John Oliver, Stephen Colbert reignite the wax president debate

If you missed it, the last new episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver featured an amazing / ridiculous wax president showcase.

Before giving too much into the details there, let’s backtrack for a moment or two. There was a museum in Gettysburg that recently sold off all of their wax presidents. A number of late-night hosts decided that it would be really fun to buy up some of the figures; Stephen Colbert of The Late Show purchased Zachary Taylor, while Oliver’s show actually purchased five of them, including the infamous Warren G. Harding. They then ended up making a mock movie trailer for him that included such notable performers as Anna Kendrick and Laura Linney. It was the last segment for Last Week Tonight before the hiatus, and it was all sorts of brilliant. We also never knew anyone would spend this much money on wax presidents.

Anyhow, The Late Show released today a bonus clip from Oliver’s appearance on the show earlier this week, and you can think of this as a response to some of John’s previous comments on his show about his presidents and also his burn of Taylor as a guy who was barely in office. Colbert brings out Taylor to the appreciation of everyone in attendance, which leads to John then bringing out his version of Harding. The two then proceed to insult each other’s presidents as though this is a thing that people actually do. It’s hysterically funny, and it makes us wonder why this wasn’t something that was a major part of the actual show when it aired.

On this note, can we get Oliver on The Late Show even more often? Sure, we know that he’s busy doing his own show, but at the same time he is one of the funniest performers known to mankind and these two guys have great chemistry together that dates back to all of their time on Comedy Central. They didn’t actually spend time working for the same show per se (Oliver joined The Daily Show after Stephen started up The Colbert Report), but you wouldn’t know it based on the way that the two of them interact with one another.

What do you want see in a wax president showdown? Be sure to share in the comments below!

Meanwhile, head over to the link here in the event you want some other news when it comes to Last Week Tonight right now, including episode highlights! (Photo: CBS.)