"It was an immensely difficult time"- John Oliver lashes out at Hollywood studios for not offering WGA a fair deal on "day f**king one"

After a lengthy hiatus due to the recently concluded WGA strike, John Oliver's Last Week Tonight returned for the first time since April 30, 2023. In his first episode back from the strike, the British-American comedian bashed Hollywood studios for the lengthy delay in offering a fair deal to the writers.

Oliver began his episode with a rundown of everything that went down in the past few months, including the implosion of the Titan submersible and the Barbenheimer trend, before expressing his views on the strike and applauding the WGA for sticking strongly to their demands.

He said:

"We missed so much that it would take a whole new version of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ to cover it

"I wish so much that I could have told you these jokes at the time, but I couldn’t because our writers — the people who wrote those jokes — were forced to strike for a fair contract for the last five months, and it was an immensely difficult time. Not just for them, but for everyone else working on this show and many others who could no longer do their jobs."

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"I’m also furious that it took the studios 148 days to achieve a deal"- John Oliver on the conclusion of the WGA strike

The WGA strike took a long time to resolve despite the demands of the writers being only a fraction of the studio earnings, as pointed out by various media outlets throughout the strike. Moreover, the SAG-AFTRA strike, where actors are demanding fairer compensations and a ban on AI usage for replicating their likeness, is still going strong.

Putting forth his views on the WGA strike and its long-drawn conclusion, John Oliver said:

"To be clear, this strike happened for good reasons,...Our industry has seen its workers severely squeezed in recent years. You’ve probably seen stories about writers and actors whose work you may even recognize routinely not making enough to qualify for health insurance or afford basic needs."

He continued:

"So the writers’ guild went on strike and thankfully won — but it took a lot of sacrifices from a lot of people to achieve that, and while I am happy that they eventually got a deal, and I’m proud of what our union accomplished, I’m also furious that it took the studios 148 days to achieve a deal that they could have offered on day f**king one."

John Oliver also emphasized that WGA's victory over the studios in this strike would likely inspire all fields of work to demand their fair share in this increasingly capitalistic environment. He also commented on the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, adding:

"I really hope the actors’ union and [the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees], which represents crews, will be able to take what the writers achieved and leverage it to win fair contracts for themselves, too. Because the truth is [that] it takes many people working really hard to make film and TV, all of whom deserve a piece of the pie."

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is now airing on HBO.