John Oliver is no stranger to taking on controversial subjects, and in a web exclusive video, he's taking on this fall's hottest and possibly most divisive topic: Pumpkin spice. The "Last Week Tonight" host has some very good points about the nation's autumnal obsession with all things pumpkin flavored.
"Look, it's the middle of October, which across the nation means we're all looking at this and thinking, 'I don't know why, but I simply have to drink that,'" Oliver says, pointing at a pumpkin photo.
He goes on to say Pumpkin Spice Lattes taste like a candle...not the way a candle smells, but like an actual candle.
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"What is strange is that pumpkin spice foods inexplicably seem to grow more omnipresent every year, even though there's no actual pumpkins in the drinks. Kind of like how every one you meet calls himself a DJ all of a sudden, but what they really mean is they own an iPod and have been to a party," he says.
All humorous references aside, the real shocker is apparently each American eats more than 5 pounds of pumpkin a year, more than the amount of pumpkin in five pumpkin pies, and pumpkin pies are "only good from the moment Thanksgiving dinner ends until just after you have taken your first bite of it." Pumpkin spice flavored things seem to be at an all-time high this year. There are cookies, teas, coffees, gum, yogurt, chips, marshmallows and basically every other food item you can imagine.
"Five pounds of pumpkin a year is even crazier than the fact that we allegedly swallow eight spiders in a lifetime. Why is it crazier? Because There's no way a pumpkin has ever crawled into my mouth while I was sleeping," he says.
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And then Oliver gets deep.
"We tolerate pumpkin spice because we like the fall. It's the best season because you get to stop thinking about how weird your legs look in shorts...but just about anything that reminds us of autumn is a better than pumpkin spice. I personally, for instance, would rather drink a cable-knit sweater spice latte or a Major League Baseball spice latte, or a keen awareness of my own mortality spice latte because that's what foliage is...Pumpkin spice is just eggnog for morning people and I will be subject to its tyranny no longer. It stops here!"
