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Last Week Tonight is hosting an auction to save public broadcasting, featuring a Bob Ross original painting, a head of lettuce, and more.
Posted in: HBO, TV | Tagged: Last Week Tonight
Last Week Tonight Launches PBS Auction, Including Bob Ross Painting
Last Week Tonight is hosting an auction to save public broadcasting, featuring a Bob Ross original painting, a head of lettuce, and more.
While most of the heroes of yesteryear on public media are gone, the fight continues from those who understand its ongoing, invaluable nature, such as Last Week Tonight host John Oliver, who brought attention to the matter in his featured segment on the November 16th episode. In the episode, Oliver summarizes the July 2025 action by Congress, which passed legislation cutting the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). This federal agency distributes resources to public media based on their needs. Since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act, which led to the creation of the CPB in 1967, it has been a target for conservatives who often accuse its various public media outlets of bias. Oliver brought attention to various stations on TV and radio that provide invaluable news resources in more rural areas; TV and radio outlets, like PBS and NPR; and significant figures, like Mr. Rogers Neighborhood host Fred Rodgers, who testified in front of Congress in 1968 to preserve funding, and The Joy of Painting host Bob Ross, whose estate has offered multiple paintings recently for auction to benefit public media.
Last Week Tonight Host John Oliver Creates Auction to Benefit Public Media
While Rogers and Ross are no longer around to keep up the fight, their legacies remain with the estate offering an original Ross painting, "Cabin at Sunset", which he painted in a 1987 episode of his series, for auction along with an assortment of outrageous props and art pieces featured on Oliver's series, appropriately titled, John Oliver's Junk. The three Ross original paintings at their previous auction raised $662,000. "Cabin at Sunset" is currently topping over $1,000,000 as of now. Other items featured included Russel Crowe's Jockstrap, which was featured from his 2005 biopic, Cinderella Man, a bronze rendering of "LBJ's Balls," Oliver's lettuce wife, and wax figurines of former US presidents. For more on Oliver's Junk, you can check it out here.
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