On ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,’ John reads a letter he received from the makers of POM Wonderful, a juice product he recently skewered on air. You may recall the recent episode in which both the vague labeling and outrageous claims made by the company were brought into question by John. How much juice is actually in the product – or is it made of POMeranian dogs? This seems like a reasonable question for consumers to ask.
John then played a clip in which spokeswoman Lynda Resnick made a claim based upon corporate greed, and playing on the desperate hopes of consumers, “What it does for prostate cancer is amazing!”
At this point John may or may not have encouraged an alternate – more direct administration route for the product.
John also may or may not have rightly referred to the product as ‘snake oil’ and encouraged viewers to put stickers on the bottles with little Pomeranians and a big green check mark, suggesting the juice contains juice. He then made the stickers available online for viewers who wished to label bottles in their own local supermarkets.
All of this brings us to the present day, when a cooler full of “dog juice” arrived addressed to John, along with the nice letter John is reading on air. Far from a defensive stance, the letter appears to have been written in a spirit of goodwill and jolly good humor, exclaiming “What fun!” and wishing John the best in his new show. I’m taken aback that John seems to be searching for sarcasm in such a lovely letter. They are surprisingly honest in admitting that research on the health effects of pomegranates ‘is promising’ leaving unsaid that their claims are absolute balderdash.Still, John is suspicious, although there is no visible snark as they gush on, at one point saying “We take these things in the spirit of good humor in which they’re made.”
They make this point perfectly clear in the very last line, where they advise John – in the nicest way, what he might, or might not – wish to do with the product they have gifted to him. We will never question John Oliver’s sarcasm detection skills again.