John Oliver discusses his Marlon Bundo book with Seth Meyers.--moderator
Last Week Tonight is getting the last laugh in its (perhaps one-sided) feud with Mike Pence. On Sunday, John Oliver announced that staff writer _Jill Twiss and illustrator E.G. Keller had penned a picture book that purposefully apes the Pence family’s own children’s book about their bunny, Marlon Bundo. In a twist of expert trolling, Oliver just revealed that his team’s book not only beat the Pence family book on the charts, but has also sold 180,000 copies already—just days after its publication was announced. What’s more, the book isn’t even available in bookstores yet—only Amazon.
Oliver joked about those amazing results in a Tuesday night interview with Seth Meyers. The Last Week book (titled Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents a Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo) is a direct send-up of the Pence family’s own book, titled Marlon Bundo’s Day in the Life of the Vice President. While the Pence book is about Bundo following Vice President Mike Pence around for a day, the Oliver book is about Bundo falling in love with a boy bunny and getting married—a direct response to Pence’s anti-L.G.B.T.Q. reputation. In addition, all proceeds of the Last Week Tonight book go to non-profit organizations the Trevor Project and AIDs United.
While Oliver and his team probably hoped that their creation would beat the Pence book in sales, they couldn’t have predicted the book shooting all the way up the Amazon charts, beating out heavy titles like James Comey’s not-yet published A Higher Loyalty.
“At that point, it’s getting ridiculous,” Oliver told Meyers with a laugh. “It sold 180,000 copies so far, which is definitely more than we were prepared for.”
“You made the terrible mistake of giving the money away,” Meyers replied.
“I’m sure HBO will find it absolutely hilarious they’re getting no money out of this,” Oliver agreed. Though the first printing has already sold out, Oliver assured viewers that more are being printed, and that the book will soon be physically available in bookstores as well.
In the interview, Meyers also informed Oliver that fans of the book have found yet another way to troll Pence and anyone else who might not be fond of the book: via Amazon reviews. Fans are apparently pre-emptively leaving one-star reviews, in an attempt to head off haters who are purposefully looking for negative remarks about the book.
“I don’t actually dislike this book at all,” one review reads, “I just wanted the upset homophobes to read my comment as they scour the one-star section for appeasement.”
“One star because I fear the writing is above President Trump’s reading level,” another review reads. “Apart from that, I’m glad I bought it, and I hope it becomes a best-seller.”
The fates heard that fan’s request loud and clear.
Yohana Desta is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com.
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