WATCH: The Daily Show finds Australia's Sarah Palin and Anthony Weiner

(Image credit: Comedy Central)

last updated 8 January 2015

John Oliver brought his A-game to The Daily Show on Monday night. This is Oliver's last week in the anchor's chair, and he seems determined to end on a high note. He started out Monday's show once more complaining that America's political chatterers have already started the 2016 presidential campaign.

To be fair, potential 2016 presidential contenders have already started the 2016 campaign, too. But some pundits, Oliver said, have not only started their 2016 coverage, three years before the election — they're starting to wrap it up. He's looking at you, Chris Matthews. MSNBC's Matthews raised Oliver's ire by confidently predicting that Republicans will pick Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) — Oliver's guest, not coincidentally — as their next presidential standard-bearer. Oliver contrasted this pick with Matthews' early predictions for 2008 and 2012. President Giuliani, anyone?

But the Matthews-bashing was just prelude to the best part of the show, Oliver's love letter to Australia's electoral system — "DOWN-UNDERcision 2013." Not only is every Australian required to vote by law, he said, but the entire election campaign lasts only one month. "You might think: Hold on John," Oliver said, "If our elections were just four weeks, we wouldn't get all the fun of watching the human gaffe-alanches on the campaign trail." Wrong.

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The beauty of Australia's four-week campaign is that it's just like America's, only 35 months shorter. In one short month, the Australians will experience all the joy Americans get watching major candidates stumble through clumsy pratfalls and commit top-quality verbal gaffes, while wasting much less time. To prove his point, Oliver found an Australian Rick Perry, Anthony Weiner, and even a "turbo" Sarah Palin named Stephanie Bannister.

Before getting to his Rand Paul interview, Oliver spent a few minutes talking about Dr. Sanjay Gupta's embrace of medical marijuana:

Bonus: On Friday, Oliver was on the other side of the anchor's desk, talking about his summer as Daily Show host with NBC's Jimmy Fallon. They talked shark week, roller skating with Prince, and the immigration issues with mermaids:

Oliver's Fallon appearance didn't start out flawlessly, though. Earlier in the show, Fallon had showed off his new studio for the next six months, while NBC converts his current studio for his takeover of The Tonight Show in February. The new studio is an exact replica of the old studio. Guess where Oliver was when Fallon called his name?

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.