Duck Stamps: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

a quick word about the outdoors it's home to lakes trees and the candy witch who lures children to their doom it's great specifically though i want to talk about one way to conserve the precious nature that the outdoors contains and that is duck stamps if you've never heard of them i'll let this charmingly stilted 1990s video explain it to you the majority of stamps are sold to waterfowl hunters who by law must have a federal duck stamp in their possession while hunting increasingly others young and old are voluntarily buying federal duck stamps as an effective direct way to help conserve our nation's waterfowl and other wildlife now i know that looks sweet but to be fair what you didn't see there is the screaming that happened as soon as though two kids got home what are these duck stamps i sent you to the store for medicine listen to me your sister is about to die because he keeps spending all of her insulin money on bird stickers but it is true every year the federal government issues a duck stamp which isn't a postage stamp but it's effectively a kind of permit for hunters they currently cost 25 and they've actually been a huge success story for conservation with 98 cents of every dollar that they make going to protecting wetlands since 1934 the stamps have raised more than a billion dollars to protect over six million acres of wetlands habitat and that is partly because non-hunters like to collect these duck stamps too and you can see why there have been some beauties in the past like this 1960s stamp featuring a family of redhead ducks this 1981 showcasing majestic snow goose and this mottled duck from the 2000s who is absolutely ripped check out the definition on that back quick question does this stamp come with mushu pancakes because that duck is shredded but the best thing about the duck stamp is how each years is chosen because it's an annual nationwide art competition and the judging of it is no joke the judges independently vote on each entry they consider not only the visual impact of the art and how it might look as a stamp but also whether it is anatomically accurate yeah it's true ducks must not only be beautiful but also anatomically accurate and especially fun requirement given that you're painting an animal that has as we have mentioned on this show before a long corkscrew-shaped penis it is a fact that drove us to create this image of donald duck that as our taping disney has not yet sued us over and once you start looking into the duck stamp contest it is not long before you find some drama there are big names like the hotman brothers an actual duck dynasty who going into this year's competition had collectively won it 13 times they truly are the duck goats and there's also been a heated rivalry between one of the regular traditional duck artists tim taylor and his more avant-garde rival rob mcbroom who tim taylor has no time for rob mcbroom is a guy who enters the duck stamp every year and every year he violates the rules he breaks every role of the contest and he's really just an intention seeker he's found this contest that people take very seriously and the contestants work really hard on their entries and he mocks it he does paintings that mock it yeah to be fair he does kind of do that he submitted paintings to federal and state contests that clearly go against the desired aesthetic like this one of two cartoonish ducks and whatever the this is also rob mcgroom is very much aware of tim taylor's criticism and trolled him for years even taking previous taylor paintings and parodying them this is about as close as you can get to tim's original without actually knowing the size and it's completely built from scratch this is the piece of work that rob mcbroom took off of the internet to abstract the little bits i've learned about him i'm like okay he obviously hates barack obama and he hates communism so i decided to load it up with imagery with that here's barack obama's birth certificate that he released here's the eye of the duck which is the communist symbol there's other things in here like he was holding a baby at a christening and then i put lennon's head on top of me wow that is betty honestly if i were tim i might back off at this point because if this man made a communist duck out of your personal photographs just think what else he's capable of here's another one tim the feathers are made out of bank statements i've fished out of your trash and the beak is from a photo of you i took while you were sleeping but by all means keep talking the point here is the duck stamp competition is intense last year there were some incredible entries like this one of a duck somehow tripping in mid-air and this one which i would argue is actually a dog stamp a dog on his way to a leather bar while a duck happened to be passing i'm not saying that as a criticism i'm just saying that is what it is but the overall winner was this objectively wonderful very anatomically accurate painting of a lesser scalp drake by artist richard clifton and hiding the duck's coily dick underwater was a very smart move there richie you can't see it but you know it's down there swirling away quick fun side note that duck call in the corner is only there because under the trump administration there was suddenly a rule that all entries had to feature hunting imagery which many people understandably did not really like thankfully that rule will be gone next year which is good because potentially driving people away from the duck stamp is a really terrible idea stamp sales are already down and as you now know that means less money for conservation what clearly needs to happen is for more people to be driven to collecting these things and for that to work you really need this year's entry to be an absolute doozy and that is where we come in because the fact is anyone can enter this contest and i'm happy to announce that this year this anyone did we commissioned we commissioned a painter to create this gorgeous oil painting of a blue winged teal flying in the nintendo game duck hunt meeting their ridiculous hunting requirements this is a real beautifully detailed painting that took months of work but i'm sorry to say it was actually disqualified because of and i quote the rule against having any numbers or lettering on the entry which is a truly ridiculous requirement it's like if they said no duck stamp is allowed to feature cans of spaghettios or paul sorvino what happened in past contests that prompted that regulation so so that is the bad news the good news is we actually had a second entry specifically this painting of ducks judging the duck stamp art contest unfortunately we fell victim to the same number rule and this was disqualified too so you can probably imagine just how relieved we were to suddenly remember that we'd actually entered three other paintings as well all of which i'm happy to say did qualify for this weekend's contest so let's take a look at them first there is this one of a redhead duck hunting a hunter hunting another duck behold the ominous quietly maniacal look in that duck's eyes he's about to pull the trigger it's a haunting yet triumphant image so let's see if the duck stamp judges liked it please vote it's out are you kidding me not one of you judges voted for that ridiculous simply ridiculous all five of you should be ashamed of yourselves but you know what you know what it's fine because remember we still had two others next up was this entry duck with a pearl earring which i would argue is exquisite it makes the original vermeer look like a complete pile of that girl doesn't even have any feathers or a beak for that matter what a waste of paint so surely surely the judges loved this one please vote out oh come on these judges are clowns they don't know about art they don't know about ducks and they certainly don't know about duck art and look i'm not alone in being shocked by this the people watching the contests live stream were very into this entry writing gorgeous perfect stunning yes and i want that on my wall and of course they do what cultured duck art lover would not want that so at this point i admit we were getting pretty nervous luckily our final painting was guaranteed to blow everyone away because it is this masterpiece depicting a giant duck brokering piece between long-time duck art rivals tim taylor and rob mcbroom no one in their right mind would not put this through at least to the second round right so judges it's over to you please vote it's out yourself straight to hell i'm sorry the federal duck stamp contest just lost all of its integrity although i do admit the judges were not actually the only ones who did not care for that entry tim taylor himself actually replied to the painting in the chat with i don't know why anyone painted that really tim you don't i know why someone would pack that it's because one we paid them two and two it's awesome that's why so sadly none of our entries made it past the first round of voting and eventually the prize went to this entry now for the winner of the 2022-23 duck stamp contest with the painting of a redhead mr jim haltman from chesca minnesota this is six wins get the out you know what you know what i have to say that's a beautiful duck painting i do kind of get why the hotman brothers keep winning this contest that said personally i do still prefer our duck hunt one it's funnier and better and would have been a cooler stamp but look i am obviously disappointed that we not only did not win the duck stamp art contest this year we didn't even get a single vote from any judge although i do think that says more about them than it does about our paintings because if any of us had won they could have helped raise a bunch of money for a very good cause and the good news is they actually still can please come with me because i'm proud to say that we've decided to auction off each of these absolute masterpieces with a hundred percent of the proceeds going to the federal duck stamp program and you know what that means that means that you yes you have the chance to hang any of these originals in your home you could get rid of your stupid family portraits and replace it with something much much better all you have to do is go to bestduckingstamps.com and bid on whichever piece speaks to you the most you can bid until friday at 10 30 p.m and i'm now proud to say ladies and gentlemen the bidding starts now that is our show thank you so much for watching we'll see you next week good night um [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 2,742,647

