How John Oliver stays really funny with “Last Week Tonight”

What do you call a man who has won 19 Emmys, nine Producers Guild Awards, seven WGA Awards, three Peabody Awards, and a Grammy, and whose political satire has influenced U.S. lawmaking? Certainly not “just another comedian.” John Oliver is all of that and more.

The state of American politics in recent years has left many feeling like we’re trapped in a bad TV show with twists so crazy it’s hard to believe they’re real. While that might be a gift of endless material for comedians, Oliver sees it quite differently.

“To be honest, it’s not necessarily a gift you wish you had,” says the executive producer and host of “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” which has been nominated for six Emmys. “Technically, it is a gift, but it’s not a great one. I think there’s a tendency to think that the whole thing writes itself. I promise you, it doesn’t. Everything moves so fast these days, you can get jokes that you thought up first online very quickly, so you don’t necessarily have to write the most obvious joke for anything to have any element of surprise. On top of that, it’s a very bleak situation,” he adds. “When you write jokes, you want to try to find a way to deal with that bleakness that doesn’t involve messing around while Rome burns.”

The British import first entered American homes in 2006 as a correspondent on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” There, his smart, witty, caustic but always very passionate commentary on government opened previously closed eyes and he is credited with inspiring lawmakers to change, or as Time magazine called it, the “John Oliver effect.” The idea makes him laugh. “I think (the John Oliver effect) can mean different things to different people. I think for some people, that ‘effect’ is depression.”

Being a political satirist during the American election season is not as easy as it sounds. There are so many crazy “easy targets” that you can miss the really substantive things that are happening. “One of the flaws in the way American elections work is that it’s so much about personalities, not policy,” he says diversity. “The political stuff is obviously much more interesting and definitely much more important, and that can be a problem, especially when you’re writing comedy – it can seem counterintuitive to say, ‘Don’t think of this objective thing as funny.'”

Unlike the 2016 election, this time it’s much easier not to let Donald Trump – or the daily news cycle – disrupt every show. “Because he’s running for president for the third time, there’s not much more to say about this guy,” Oliver laughs. “He’s an open book. I don’t know what else we can add to the content that we haven’t already done. So it’s actually easier for me to talk about other things. That wasn’t the case in 2016.”

Oliver makes no secret of it, he leans blatantly left-wing. He has ridiculed not only the Republican Party and its agenda, but also those who support it. And that can be dangerous for him. “I’m sure there were (threats). I don’t pay any attention to it,” he says calmly. “It feels like a huge waste of time to wonder if someone hates you… because deep down you have to know the answer is yes.”

To counteract the often grim events that Oliver covers in detail in his main report – each of which requires six weeks of research – he always leaves viewers with something lighter at the end of the show. “After you’ve talked about sourcing the death penalty drugs, he really tries to pull you back from the brink. ‘I’ve eaten an awful lot of vegetables here. Isn’t there anything in the way of a nice scoop of ice cream?'”