Name: John Oliver Tased Himself | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-07-30T15:00:59.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Oliver Tased Himself | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-30. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Oliver Tased Himself | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-30. Transcript available.

Welcome back, John Oliver, ladies and gentlemen.
You know, John...
Yeah, let's do it.
Let's do it.
Wow.
That has to be sarcastic.
That has to be sarcastic.
That cannot be genuine.
I am deeply, deeply suspicious of any appreciation
that lasts that long or that loud.
That feels hurtful.
I know what you're saying, but in this case, it's genuine.
No way.
Um...
Stop it.
Actually, stop it.
You know how I, um...
People will have an impression of other people.
Sure.
And they're pretty certain through history and experience
that it gets reinforced.
I had an impression of you that's been completely altered,
shattered, if not violated.
And I'll tell you what it is.
I was told that recently, I believe,
performing for troops at a USO function,
that you, uh, uh, took a taser to yourself.
I did.
What happened?
Now, you see, you don't look like that kind of guy.
That's fair.
And I appreciate that.
That's something Larry the cable guy would do.
He would get her done in his leg.
That's right.
Uh, it needs context.
What happens, well, I was in Afghanistan.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
This is recent?
This is, like, a year ago.
I was in Afghanistan, and, uh, so I was doing gigs for the troops.
Good for you.
And all you want to do, all you want to do is make them laugh.
Mm-hmm.
And whatever, whatever it takes, you want to make them laugh.
So I finished one gig, and I walked off stage, and this guy said,
I really enjoyed that, do you want to tase yourself?
I really enjoyed that, do you want to tase yourself?
Right.
And the second part of that sentence made me think that the first part was not
true.
Yeah.
But that was very funny.
Do you want to cause yourself physical pain to make up for what I just watched?
So I said, yes, and I tased myself.
Now, wait a minute.
The guy had the thing right there.
He had a taser.
He said, like, he offered it up, saying, please, make use of this taser.
Right.
That we use to suppress dangerous individuals.
Now, you're under no obligation.
None.
Even though you have an accent, you're under no obligation.
No, technically, I have an authoritative accent.
I should have said to him, I will not do that, Ruffy, and scurry along.
But, no, he said, and the worst thing, it's just me and him in a room,
and one of my friends.
So it's not like it's in front of an audience that will all laugh.
I thought it was on stage.
No, not that.
At least that would be entertaining on a broad level.
This was just one dude saying, hurt yourself, and me going, okay, zap.
Whoa.
And then he laughed, and I did it again.
Now, these things are designed purposefully to disable.
That's right.
Were you disabled?
Well, yeah, and it hurts exactly as much as you'd think shooting yourself with
electricity
unnecessarily hurts.
Yeah.
And the problem is, when you're doing it to yourself, it's even worse, because
it's not
just self-harm.
It's self-loathing at that point.
What am I doing with my life?
Yeah.
Why could...
But, you know, it's a hell of an experience.
This is curious.
Yeah.
And it's hard to judge pain for others, but on a scale of, they say, like one
to ten, ten
being the worst, where was this?
Well, it was definitely, you know, I'm not going to rush to do it again.
I don't want to give people the impression that they can come up to me in the
street and
say, do it.
Yeah.
Hurt yourself.
I'll do it in a war zone.
I'm not Johnny Knoxville, or I'm Johnny Knoxville in a very narrow situation.
That's exactly what it is.
You are Johnny Knoxville.
No, I'm not.
I'm only in a war zone.
In war zone, we are all Johnny Knoxville in a war zone.
Did it leave a mark?
No, it felt like it should have done.
It's one of those things where it hurts so much.
You then, like, I took my trousers off, and there was nothing there, and you
think, there
has to be a welt of some kind.
I need evidence that this happened.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, it's an utterly ridiculous...
Now, let me ask you this, and this is long after the fact, so there's really no
consequence
here.
You're sure it wasn't a trick just to get you to take your pants off?
If it was, that was the long game in terms of seduction.
I could have done with knowing that when I was 17 years old.
Hello, lady.
You want to tase yourself?
It's all I've got.
I've tried dinner, movies, tase yourself.
So no mark, left no mark.
No mark, but it's quite exhilarating.
It really wakes you up.
Does it burn?
It does burn, but it's afterwards.
You're kind of tingling like a really strong cup of coffee.
I'm not saying you should do it first thing in the morning.
I'm saying if you're trying to get off coffee, it's an option.
Now, I understand sort of the, oh, sure, let me try it once.
Right.
But what was the point in going again?
No, you definitely understand that, because that is the comedian's instinct of,
zap, I
hear a laugh.
Oh.
I want another one of those zap again.
That's when you start hating yourself.
That's when you think I'm pathetic.
Yeah.
I can't believe I only did it twice.
Rule of three.
I could have got a huge laugh the third time.
It's beginning to sound like a psychological experiment.
I think it was.
If it was, I failed it.
Yeah.
