almost live

YouTuber Josh Pieters lists microwave meals on Deliveroo as if from a restaurant and sees whether anyone orders them. The stunt shows how little vetting the platform applied.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on how media outlets report incomplete or untrue findings as settled science. It covers sensational headlines, small studies and pressure on researchers.

A short Last Week Tonight segment where John Oliver stages a statistically representative climate debate, with Bill Nye facing a crowd of dissenters. It satirizes false balance in media coverage.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on patents and patent trolls, explaining how stockpiled patents and lawsuit threats burden businesses. It features the East Texas venue of Marshall.

A Daily Show segment in which John Oliver examines the argument that gun control does not work, using Australia's experience after the Senate rejected the Manchin-Toomey amendment. It is a comedic, man-on-the-street style piece.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment takes on Dr. Oz and the dietary supplement industry. It explains what is problematic about both, with a comedic wrap-up.

A sketch from the Seattle comedy show Almost Live! in which Pat Cashman plays a US Bell rep explaining the new 425 area code. It first aired in 1997.

A 2006 Saturday Night Live fake infomercial with Steve Martin and Amy Poehler selling the sure-fire way out of debt: don't buy stuff.

A 1988 Saturday Night Live fake commercial for a bank that keeps your pocket change and claims to make money on volume.

A 2005 Saturday Night Live sketch with Tina Fey that satirizes workplace sexual harassment training rules.

A 1975 Saturday Night Live sketch in which Chevy Chase gives Richard Pryor a word association test during a job interview, escalating into trading racial slurs. It is a landmark piece of racial satire.

An SNL sketch in which Nick Burns, the condescending IT guy, trains a new tech support hire to mock users over simple computer problems.

A short KRAZAM comedy sketch satirizing corporate tech life, where a worker reckons with having delivered value at the cost of his soul, complete with Slack chimes.

An Adult Swim fake infomercial in which Alan Resnick pitches a four-step program for creating a digital avatar to live forever. It is absurdist satire of tech immortality and digital popularity.

Neil Cicierega's parody song 'Redesign Your Logo', played over a live backing video with corporate PowerPoint visuals. It mocks the infamous Pepsi design strategy presentation.

A 2009 satirical news segment from The Onion's 'In The Know' in which pundits adjust their on-air opinions in real time according to a live viewer poll. It lampoons pandering media and politics.

A Saturday Night Live sketch for the Amazon Echo Silver, a smart speaker for the elderly, in which older users misunderstand Alexa. It parodies voice assistants.

An SNL sketch in which Adam Sandler plays a tour operator who bluntly clarifies what his Italy tours can and cannot do for customers' lives.

A Jimmy Kimmel segment in which interviewers at SXSW ask festival-goers about made-up bands, and many people confidently claim to know and like them.

An SNL sketch in which Kylo Ren goes undercover as a radar technician named Matt at Starkiller Base, parodying the show Undercover Boss.

The classic 1991 SNL commercial parody for Happy Fun Ball, a toy with an absurd list of side effects and warnings.

An SNL sketch in which George Washington, played by Nate Bargatze, tells his soldiers his dream for the country.

The classic SNL sketch in which motivational speaker Matt Foley, played by Chris Farley, warns teens they will end up living in a van down by the river.

A 1986 SNL sketch in which Phil Hartman's Reagan seems clueless in public but is a scheming mastermind in private.

An SNL Weekend Update sketch from 1988 in which Kevin Nealon reports from the All-Drug Olympics and weightlifter Phil Hartman pulls his arms off.

An SNL sketch in which Ryan Gosling's character is obsessed with the font choice (Papyrus) in the movie Avatar's title. It is a comedy bit about a widely mocked typeface.

Tom Murphy's satirical SIGBOVIK 2007 presentation, delivered under a pseudonym, proving that generalized Super Mario Bros. is NP-complete. It is a short, deadpan take on a complexity theory result.

Comedian and cellist Rob Paravonian rants about having to play Pachelbel's Canon in D, and shows how many pop songs reuse its chord progression. It was recorded live at Penn State.

Economist-comedian Yoram Bauman delivers a humorous translation of Mankiw's ten principles of economics for the uninitiated. It was presented at the AAAS humor session in 2007.

A short Yes Minister clip in which the civil servant explains why Britain joined the European Union, delivered as satire of British foreign policy.

Aamer Rahman of Fear of a Brown Planet delivers a stand-up routine on so-called reverse racism, arguing about power imbalance and why criticism of a dominant group is not equivalent to racism.

Norm Macdonald's 2015 appearance on Letterman's final Late Show, delivering a deadpan bit about Germany and its military history. Jerry Seinfeld reportedly called it Norm's best joke.

Part one of Sergey Kuryokhin's 1991 live Soviet TV hoax in which he claimed that Lenin was a mushroom. With subtitles, it shows how a surreal absurd theory can be made to seem proven on live television.

Tim Minchin performs his comedic beat poem 'Storm', a roughly nine-minute rant against homeopathy, alternative medicine and woolly thinking. It is delivered as a fast, rhyming monologue built around an encounter at a dinner party.

Comedian Steve Hughes delivers a stand-up bit on political correctness, offense and health and safety culture, arguing there is no right not to be offended.

A short clip from the NBC sitcom Community in which a character delivers a monologue about how LEGO changed over the years. It is the source of a widely quoted passage about the toy.

The classic Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch from Live at the Hollywood Bowl, in which four men try to outdo each other with exaggerated tales of childhood hardship.

A short clip from the Netflix series Space Force in which John Malkovich's character delivers a profanity-laden rant about Microsoft.

A classic Clarke and Dawe sketch from 1991 in which an Australian senator evasively discusses an oil spill, famously saying the front fell off.

An Onion News Network satirical segment about a new Sony gadget that is infuriatingly bad, delivered as a profane tech-trends report.