John Oliver turns GM's scandalous defective-cars memos into a spot-on TV ad

John Oliver turns GM&#039;s scandalous defective-cars memos into a spot-on TV ad — (Image credit: HBO)

On Friday, the U.S. government released some pretty interesting internal GM documents from 2008, with one memo listing 68 words employees weren't allowed to use when talking about the company's cars. The list of banned words includes some real doozies, as John Oliver pointed out on Sunday night's Last Week Tonight. After listing off some of the choicer words, Oliver imagined what GM's marketing team could do with such loaded terms as "Kevorkianesque" and "potentially disfiguring." The result is a spot-on parody of a TV ad, but arguably the funniest part is the GM slogan at the end of the commercial. Watch below. --Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.