John Oliver celebrated the Emmys by changing up their awards categories a bit by taking a shot at Saturday Night Live. The HBO host will now be going head-to-head against the long-running sketch comedy series in the new Scripted Variety Series category.
In past years, the two comedy favorites were separate in competition with the Variety Talk and Variety Sketch Series awards. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has walked away with one award for the past seven years, while SNL has won Variety Sketch for six years. Now both will go against each other, giving Oliver and his team a chance to get playfully competitive.
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It’s a simple little slight on the NBC comedy series, using its now-customary colorful corkboard cards to promote the return of his own show on Sunday. The photo shows Feb. 19 on the top card, with John Oliver in the host’s spot and then in the spot typically reserved for the musical guest, Oliver, and company put in, “A horse, we hope.”
“Still working on the horse part. But John and the desk will definitely be back this Sunday at 11:02pm!” the tweet reads. The problem with this type of joke is that the reality surrounding it can confuse viewers and fans.
With no new episode of SNL this week, Oliver being listed as host in the style of SNL’s typical announcements caused a little confusion for some who weren’t paying close attention.
“Definitely thought he was hosting SNL for a moment,” one fan wrote. “I want john oliver to host snl and just do 5 minutes of him banging his perfectly-elbow aligned desk,” another added. “Man the emotional rollercoaster I had seeing these cards and thinking John was hosting SNL before I realized it was Last Week’s twitter,” a third wrote.
The awards showdown will happen in September with the new category, giving a bit more competition than we’ve seen in past years. One reason that SNL was a six-time winner in recent years was due to only having one or two other nominees. Last Week Tonight has always had some healthy competition in the Variety Talk category, but this has dwindled with the cancellation and retirement of several other hosts in late night.
There’s also a new category for the late-night genre in Talk Series, which will see The Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and others separated from the pack.
