I Totally Changed The Nightly Show

Nightly Show Australian Map

A couple of month ago, I wrote this article for Spook Magazine about The Nightly Show. At the end of the piece, I pointed out that the map behind Larry had two light bulbs in what appeared to be random Australian locales:

The Nightly Show ends with Wilmore himself answering a Keep It 100 question, one he doesn’t get to see until he’s on camera. So let’s give him one of our own. Larry, we in Australia are delighted that our country features so prominently on your non-traditional flipped world map. But two flashing lights – which usually indicate the location of cities – seem to highlight two Western Australia parks: the Nuytsland Nature Reserve and the Karlamilyi National Park. Is this a deliberate and pointed reference that’s keeping with the remit of The Nightly Show’s stated agenda, highlighting places that are more closely aligned with Aboriginal culture than the lily-white likes of Sydney and Melbourne, or did you just stick little light bulbs in random spots?

It’s not out of the ordinary for shows made in other countries to stick light bulbs in random parts of the map, falsely assuming that Australia is as evenly populated as the USA or Europe. But given Wilmore’s show is all about keeping it real, I hoped to get some sort of explanation… either an admission that it was entirely random, or a revelation of some hitherto unknown meaning.

But we received no response. And then, a few weeks later, this happened:

Nightly Oz Map 2

They’d changed the set and tweaked the light bulbs and suddenly Australia had two new areas highlighted.

Look, I’m not saying I was completely and solely responsible for this, but I did actually contact The Nightly Show’s media reps to ask if I was, and they didn’t get back to me. So the lack of denial is all the tacit confirmation I need.

You’re welcome, Sydney and Mackay. But mostly Mackay. You finally got your due.