NBC's Conan O'Brien Issues 'Apology' to Quebec

[LiviaOlivia]

February 17, 2004
By REUTERS

Filed at 9:36 p.m. ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Late-night comedian Conan O'Brien sought to defuse a flap over a recent segment poking fun at the French-Canadian province of Quebec by issuing a self-deprecating ``apology'' on Tuesday in French.

``People of Quebec, I'm sorry,'' the host of NBC's ``Late Night'' show said in English, as a translator recited in French, with English subtitles, ``People of Quebec, I'm an albino jackass.''

``We meant no harm with our comedy piece the other night,'' O'Brien continued, ``translated'' into French as: ``The other night, I wet the bed like a little girl.''

``I was a stranger in a strange land and I was very insensitive,'' he went on, with the subtitle: ``I have a small penis.'' The tongue-in-cheek mea culpa was delivered by O'Brien after his usual monologue during the taping of Tuesday night's show in New York.

<snip>

Alexa McDonough, a legislator for the left-leaning New Democratic Party, described the program as ``racist filth'' and ``utterly vile.'' She demanded the government seek the return of the C$1 million ($760,000) subsidy paid by Ontario, the province of which Toronto is the capital, to General Electric Co.'s NBC network to help bring O'Brien's show to Canada.


http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/arts/entertainment-leisure-obrien.html

[aquart]

1. "Racist filth"?

What on earth did he say?

[Fenris]

4. It wasn't Conan

It was Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. He went around Montreal making crude comments about the French-speaking inhabitants of Quebec which, depending on your sense of humor, were either horribly offensive or unsurprisingly hilarious.

[jus_the_facts]

5. It was a Triumph the Insult Comic Dog segment...it was hilarious....

.....they had Triumph goin' around the streets of Quebec with a translator talkin' to people....at one point in the segment they replaced some French signs with English wording....one was Rue de something...and they replaced it with Street of Pussies or something to that effect....I was laughin' my ass off watchin' it....it was crude but typical of Triumph and his brash antics....the French poodle at the restaurant was f'n hysterical!!! :evilgrin:

[chenGOD]

10. I didn't see it, but from what i've read it wasn't racist at all.

It might have been "culturally biased" humour, but seeing as the vast majority of Les Quebecquois are white, and Conan O'Brien is also white, I don't really think this can be called racism.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

11. Come on now, there's more to racism than skin colour.

Was it racist? Yeah, it probably was. Was it funny? Yeah, it was funny. Was it a good idea? Hell, no.
Conan was pretty disingenuous with this one. He surely knew that this was a seriously touchy subject. I personally find Triumph funny, because I understand we're laughing at bigotry. I also realise that Triumph is an excuse for us to mock others in a politically acceptable way and get away with it, because it's 'ironic'.

[Sabriel]

15. Funny, but ill-advised

With all the anti-French sentiment in the U.S. lately, a skit like this would most likely be interpreted as yet another attack on "Frenchness." I'm not saying it wasn't funny, but the timing and content just reinforce our ugly-American image, IMHO.

[iverglas]

17. funny ...

... I didn't find it funny at all.

How funny can it be to watch someone insult someone who doesn't understand a word he's saying? If *you* didn't know what this dog puppet was (why would a French-speaker in Montreal know that, when I didn't?), and it came up and started speaking a language you don't understand well but from which you pick up the odd unpleasant phrase, would you respond with a blank stare, as they mainly did? At best, I'd say. Hardly entertainment for the onlooker.

I'd never seen "Triumph" before, but if this is his usual level of funniness, I gotta wonder what amuses some people. I mean, apart from racism. (Hey, how 'bout we call it "ethnocentricy", "bigotry", "prejudicial stereotyping"? ... there are tons of accurate labels for what it was.)

I personally find Triumph funny, because I understand we're laughing at bigotry.

The thing is, that is precisely *not* what anyone was laughing at. The laughs were at the victims of the bigotry, and *with* the bigot and bigotry. And yup, the laughs were coming from Canadians, who were unquestionably laughing *at* the Quebec Canadians; the yobs and yahoos in the studio audience who were so flattered and overwhelmed with excitement at being part of a big Amurrican shew that it didn't even occur to them that their own bigotry was being exploited by the big 'Murricans for the 'Murricans' own benefit, not ours.

