, just below the camera. The pause kills me every time. His eyes searching for meaning, mouth slightly open, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. An old man lost at sea. “Quick tip for Tim Walz,” Black said of the candidate’s folksy appearance on the popular TikTok account, Subway Takes, “Young people don’t give a shit about gutters because they don’t own homes—and they never will!”

Taylor Tomlinson Celebrates Paul Feig’s Corn Skills

In last Monday’s column, we discussed at length Taylor Tomlinson’s decision to add a couch and accompanying segment, “The Couch Game,” to After Midnight. Last week, segments on the couch proved once again to be some of the best moments on the show. On Friday, September 20, guests Opey Olagbaju, Lake Bell, and James Adomian were asked to view a famous celebrity and then describe them as if they were having a brain fart. “I don’t know, it’s all relative,” Adomian said when a picture of Albert Einstein appeared. “He has the hair of a founding father, but the mustache of a retired cop,” Olagbaju mused. 

On Tuesday, September 17, Tomlinson seated Ayden Mayeri, Taylor Ortega, and Paul Feig before plates of corn. She informed the audience that one of her guests had perfected the art of eating corn in a straight line. Each guest then had the chance to explain to the audience how and why they honed their craft. Then, before the big reveal, the audience had a chance to vote on who they thought was the corn maestro. Feig received the least enthusiastic response, only for the famed director to reveal that he, in fact, was the one with the skill. If you thought Bridesmaids was good, just watch him eat corn. 

Seth Meyers Talks Miss Sassy

Let us end this edition of Late Night Last Week where we began: with The Tonight Show. Just kidding. Over on NBC’s Late Night, Oliver’s good pal Seth Meyers also discussed the lies being spread about Springfield, Ohio as part of his “A Closer Look” monologue on September 18. 

Meyers had great fun in particular with a Wall Street Journal report that dug into the origins of the lie. A woman reported that her cat, appropriately named Miss Sassy, had been abducted by migrants, only to then find the cat hiding in her basement. “Well, if that isn’t the most Miss Sassy move,” Meyers said with the affect of a smart-alecky feline. 

He then noted that the woman apologized to her Haitian neighbors. “Which is the right thing to do,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s out of her hands now because the most unapologetic assholes who ever graced the political stage continue to run with it.” 

Will DiGravio is a Brooklyn-based critic and researcher, 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.