As nuclear annihilation looms, John Oliver knows only the power of song can bring the U.S. and North Korea together. The Last Week Tonight host dedicated the show’s main segment on Sunday night to looking back at the relationship between the two countries, breaking down the North Korean mindset, and figuring out what we should do next—which may or may not include trying to serenade our way out of an international conflict.
Despite some of the more amusing qualities North Koreans have, like their apparent fondness for accordion music, Oliver reminds us that the way the country treats its citizens is no joke and that “the Kim family is known for their bone-chilling cruelty and mismanagement.” There’s a method to Kim Jong-Un’s madness, however, as in the past few years, he’s witnessed other dictators, like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, suffer the consequences for scaling back their own nuclear programs, giving him good reason to be worried.
Since neither American nor North Korean leadership offers much hope of toning down the rhetoric, Oliver appealed directly to the ordinary citizens of both countries. One way that activists combat Pyongyang’s propaganda is by smuggling in content that contradicts portrayals of Americans as cannibals and villains, including episodes of The Mentalist, Desperate Housewives, and NCIS. “If nothing else, we finally have our answer to the decade-long question, ‘Who the fuck is watching NCIS?’” said Oliver. “It turns out, it’s all your mom’s friends and the people of North Korea.”
If these fictional depictions of Americans can make a difference, Oliver thinks it would help if North Koreans knew what the real average American is like. And so he recruited “Weird Al” Yankovic, who used the universal language of the accordion to implore: “Please don’t nuke us, North Korea.”
