John Oliver has raked a considerable amount of muck since launching his HBO show Last Week Tonight in 2014, and he has often enlisted social media to help spur his most over-the-top gags toward virality. For his latest trick, he’s managed to get 350,000 views in one day on a 22-minute video that features no sound and only a single shot. How, you ask? Zebras.
On the March 19th episode of his show, Oliver discussed a campaign in Bolivia through which people in zebra suits are educating people about traffic safety. After concluding that “every interview is improved by a zebra head,” he decided to put that theory to the test. The Last Week Tonight YouTube channel now features a video of a person in a zebra costume dancing and striking various poses in front of a green screen. With a little movie magic, that black-and-white-striped mascot can be inserted into any other video, and Oliver has instructed his viewers to do exactly that.
A look at the #JustAddZebras hashtag reveals some of the zebra news clips that have been made so far with the help of Oliver’s new video. Here are some of my favorites I found around the web:
Dustin Miller on YouTube
Wingard Entertainment on YouTube
Don Allen III on YouTube
As memes are wont to do, #JustAddZebras is already mutating. Here’s our dancing friend inserted into a famous scene from The Princess Bride:
Not bad, John. You’ve managed to make watching the news as much fun as it’s been in a long time.
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