John Oliver examines inflation plus 'Last Week Tonight's Emmy nominations

I concluded Wall Street Journal and CNBC explain 'Why a 2022 Recession Would Be Unlike Any Other' by telling my readers "I may have more about the economy, guns, or the Emmy Awards tomorrow. I may even combine two of them. To find out, stay tuned." I'm combining the economy and the Emmy Awards, first by sharing Inflation: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO).

John Oliver discusses what causes inflation, what we’ve done about the current round of it, and, of course, makes the smartest investment of all time.

Jim Cramer is funny enough, but Oliver making fun of him dials it up to eleven. On a more serious note, I mentioned inflation driving down consumer sentiment in CNBC explains 'Why Recessions May Be Inevitable', which could cause a recession. I've mostly been focused on gas prices as a sign of inflation, but those have been declining for the past month. That's normal. I tracked gas prices for years and found that they rise and fall seasonally, with prices increasing from the beginning of the year to the July 4th weekend and then falling through the end of the year. What I found concerning was that gas prices rose last fall when they should have been falling. That was a sign that something had changed, notably that supply could not keep up with demand. That seems to be Oliver's point, that this is a prolonged and global supply issue, not an American money supply issue, and it's throughout the economy, not just confined to oil. That's something else I predicted for the second half of this decade. Maybe the peak of oil from fracking has arrived early. That's not good news unless one wants to buy a bike.

I do have some good news for "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver," the show's Emmy nominations. Follow over the jump.


First, the show's two nominations at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards.

Outstanding Variety Talk Series
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Comedy Central)
Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO/HBO Max)
Late Night with Seth Meyers (NBC)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS)

"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" no longer has the most nominations all by itself, which it did for five consecutive years. Both it and "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" have five nominations. Add in the spinoff "Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News," which "The Late Show" features on its YouTube channel, and Colbert has six, breaking the tie. While "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" has four nominations for the main show, two of its spinoffs have nominations as well for a total of six. "Late Night with Seth Meyers" finally earned a nomination in this category along with one more for the main show and another for a spinoff, a total of three. "Jimmy Kimmel Live" rounds out the field with a nomination in just this category. Despite its competition earning as many if not more nominations, "Last Week Tonight" is the six-time returning winner, so I think it's still the favorite.

Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series
A Black Lady Sketch Show (HBO/HBO Max)
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Comedy Central)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO/HBO Max)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS)
Saturday Night Live (NBC)

The three top variety talk nominees along with both of the variety sketch nominees earned nominations in this category. While my readers have voted with their page views for "Saturday Night Live" over "Last Week Tonight" during the past year, they're not the Emmy voters, who have awarded the writers for "Last Week Tonight" the Emmy statuette the past six years. I still think that will happen again. Remember, electorates matter.

Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series
A Black Lady Sketch Show: "Save My Edges, I'm a Donor!" – Bridget Stokes (HBO/HBO Max)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: "Union Busting" – Paul Pennolino and Christopher Werner (HBO/HBO Max)
Late Night with Seth Meyers: "Episode 1252" – Alexander J. Vietmeier (NBC)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: "Artistic Musical Performance by Chance the Rapper; Monologue: Ukraine & Russian War, January 6 Committee Evidence on Trump & Donald Jr.; Guest Beanie Feldstein" – Jim Hoskinson (CBS)
Saturday Night Live: "Host: Billie Eilish" – Don Roy King and Liz Patrick (NBC)

"Saturday Night Live" has won this award four times in a row, so I consider it the favorite this year as well. Sorry, "Last Week Tonight."

Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming (Area) A Black Lady Sketch Show: "Save My Edges, I'm A Donor!" – Stephanie Filo, Bradinn French, Taylor Joy Mason, and S. Robyn Wilson (HBO / HBO Max)
Conan: "Series Finale" – Robert James Ashe, Mike Api, Christopher P. Heller, and Matthew Shaw (TBS)
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah: "Jordan Klepper Takes On 'Wellness' Anti-Vaxxers + Fringewatching Rep. Lauren Boebert" – Storm Choi, Eric Davies, Tom Favilla, Lauren Beckett Jackson, Nikolai Johnson, Ryan Middleton, Mark Paone, Erin Shannon, Catherine Trasborg, and Einar Westerlund (Comedy Central)
Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts – Simon Bryant, Jim Clark, James Collett, Bill DeRonde, Asaf Eisenberg, Will Gilby, Lior Linevitz–Matthews, Pablo Noe, Tim Perniciaro, and Jacob Proctor (HBO / HBO Max)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: "The Confesstigators" (segment) – Anthony Miale (HBO / HBO Max)

While this category was one of the first Emmy Awards "Last Week Tonight" won, it lost last year to "Black Lady Sketch Show." It's still a strong contender, not least because this is now an area award.