And knowing your wife's background, you come back to the United States, she's a
military
emergency medic.
Yeah.
Trained for combat triage treatment.
She was in there.
She saw it.
She was watching me do it.
Oh, my God.
With just a look of going, if you're going to claim this as a war injury, you
are mistaken,
my friend.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
So, yeah, she was just shaking her head thinking, what did I marry?
Yeah.
Cannot have been this.
Does that come up a lot?
Oh, sure.
I don't think any girl fantasizes about her wedding day, and then shortly after
that, her
husband just zapping himself with a taser.
Just because a guy in a uniform said, here you go.
That's right.
Here you go.
Is this attractive?
Are you attracted to this?
Wow.
Yeah.
Tell me about, I think we talked about your childhood.
Where did you grow up?
What town?
I grew up in, well, I was born in Birmingham.
My family from Liverpool, and I was, I lived, I grew up in Bedford, which is
like the Detroit
of London.
So, now going back, Birmingham, is that a huge industrial center of England?
Yeah, it's big.
It's a big, you know, a lot of factories, then a lot of factories closed down,
then a
lot of sadness.
That's the history of the city of Birmingham.
And then you moved to the home of the Beatles, Liverpool.
I never lived there.
Never lived there?
Yeah, my whole family was from there.
I never lived there, but I went back, I went to visit family there sporadically.
Yeah.
And then, yeah, lived in Bedford, and then moved to America, and then I'm
sitting here.
Did you, it's just that easy, ladies and gentlemen.
That's what they say.
Yeah.
That's how it works.
That's how it works.
That's how it works.
I've just given the recipe.
But did you, like when I was a kid, I had paper routes.
I was always delivering paper routes, and then I worked at a supermarket, and I
always had
jobs.
Did you always have jobs?
Yeah, but I had some pretty bad jobs, because I didn't really have any tangible
skills that
were marketable.
Mm-hmm.
So, one summer, I worked when I was a kid in the freezer section of a slaughterhouse.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, all right.
Yeah.
It wasn't a great job.
Yeah.
But it was that, or join a charismatic band of pickpockets, breaking sporadically
into song,
only that doesn't happen, you racists.
Racists?
Yeah.
Wow.
That turned pretty hard.
Yeah.
But yeah, but I saw the best thing, the best thing that happened at that job,
it was a
bad job, was I saw a grown man attempt to steal an entire frozen cow.
Not possible.
I saw him, he climbed inside the ribcage of the frozen cow, and he made us tape
it around
his body, and then tape the cow's frozen legs to his arms and legs.
And when I was taping it around his body, I remember thinking, if this is what
being an
adult's going to be like, everything's going to be okay.
Yeah, everything will be fine.
I can do this.
And then he made us pull this ski suit, this oversized ski suit over his body,
and he shuffled
out to all security, leaving a trail of blood and water behind him, like a
menstruating
snail.
Oh.
And I remember the looks on the faces of the security guards.
They were looking at him with a mixture of like anger and deep admiration.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
But he got that cow and he inspired me.
Where would he have been taking?
Well, I'm guessing.
I don't know.
That's a good question.
Where do you go with that much rapidly thawing meat?
I'm guessing he was going to go and try and sell it in a pub.
Wrap.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Who wants...
Yeah, just like literally hack it together out with a bread knife, walk into a
pub with
some bleeding meat and say, do you want to buy this?
Oh, what an amazing offer.
Where's it come from?
Don't tell me.
That'll be the thrill when I take my first bite.
Have you been...
Brainwashed is not the right word, but have you been persuaded to the Super
Bowl way of
life here in the United States?
Brainwashed is the right word because I'm on a green card and I think if I don't
watch the
Super Bowl...
Oh, you're out of here.
...don't I get ejected?
Yeah, you're gone.
I think they come in with the Super Bowl.
What are you watching in there?
I think, yeah, I love it because it's, you know, it's peak America, isn't it?
Yes, it really is.
It's when America Americanized itself to the full American extent.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's something amazing.
I'm used to big sporting events, you know, in the world, but I'm not used to
seeing fighter
jets fly over the stadium at the start and then having half an hour of Katy
Perry
throwing glitter hand grenades or whatever she's going to do.
Yeah, that's true.
It's patriotic, it's religious.
It's patriotic, it's religious, it's happy, it's sad, it's incredibly dangerous
on a personal
level, and Pepsi sponsored the whole thing.
I mean, what's not to love about it?
It's our way of life, for God's sake.
You've got to understand how intimidating the Super Bowl is to the rest of the
world.
Because when you beam that around the world, everyone else is thinking, if they're
capable
of this, what else could they do?
If they put their minds to it.
Exactly.
Well, listen, the second season, last week, tonight, with John Oliver.
Congratulations.
That's great.
Beginning the second season, Sunday, February 8th, 11 p.m. on HBO.
John, always a pleasure.
Thanks, Dave.
So good to see you.
Enjoy the big game.
Thank God.
Bye.