‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ Tackles Baffling Waffle House Trainee Videos: “Dinner At The Fyre Festival”

deadline.com:

John Oliver kicked off Last Week Tonight with an extended segment on the natural disasters that have hit the eastern coast of the United States in recent weeks amid hurricane season.

Throughout the introductory bit, Oliver joshed everything and everyone from Dancing With the Stars to president Joe Biden, with a number of minutes dedicated to Southern breakfast food joint Waffle House, the Index of which serves as an unofficial but much relied-upon metric by FEMA categorizing the severity of extreme weather storms.

First off, he played a clip of Alfonso Ribeiro introducing a number set to Scorpions’ classic “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” a line the host delivered somberly as he said the choice was made “weeks in advance” of Hurricane Milton‘s path toward Florida. “Yeah, that’s not great,” Oliver said. “While I’m sure the song was decided weeks in advance, it’s also the middle of hurricane season right now!

This wasn’t some freak unforeseeable thing like if he’d have to come out and say, ‘Before our contestant’s cha-cha to ‘The Thong Song,’ we want you to know, it was chosen weeks before this morning’s mass thong-strangling.'” The Waffle House Index, originated by the government and coined circa 20 years ago, is based on the restaurant chain’s business strategy of staying open as much as possible, knowing that profits increase before and after climate catastrophes.