Watch John Oliver hit celebrities with a salmon cannon, which is a real thing

This summer we wrote about the “salmon cannon,“ a pneumatic tube for launching fish over hydroelectric dams. Everything about it was perfect: The company’s name is Whooshh Innovations, its slow-motion videos are scored to classical music, the fish look strangely triumphant as they go flopping through the air. It’s such a delightfully absurd invention to begin with, and John Oliver unleashes its full slapstick potential.

“In your darkest moments of despair, when you see a world torn apart by war,” Oliver says, “I want you to remember that video and think, we can do great things.”

For the story behind the salmon cannon, there’s more here. The tubes were initially meant to carry fruit before a Whooshh employee decided to give fish a try. This lead to what may be the best quote I’ve ever gotten as a journalist: “So we put a tilapia in the fruit tube,” said Todd Deligan, Whooshh’s vice president. “It went flying, and we were like, ‘Huh, check that out.’”