Warning: You Cannot Un-See John Oliver’s Anti-Mitch McConnell ‘Old White Dick’ Commercial

[MADem]

50. UPDATE--John Oliver gives an interview! We learn all about the model selection process!

Funny but not sad!!!!!!!! http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/05/john-oliver-interview-last-week-tonight-mitch-mcconnell-old-wrinkly-penis-attack-ad

MJ: Whose idea was it, if you recall, and whose penis did you use?

JO: Okay, those are two excellent questions. The first one, I'm not sure, and it might help to just (go with) collective responsibility. I don't want to go with a sort of "I am Spartacus" moment but I think plausible deniability might be useful at that point. The second is the much more interesting question. And that is that, of course, you do need to cast a penis. And to do that you have to be presented with a selection of penii—I don't know if that's the collective term. And so then what you're looking for—it's amazing—when you look at then you start judging them for the purpose, because you want something that is funny but not sad. Because, you know, a sad penis does not help the comedy. No, it makes you think about the person the penis is attached to. So really, you just want a representative old man penis. And I'm not sure that sentence...has ever been said out loud before...We got to one that we liked, and the owner of that penis was generous enough to model it for us.

MJ: How did you get to one you liked? Like, what is the process of "getting" penii?

JO: We went through photos. It was basically the penis version of a headshot.

MJ: So this was like models?

JO: Models, basically. And you go through and say, "This one's good, this one's good, let's get down to a short-list. Okay, it's between these three. Um. I like this one." And then what you do is you make a decision, you walk out of a room, and you stare out a window and question what the fuck you're doing with your life...That's basically how it goes.

MJ: I'm assuming you weren't in the room when they shot it?

JO: I actually wasn't because we were having to write...But apparently the man was very happy...I just came back and our editor, she had to live with that footage for a few days, but she did a fantastic job.

MJ: Has she recovered, psychologically?

JO: Yeah, she was very good. She's called Cori [McKenna], and she actually edited both the commercials...The other commercial was basically a chainsaw massacre in a mine involving a kitten, and I think she found that slightly less alarming to cut together than a sequence of beautiful tracking shots of an old man's junk.

Imagine having THAT on your resume, or that image in your "headshots" book!