For pity's sake, the idiot dog made a joke about the French -- that reference to wartime cowardice -- that didn't even compute in the context of Quebec. There wasn't even anything to laugh at in that! A bit like trying to insult an English-speaking USAmerican by saying nasty things about the Scots. Be prepared for the response to be eh? (or Huh?? among the dog's usual audience).

And cripes, if there was anything 'ironic' about the segment, it went right over my head. And I'm not a stranger to it.

Alexa certainly isn't a model of the funny Canadian herself, but her humour impairment doesn't obviate what she said.

I found the segment hugely unfunny, and grossly offensive, and the behaviour of my fellow Canadians in the audience a domestic and international embarrassment.

.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

18. Like I say later in the post

'I also realise that Triumph is an excuse for us to mock others in a politically acceptable way and get away with it, because it's 'ironic'.'
I admit I found it funny, but also accept that it was cruel. I have a very black sense of humour. Am I proud of that? That's another question. Finding something funny is not the same as condoning something, as I hope I made clear in my post. I always think of Woody Allen's joke about the Holocaust from Deconstructing Harry "I'm just saying, six million is a record to beat". I laughed at that too. Do I feel good about that? No. But I did laugh.

[Tiberius]

19. with all due respect, you're taking this way too seriously

This is low-brow humor, for sure. But Triumph comes up with some really great, spontaneous barbs that are filled with bathroom humor, insensitive remarks, and mom insults. Usually not my type of humor, either, but the off the cuff nature of it is just brilliant.

The fact that he made a joke about the French, in Quebec, is hilariously idiotic to me. Of course it doesn't make sense. But remember-- it's a puppet dog who tries to insult people.

[iverglas]

22. knowing thy audience

The fact that he made a joke about the French, in Quebec, is hilariously idiotic to me.

Yes -- you apparently got it. It actually fits right in with that well-known self-deprecating Cdn humour: it was a joke on Triumph, that he was so stupid as not to know the difference. I get it too.

But that really is not what the studio audience was laughing at, and it is not how many in the TV audience south of the border would have understood it.

And in order for the supposed target of the joke, the Quebecer who is not a citizen of France, to laugh at the maker of the joke, to do something that would have made it evident that the maker of the joke was the real butt of it (unintentionally in the sense that the creator of the Triumph persona made the persona a bigot who unintentionally outs himself as an idiot), the supposed target would have had to understand what was being said, and be able to respond to it with something other than a blank face. Some of the audience needed the fact that the joke was on Triumph, not on the dumb cowardly Frenchies, explained to them. Choosing targets incapable of doing that (come on, there are lots of francophones on the streets of Montreal who speak English) meant that the *real* joke was lost on that audience, and their bigoted stereotypes were merely reinforced.

Bigots laugh *with* bigots while the rest of us might laugh *at* them. Same joke, maybe even unimpeachable intent on the joke-maker's part. But responsibility for the effect, all the same, when it's as foreseeable as it was here.

(edited typing slip-up)
.

[Tiberius]

25. Excellent analysis

Great analysis. But I prefer that my humor is not filtered based on the predicted reaction of the listeners, their bigotries, or their intelligence.

A comedian cannot always forsee the reaction to their jokes. I would rather have the artist express themselves freely and have the chips fall where they may.

I go to many stand-up shows, and while a good chunk of it is offensive, and I don't condone it, I would rather have them be who they are in an honest way.

[iverglas]

34. and who exactly

But I prefer that my humor is not filtered based on the predicted reaction of the listeners, their bigotries, or their intelligence.

... suggested that it should be?

Surely you are not implying that Alexa McDonough, or moi, was suggesting that some form of censorship should have been applied?

Get your humour anywhere you want. Like, or dislike, any humour you choose.

But really -- I don't think I oughta be asked to pay for the privilege of listening to what *you* might think is funny, to the tune of $1,000,000. (I said below that this might be 10 or 12 million US -- but of course the $1,000,000 was from *Ontario* taxpayers, so that's about 10 cents each. Say, close to $30,000,000 if it had been the US govt. paying it -- more, if we consider the higher per capita GDP in the US.) Want me deciding what humour *your* taxes should pay for? Gonna be happy when my humour turns out to involve making racially insulting comments to African-Americans on the streets where they live?

And surely you are not suggesting that I shouldn't be just as free to disparage your choice of humour, and criticize the provider of it, as you are to laugh at it ...

I go to many stand-up shows, and while a good chunk of it is offensive, and I don't condone it, I would rather have them be who they are in an honest way.

