British-American comic, and Last Week Tonight host, John Oliver, has launched an “alarmingly aggressive” marketing campaign to land the Pūteketeke the title of Aotearoa Bird of the Century.
He’s relying on the chicken profitable within the “biggest landslide in the history of this magnificent competition”.
The comic – who has a long-standing fascination with New Zealand – introduced on his present on Monday (NZ time) that Last Week Tonight was the “official campaign manager” for the Australiasian Crested Grebe in New Zealand’s annual Bird of the Year competitors.
The annual competitors, began in 2005, is, “clearly the biggest one yet” in 2023, with Forest and Bird looking for to search out the Bird of the Century to have a good time its one hundredth 12 months.
“Look at this beauty, it looks like Pauly D f…ed a swan,” he mentioned in opposition to a photograph of his chosen chicken – the Pūteketeke – whereas throwing out “fun facts”, together with the actual fact the grebe eats its personal feathers earlier than “puking” them again up.
“You want elegance, I’ll give you elegance,” he mentioned of the Pūteketeke mating dance, “where they both grab a clump of wet grass and chest bump each other, before standing around unsure of what to do next.”
“I have never identified with anything more in my f…ing life.”
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John Oliver has launched a worldwide marketing campaign for his favorite Bird of the Century.
On a mission to have his winged magnificence win by a landslide, Oliver has carried out his finest to offer the grebe true international attain throughout the closing week of the nation’s “very important election”.
He’s revealed billboards in Mumbai, Japan, Paris, London, Brazil and a small city within the US state of Wisconsin.
The present’s crew even made a sojourn to New Zealand itself and the comic revealed a bus cease commercial in Wellington with the tag-line “Lord of the Wings”.
“Even its name is fun to say. It feels like your tongue is tap-dancing,” he laughed.
Professing his love for his chicken, Oliver inspired everybody to get collectively to forged their votes earlier than the polls shut on the finish of the week.
With fewer than 1000 left in New Zealand, “tragically” the Pūteketeke has by no means gained the Bird of the Year competitors, however Oliver, standing subsequent to a large chicken with the good mullet – is urging everybody globally to forged a vote to offer the “weird puking birds with colourful mullets” an epic win.
There are 75 bird species up for the title this 12 months, together with 5 extinct however newly added ones – mātuhituhi (bush wren), tutukiwi (South Island snipe), huia, piopio, and whēkau (laughing owl).
Last 12 months’s winner was the pīwauwau (rock wren).
While a worldwide marketing campaign by a significant US celeb could seem unfair to different birds, Oliver additionally touched on the competitors’s historical past as a “lightening rod for controversy” in earlier years.
There was the Kākāpõ being disqualified from the competitors in 2022 as a result of it had already gained twice. A rule the comic deemed, “bullshit”.
“The Kākāpõ earned those wings. It’s the world’s fattest parrot,” he mentioned, earlier than pertaining to a couple of different contentious moments within the competitors’s historical past.
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John Oliver has a favorite New Zealand chicken, and he needs your vote.
There was the “uproar” in 2021 when an, “absolute goober of a bat” gained the competitors.
“Forget bird of the year, I wouldn’t even give that bat, bat of the year,” selecting to marketing campaign in true US fashion – by tearing aside the competitors and previous runners.
He additionally touched on the voter fraud scandals of years previous, together with the White Faced Heron’s spike in votes in 2017 that turned out to not be professional.
While Forest and Bird might not have been mad on the fraud, Oliver, emphatically declared, “I definitely am”.
“This f…ing thing doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near the bird of the year award … It looks like a pigeon took anabolic steroids. I hate this bird.”
But relating to the Pūteketeke, although. That’s a factor of magnificence, in accordance with Oliver.
And he needs your vote.
“Do it. Because after all this is what democracy is all about. America interfering in foreign elections,” he mentioned earlier than giving one closing push for the world to get behind the native chicken with the mullet.
“No matter the place you might be on Earth be sure you vote for this adorably bizarre chicken … collectively let’s make chicken historical past.’
