We Recommend Watching John Oliver Get Slapped on General Hospital

John Oliver loves a random side quest on Last Week Tonight and often lets his news reporting get sidetrack when he sees an opportunity to, say, marry a cabbage for the bit. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that, out of all the late-night hosts, Oliver was the one who went on General Hospital to play a multi-episode side character. Oliver just wrapped up a three-day story line on the show playing Z, a villainous World Safety Bureau agent. Z accomplished a lot in his time on the show. Almost immediately upon showing up, Oliver’s character kills a henchman. Then, he saves his WSB agent Josslyn Jacks’s (Eden McCoy) life in order to get her help framing Ross Collum (Andrew Hawkes) for murder. How villainous!

But his scene with Carly Spencer (Laura Wright) is undoubtedly the best. Carly comes to Z’s office to tell him to fire her daughter Josslyn from the WSB to save her life, but he refuses. Then he does an offensive southern impression of her, prompting her to slap Z. After that, he hits on her. It’s exactly what you’d want out of a soap scene — stupid, funny, and lightning fast. 

Oliver first planted the seed for this cameo back in a March episode of Last Week Tonight about the global impacts of defunding USAID. In the episode, he learned that Stephen A. Smith has had a recurring role on General Hospital as Brick for ten years. Out of jealousy, Oliver openly requested his own role: “I am officially offering myself to you. Write me a role, and I will be on your set so fast it’ll make your head spin.” All he wanted to was a silly name (check) and high drama that included a slap (double check). It just goes to show that following through on the bit is always worth it.