Keywords:

Id: bl-ABuxeWrE

Length: 12min 6sec (726 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Jason--Reddit]

Some of the paints John Oliver had created are auctioning off for over $20,000 right now. All the proceeds go to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Happy to see John helping out.

[u/rightious]

Trolling a competitor with all his dislikes into a duck stamp is the work of the greatest D tier Batman villain ever.

[u/Jhamin1]

Rob McBroom, the "Bad Boy" of the Duck Stamp contest is a Minnesota local as well. I *believe* he lives in Minneapolis, My wife went to North High school with him in back in the day.

https://robmcbroom.bigcartel.com/

We actually have a print of that "Comrade Tim Taylor" painting on our dining room wall that we bought over lockdown. (Right now he mentions that he is out of stock on them as he had no idea this segment was going to air, but he promises to get more in soon)

[u/BradimusPrime]

Top bid is at $20K already lol

https://www.ebay.com/e/charity/lastweektonight

[u/JacksonPollocksPaint]

I’m friends with Rob and I even own the mallard painting that was featured in the duck stamp movie and this whole thing is hilarious and rob is being hilarious on Facebook.

[u/TheKodachromeMethod]

The duck stamp bit in Fargo is now even funnier to me.

[u/womenandcookies]

I think this could be my favorite John Oliver segment he's ever done.

[u/zhaoz]

Damn, the duck hunt painting is up for 20k as of right now with 2 days left.

[u/mikedialect]

The paintings are fantastic. The duck judging the painting is top-notch.