Hooray for you. I would rather that people who have an audience of millions be a little more careful about the messages that the audience receives, and particularly that the message that bigotry is acceptable, let alone funny, not be it.

.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

21. I'd also like to point out that Triumph is no Ed the Sock.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

45. There is only one Ed the Sock.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

46. Ed for PM!

[RapidCreek]

26. You know Iverglas

Why does Alexa find fault with the comedian Conan O'Brien but not with Brit Hume, Sean Hannity, Orielly, PillBoy, Coulter etc. etc. when they make quite serious accusations about Canadians, French and German peoples? How about Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz etc. etc. Why does she not describe their words with similar fervor and put forth a similar threat of remedy? Why? Because the dog is correct evidently...at least about her....taking action against true bigotry might take a set of stones. Finding fault with the monologue a a hand puppet, rubber dog, who in addition to being sexists extols the virtues of eating shit, sniffing butts and humping legs is really pretty pathetic. The rest of Canada....took it for what it was....a comedy piece...much the same as the sort made popular by "All in the Family". Does this lady suggest action against the BBC when they air the "I'm and lumberjack and I'm ok" piece of Monty Python fame?

Being politically correct is one thing, being politically sanctimonious particularly as it regards obvious satire is quite another.

RC

[iverglas]

30. well ...

Why does Alexa find fault with the comedian Conan O'Brien but not with Brit Hume, Sean Hannity, Orielly, PillBoy, Coulter etc. etc. when they make quite serious accusations about Canadians, French and German peoples? How about Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz etc. etc. Why does she not describe their words with similar fervor and put forth a similar threat of remedy? Why?

Um ... how about because Canadian taxpayers didn't pay them A MILLION DOLLARS to do it??

Did you somehow miss that bit? Even though it was pretty much the whole fucking point?

And is there some basis for your assertion that Alexa doesn't find fault with all that stuff you are on about? What, because Fox News didn't report it, she didn't say it?


Why? Because the dog is correct evidently...at least about her...

Well hey, if that's what you want to conclude from the evidence, feel quite free. I'm not here to filter your typing.


Being politically correct is one thing, being politically sanctimonious particularly as it regards obvious satire is quite another.

Perhaps you'd like to read the response I already wrote to the comparisons to Archie Bunker, the assertion of the obviousness of the parody, etc. etc., and maybe not act like I hadn't written it. Or not. Up to you.


In point of fact, btw, Canadians almost ovewhelmingly thought that what's his name's creation of "Soviet Canuckistan" was outrageously hilarious. That guy was a parody of himself, an excellent trick that we quite appreciate. Maybe we should have taken up a collection and sent *him* a million bucks.

We also "got" "Blame Canada", unlike many of our neighbours, and laughed uproariously about that one too ...

.

[RapidCreek]

37. Caveat Emptor

For cryin out loud, the puppet is called Triumph the INSULT Comedy Dog not Triumph the Culturally Sensitive Commentator. If you want a sensitive documentary on the finer points of Canadian Culture then higher a documentaries not an ex-writer from the frigging Simpson's who has a regular guest the likes of the rubber dog. I assume Quebecers must think this is funny...eh? No? Then why would you employ a guy who has as a regular guest one who's a racially insensitive, homophobic, bestiality loving, sexist, poop eating puppet? You fly with the crows you get shot with the crows.

I'm real sorry but I don't personally believe that the words of a rubber hand puppet with the above moniker should be taken for anything other than that which they are intended...a comedic satirical insult.....much the same as a "roast".

RC

[iverglas]

41. why is it

that other people's opinions about something that really doesn't affect you seem to bother you so much?

I'm real sorry but I don't personally believe that the words of a rubber hand puppet with the above moniker should be taken for anything other than that which they are intended...a comedic satirical insult.....

Feel quite free to believe what you do or don't personally believe. I don't find assertions of personal belief much use in discussions of issues, myself, especially in response to the presentation of fact and argument counter to those beliefs, but I won't be letting it bother me.

And how other people "take" anything will still be entirely up to them, right? And will likely depend on their experiences (which you may not share or even understand), and their values (which you may not share or even understand)? And will not be a matter for someone else to prescribe by telling them how they should take it? Rhetorical questions.

.

[PartyPooper]

2. "The other night I wet the bed like a little girl...I have a small penis."

Gee. I wonder if Conan ever took biology or sex ed in high school?

