Three years ago, John Oliver randomly picked a fight with the “Air Bud” franchise, as he is prone to do. On Sunday night, the HBO host reignited that feud — before ending in a plea to audition for the role of Buddy in the the next film himself.
“Last Week Tonight” was indeed off this week, so this particular segment came as a web exclusive, which you can watch below. To kick it off, Oliver reminded viewers that he first ranted about the franchise back in 2022, but forgave anyone who might’ve missed it.
“Maybe you just saw a video titled ‘Air Bud: Last Week Tonight,’ saw that it was almost 15 minutes long, and decided to do literally anything else with your time, because you suddenly remembered how many lives you had,” Oliver said.
Oliver then quickly recapped both the franchise and his previous rant about it, and assured everyone that he stands by “every single point” in it. He also explained that, yes, he now has even more to say about “Air Bud,” because he recently learned that a 15th movie is coming, called “Air Bud Returns.”
“14 is just too many movies,” Oliver said. “It seems cosmically unjust to me that there are 14 ‘Air Bud’ movies and still just three ‘Bill and Teds’, two ‘Freaky Fridays,’ and one lonely ‘Michael Clayton.’ I’m just saying, they put Buddies on the moon, don’t tell me they can’t make a ‘Michael Clayton Goes to France,’ ‘Michael Clayton: The College Years’ or ‘Michael Clayton: Scared Stupid.’ They could, and they should!”
More than taking issue with the fact that 15 “Air Bud” movies will soon exist, Oliver was baffled by the fact that the film held open auditions for the role of Buddy, which creator and director Robert Vince announced via a video online, in which his own dog made an appearance.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have the dog yet?!” Oliver bellowed. “You are trying to crowdsource the dog?! In the words of Josh’s dad from the original ‘Air Bud’: ‘I think I’m in hell.’ Because this is completely insane. In fact, it is so insane, I don’t even have time to register the weirdness of announcing your dog search while the most ‘Air Bud’ looking dog I’ve ever seen is sitting right next to you.”
“He’s like a casting director making a video asking for a Timothée Chalamet-type while standing next to a well-trained but heartbroken Finn Wolfhard,” Oliver continued angrily. “It is a f–king insult!”
“Air Bud Returns” did find its dogs and will release in 2026. But Oliver wasn’t finished.
“Look, I am not mad at these dogs. I’m not mad about the ‘Air Bud’ franchise coming back,” he said. “I’m not even mad about the open dog search in general. I lied earlier when I pretended to be mad about that. I’ve never been mad about anything in my life! I’m not mad right now. I’m happy. My only issue is that I didn’t get a chance to audition.”
The late night host conceded that he couldn’t have auditioned, because the rules explicitly asked for a pure-bred golden retriever. But, Oliver opted to toss out the rules.
“I ask you this: doesn’t me auditioning for the role of Buddy, a character that doesn’t speak and can only sort of play basketball, feel kind of right? And isn’t letting me audition much more in keeping with the spirit of the law, if not the letter? And isn’t that, at the end of the day, what deep down ‘Air Bud’ is really all about?”
“The argument here is on my side, and I’m dead serious about auditioning,” he continued. “So at this point, I guess I would argue that the ball is in Robert Vince’s court, except, honestly, I don’t think it is. I think it’s actually in mine.”
From there, Oliver whipped out a basketball, walked over to a hoop on stage, and offered a deal to Vince: if Oliver sunk the shot, he’d get a chance to audition. As he shot the ball, a clip played of it swooshing through, prompting Oliver to deliver his final message: “Your move, Robert Vince.”
