Any man who can make Right Said Fred politically resonant is clearly doing something right. And John Oliver is such a man. He certainly dreamed up a novel way to trash Syrias Bashar al-Assad on his HBO show, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. After news reports that the dictator downloaded iTunes tracks from LMFAO, Chris Brown and Right Said Fred, Oliver noted, Hes half mass murderer and half your creepy sophomore-year roommate. But then he brought on Right Said Fred to rework their Nineties-cheese classic Im Too Sexy into an anti-Assad number: Youre just a walking taint/The opposite of saint/At least Hitler could paint. Nobody saw that one coming.
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Its a typically brilliant masterstroke from Last Week Tonight, one of the years happiest comedy surprises. Oliver has always been a likable second banana as the Senior British Correspondent on The Daily Show or the token limey twerp on Community. With his Noel Gallagher mop of ratty black hair and schoolboy spectacles, he looks like a common-as-muck version of the guy Americans think of when we imagine the British. But on Last Week Tonight Oliver has found his own personality just a low-key 37-year-old geek from Birmingham wandering through the political scene looking for bullshit. And it helps that hes on a cable network where he can actually call it bullshit.
At first blush, Oliver might not seem as sharp as Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, but he doesnt need to be. Last Week Tonight has a huge advantage over the other faux-news roundups: It runs once a week. Its like the slow food approach to topical comedy instead of trying to compete with social media (or Stewart), he can hit harder with rants like his instant-classic tirade on Net neutrality. That was Olivers star-making moment he spent 13 minutes delivering a fact-quoting breakdown of legislation that makes most of our brains fuzz over. As Oliver says, The cable companies have figured out the great truth of America: If you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring. Apple could put the entire text of Mein Kampf inside the iTunes user agreement and youd just go Agree.'
Olivers best line ever on Community came this season, when he set his sights on seducing a student. Isnt she great? he marveled. Shes everything I love about America. Bold, opinionated, just past her peak and starting to realize that she has to settle for less. His almost cartoonish Englishness means hes a perpetual outsider here he never even set foot on American soil before The Daily Show. But he turns that into a plus as well. He doesnt have to keep apologizing for his bewilderment at America, since hes not trying to pass himself off as a regular citizen. His greatness is wanting the United States to expect, even demand, a little more than were used to getting. Even if that means heeding the geopolitical message of Right Said Fred.
This story is from the July 3rd-17th, 2014 issue of Rolling Stone.