John Oliver returned to Last Week Tonight after a three-week hiatus to discuss a different kind of television host: far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
If you don’t already know who Jones is, Oliver offers a quick primer at the start of his video: He’s the founder of website and radio/TV show InfoWars, the “Walter Cronkite of shrinking batshit gorilla clowns,” and the peddler of the conspiracy theory that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax staged by the government to crack down on gun control. He’s also deathly afraid of chemical weapons that infect U.S. waters and turn frogs gay.
Oliver touched on all these topics on Last Week Tonight, but his main focus was shredding the products Jones sells on his own InfoWars Life Health Store. Highlights include a $10 bag of Combat One Tactical Bath Wipes, which can be used on the “perineal area.” In other words, Oliver says, “Alex Jones is trying to sell you sloppy wet rags for your taint.”
The InfoWars host also hawks a $6 Bill Clinton Rape Whistle, designed to “let Bill know you’re in the crowd and you know the truth.” Oliver ordered one himself, and regretfully informed viewers that it came with a free “9-11 Was an Inside Job” bumper sticker, which he most certainly did not request.
But the HBO host didn’t stop there. In fact, Oliver ordered an entire smorgasbord of goodies from the InfoWars store, including but not limited to: Wake Up America Patriot Blend Coffee, a $120 dietary supplement called DNA Force, and Caveman True Paleo Formula, a chocolate-flavored drink mix made from bee pollen, Stevia, and chicken collagen.
“I know for a fact that Alex Jones did not enjoy drinking that glass of Caveman, because I have got a glass of Caveman right here,” Oliver says before taking a swig of the beverage and nearly rejecting it on the spot. “I can confirm to you that it tastes exactly how you imagine a drink would taste that’s made from chocolate and domesticated bird corpses.”
Using your media platform to sell your own products is not inherently unusual, but Oliver points out that Jones dedicates about one-fourth of his show to selling his own exorbitantly priced gear. Jones also claims that every penny of his product revenue goes back into funding InfoWars, even though he regularly sports a fancy suit and cycles between at least three different Rolex watches on set.
To combat the absurdity of Jones’ own web store, Oliver launched infowipes.com, where he’s selling his own brand of Tactical Assault Wipes (“for use exclusively on the perineal”) at the hefty price tag of $1 million. All proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders.
“If you are thinking, ‘Well, no one’s going to do that,’ all I will say is, people pay Alex Jones $45 for a jar of chocolate-flavored chicken juice,” Oliver says to end the segment. “So anything is fucking possible.”
