Stephen Colbert poked fun at the completely unnecessary gas panic happening in some parts of the country with a short video imagining the situation devolving into a “Mad Max”-inspired apocalypse.
By now you probably know that last week, hackers who may have ties to the Russian government held an oil company that runs a critical oil pipeline hostage with ransomware. This forced the pipeline to shut down while the company dealt with the situation, causing slowdowns in fuel distribution affecting much of the eastern United States.
It’s a serious situation, of course, in part because it was an attack on a crucial part of our infrastructure. But one thing it is not is a gas shortage. We are not experiencing a supply shortage, this problem is being solved and no one should panic. Seriously, no one should panic. There is no oil shortage.
Alas, people are panic-buying gasoline, which is causing (very temporary) shortages. So back to Colbert. Wednesday’s “The Late Show” kicked off with a short video inspired by “The Road Warrior,” otherwise known as “Mad Max 2.”
That film focuses on a group of oil workers who survived the apocalypse and turned their refinery into a fortress, only to end up under siege by a group of post-apocalyptic barbarians, led by “Lord Humungus,” bent on stealing that oil.
“The Late Show” clip repurposes footage from “The Road Warrior” so that Lord Humungus rolls up on a gas station whose exasperated clerk attempts to explain “the fuel pipeline will be back up today and there’ll be plenty of gas for all.” This causes Lord Humungus to realize he might have made a mistake by quitting his job and becoming a cannibal.
Watch the clip below:
Tangentially related to all of this, Donald Trump purged the government of experienced cybersecurity personnel during his presidency and even presided over one of the worst hacks of U.S. government systems by foreign operatives in history. Also, he fired the cybersecurity official who pushed back against his lies about the election. And, uh, his administration ended just over three months ago.
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