--- description: This week's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver took up the list of banned words General Motors sent to its employees. The show's parody ad... title: Fake Ad Brutally Rips GM Banned Words Memo image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0a35360148f83855/6986904f13c79f893a1922dc/screen-shot-2014-05-21-at-6-51-15-am.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Fake Ad Brutally Rips GM Banned Words Memo by [Matt Vella](/author/matt-vella/) ## Matt Vella Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 20, 2014 10:50 PM CUT  HBO by [Matt Vella](/author/matt-vella/) ## Matt Vella Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 20, 2014 10:50 PM CUT This week’s _Last Week Tonight_ with John Oliver took up the [list of banned words](http://time.com/103737/gm-words-nhtsa-general-motors/ "undefined") General Motors sent to its employees. The show’s parody ad makes fun of the long list of defects in the auto giant’s cars over the past decade. Banned phrases include “deathtrap,” “defective,” “catastrophically flawed,” and only gets worse from there. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/107231/john-oliver-gm-ad/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/107231/john-oliver-gm-ad/"},"headline":"Fake Ad Brutally Rips GM Banned Words Memo","datePublished":"2014-05-20T22:50:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T07:57:39.574Z","description":"This week's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver took up the list of banned words General Motors sent to its employees. The show's parody ad...","url":"https://time.com/107231/john-oliver-gm-ad/","keywords":["Advertising","Autos","General Motors","Recall","Advertisement"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0a35360148f83855/6986904f13c79f893a1922dc/screen-shot-2014-05-21-at-6-51-15-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Matt Vella","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/matt-vella/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0a35360148f83855/6986904f13c79f893a1922dc/screen-shot-2014-05-21-at-6-51-15-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"HBO GM ad","caption":"","creditText":"HBO","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/107231/john-oliver-gm-ad/","name":"Fake Ad Brutally Rips GM Banned Words Memo"}}]}] ```