John Oliver is not very happy with Indian streaming platform Hotstar. Photo / Supplied
John Oliver is not very happy with Indian streaming platform Hotstar. Photo / Supplied
John Oliver has accused a Disney-owned streaming service of cutting jokes he made about Disney characters.
The TV satirist claims India's Hotstar removed comments about Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck from broadcasts of his late-night current affairs show Last Week Tonight.
Oliver said the platform "self-censored" and did not uploadan epsiode of Last Week Tonight that was critical of Indian PM Narendra Modi.
He gave two examples from 2019 episodes. One contained 1980s archive footage encouraging US citizens to fill out their census form. The footage, from a public information ad, featured a cameo from Mickey Mouse. Oliver joked that Mickey was a cocaine addict, a comment he said was cut when the episode streamed on Hotstar.
Another 2019 episode featuring a segment about China's one-child policy in which Oliver joked that Donald Duck's penis was "shaped like a corkscrew". In his takedown, Oliver pointed out that was a fact about the anatomy of ducks.
"I frankly resent that factually accurate joke being cut out almost more than I resent our Modi episode being pulled," Oliver said, going on to refer to the character he voiced in last year's remake of The Lion King: "And let me say this to Hotstar right now. If you think that you have to remove anything that reflects poorly on Disney from this show, some bad news for you ... I'm f****** Zazu right here."
