We’ve written about the “John Oliver Bounce” in the past, but Oliver doesn’t always use his power for altruistic causes like supporting women’s engineering scholarships and memorializing Russian space sex geckos. Sometimes he’s just messing with people, as he did when he mocked Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa for being too busy publicly shaming people who said mean things about him on social media to, you know, run his country:
Of course this got back to a man who clearly checks his Twitter mentions on a regular basis, and Correa has been taking shots at Oliver online ever since. Inviting further abuse from enraged Monty Python nerds, Correa called the very concept of an English comedian an “oxymoron.” He then added that “talk show gringos are more unfriendly than a diuretic,” Oliver’s show is “too much noise for such little nuts” (a Spanish colloquialism meaning roughly “his bark is bigger than his bite”), and that Americans are “making someone famous who probably thinks the capital of Ecuador is Kuala Lumpur.” Sick burn, bro.
According to the BBC, Correa’s constituents seem to find their president’s behavior rather embarrassing. However, there is one aspect of Oliver’s segment which they will not tolerate, and that is his contemptuous desecration of beloved children’s entertainer Tiko Tiko the clown. “Tiko Tiko” has become a trending topic on Ecuadorian social media as citizens rally to support their national icon, with one user commenting, “It can’t be that international TV makes fun of such a prominent person … poor Tiko Tiko!” Ernesto Huertas, who plays Tiko Tiko, has reportedly issued a statement saying Oliver should be more “respectful.” As usual, the one thing people didn’t find funny was the clown.