A “Last Week Tonight” montage brilliantly demonstrated how a recent Applebee’s ad may have been the worst-timed commercial in history.
John Oliver opened his HBO show on Sunday night with a segment about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the Emmy-winning host couldn’t help but tackle how CNN “somehow managed” to make its coverage of air-raid sirens blaring in Kyiv “even worse” by transitioning from the devastating scene to an “aggressively American” ad.
The Applebee’s spot, which went viral last week, features a man Oliver refers to as a “human boot barn” shaking “his nonexistent ass” to the tune of Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried.”
The abrupt cutaway from the somber Ukraine footage to the ridiculous ad could have come straight from 2006’s “Idiocracy.”
Soon after the spot went viral last week, Applebee’s acknowledged that the ad placement was inappropriate and said “it never should have been aired” — and Oliver pointed out the significance of the company doing this.
“You know if Applebee’s is apologizing for interrupting the coverage of Russia invading Ukraine, this week got seriously out of hand,” he said.
Yet the “Last Week Tonight” crew couldn’t help but emphasize the truly bonkers timing of the Applebee’s ad by inserting it into some other historic news scenarios. You can watch the bit below.