Area awards are non-competitive; any nominee with at least 90% approval receives an Emmy. If no nominee receives 90% approval, the nominee with the highest approval receives an Emmy; for area awards in picture editing and sound mixing, there is an additional requirement that the highest-rated nominee must have at least 50% approval.

Consequently, all, some, one, or possibly even none of the nominees could earn awards in this category. That means I'm not going to put a lot of effort into handicapping these categories.

A bunch of nominees can take home Emmy statuettes. I'm OK with that.

Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Series (Area)
American Idol: "Disney Night" – Charles Ciup, David Bernstein, Bettina Levesque, Bert Atkinson, Damien Tuffereau, Rob Palmer, Bruce Green, Daryl Studebaker, Mike Carr, Jofre Rosero, Nathanial Havholm, Easter Xua, Andrew Georgopoulos, Ed Horton, Brian Reason, Keith Dicker, Adam Margolis, Ron Lehman, Christopher Gray, Luke Chantrell (ABC)
The Daily Show With Trevor Noah: "Robert Glasper Performs "Heaven's Here"" – Mike Williams, Matt Muro, Rich York, Tim Quigley, Phil Salanto, Ricardo Sarmiento, Joel Sadler (Comedy Central)
Dancing with the Stars: "Horror Night" – Charles Ciup, Christine Salomon, Brian Reason, Bettina Levesque, Daryl Studebaker, Bruce Green, Bert Atkinson, Nat Havholm, Ron Lehman, Mike Carr, Adam Margolis, Damien Tuffereau, Easter Xua, Derek Pratt, Mark Koonce, Allen Merriweather, Andrew Georgopoulos, Luke Chantrell, Ed Moore (ABC)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: "Union Busting" – Dave Saretsky, Dante Pagano, John Harrison, Rich Freedman, Ken Thompson, Yayo Vang, Elizabeth Cavanagh, Wyatt Maker, John Schwartz, Augie Yuson (HBO / HBO Max)
The Masked Singer: "Masks Back - The Good, The Bad & The Cuddly - Round 1" – Christine Salomon, Nat Havholm, Mark Koonce, Brett Crutcher, Adam Margolis, Rob Palmer, Ron Lehman, Bert Atkinson, Bettina Levesque, Jeff Wheat, Kary D'Alessandro, Daryl Studebaker, John Goforth, Cary Symmons, Sean Flannery, Darin Gallacher, Chris Hill (FOX)
The Voice: "Live Top 10 Performances" – Allan Wells, Danny Bonilla, Mano Bonilla, Martin J. Brown Jr., Robert Burnette, Suzanne Ebner, Guido Frenzel, Alex Hernandez, Marc Hunter, Scott Hylton, Kathrine Iacofano, Scott Kaye, Steve Martynuk, Jofre Rosero, Steve Simmons, Terrance Ho (NBC)

This was the third (actually first in time order) Emmy that "Last Week Tonight" won last year, so I think it's guaranteed to win it this year. The only question is who else gets to take home a trophy.

I'll return with more nominees after Earth Overshoot Day and International Tiger Day, which fall on consecutive days this year. Stay tuned.

Previous posts about the 2022 Emmy Awards

• 'Teenage Dream' and 'The Lost Class' — two PSAs about gun violence nominated for Outstanding Commercial at the 2022 Emmy Awards
• Barack Obama nominated for Outstanding Narrator of 'Our Great National Parks' at the 2022 Emmy Awards
• 'Lucy and Desi' leads Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special nominees with six nominations
• 'The Beatles: Get Back,' 'We Need to Talk About Cosby,' and 'Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy' all nominated for five Emmy Awards in nonfiction series