:dunce:

[mike1963]

3. I can't imagine why anybody watches the jerkoff anyway...

:eyes:

[Cooley Hurd]

12. Because he's funny...

...and Smigel (Triumph) is a genius!

That's why... :eyes:

[pink_poodle]

6. Why doesn't he just shut up already. Sheesh.....................

what an asshole. This is what "comedy" has come to??????????

[HootieMcBoob]

31. Pink Poodle?

Oh my god! Triumph would hump you in a second!
:bounce:

[pink_poodle]

44. I welcome him to try. grin. -nm

:

[Kinkistyle]

7. lol thats hilarious

good for conan. sounds really funny - turning a lemon into lemonade. one of the biggest things I miss about not being in america is not being able to watch conan everynight - the uncrowned true king of late night comedy.

[ConcernedCanuk]

8. Even though I think his skit/comments were in bad taste,

.
.
.

I don't think that an apology should have been asked for, at least not by the NDP party..

Now if it were the Party Quebequois and/or major francophone groups, that would be another thing . .

regardless whether they are deserving or not, the French-Canadian have been, and continue to be a brunt of many jokes up here, and can be rightfully resentful sometimes.

However, I think the government over reacted drastically

here are the results from a Canadian poll:

...........................................................

Comedian Conan O'Brien is in hot water over a skit about French Canadians that aired on his late-night television program this week. Should he apologize?


Yes 8378 votes (37 %)
No 14240 votes (63 %)

Total Votes: 22618




There are more polls at the link for those that are curious about some Canuk opinions

[AliceWonderland]

9. Heh, not that I think an apology should be issued

but I'm not going to take an online G&M poll as saying much of anything. If polls in the Montreal Gazette, or more to the point, the French dailies, say the same thing, that would be more significant.

Alexa, bless her heart... I helped vote her into her Halifax riding when she became NDP leader years ago. But she's got more important things on her plate than fifth grade humour south of the border.

If I were francophone, I'd be pissed, but hey... I'm a Newfoundlander. I'm used to that kind of thing. :)

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. The Quebec reply should have been this:

(Quebec):You don't frighten us, American pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sundry silly persons. I blow my nose at you.
(Conan):Are you French?
(Quebec):Of course we are French! Why do you think we have this out-rrrrageous accent!
(Conan): What are you doing in Canada?
(Quebec): Mind your own business! I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hampster and your father smelt of elderberries. Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time! How you Americans say again, I unplug my nose in your general direction, you sons of a window dresser. So you think you could out-clever us French folk with all your knees-bent dancing about silly behaviour. I wave my private parts at your aunties, you cheesy lot of second-hand electric donkey bottom wipers. You American bedwetting types. I burst my pimples at you! You tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms! Depart... or we shoot fire arrows in the tops of your hands and make castanets out of your testicles already!"

[Flagg]

14. a message to all the France bashing 'comedians': Fun's over boys

humor doesn't necessarily mean ethnic slurs and xenophobia

[foo_bar]

38. it doesn't necessarily mean Jerry Lewis either

[Flagg]

42. ooooh the Jerry Lewis cliché, that's cute

not very original but cute

[TheBlob]

16. It was only a matter of time

I think Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is hilarious.
Some of the skits (like visiting the Westminster Dog Show, or the guys camping out for Star Wars tickets) have been genius.....rude, but genius.

I agree with Screaming Lord Byron who said above, it's about 'laughing at bigotry'

But still, it was only a matter of time until Triumph got everyone in trouble.

[GRClarkesq]

20. I dont really see the Quebecians as an oppressed minority

I think the criticism is a huge overreaction.

[Exultant Democracy]

23. Damn, when you think Triumph think Archy Bunker

Was Archy Bunker funny? yes he was. Was the show racist? No it wasn't it was mocking racism and bigotry.

Now think for a few seconds, when a Dog puppet that talks about eating it's own poop insults a group of people, is it racist? No, perhaps the poop eating dog is, but the comedy sketch is inherently not racist at all.

If you are angry about this look up; irony, parody, and then comedy.

[iverglas]

24. look, I'm sorry

But I have no problems at all with "irony", "parody" and "comedy". I actually do them fairly well myself, and tend to catch on when others do them just about 100% of the time.

I can also tell when they are not being done *well*, and that bit was an example of precisely that.

And when parody, for instance, is not done well, it is not parody. Simply acting like a bigot is not parodying a bigot.

Comedy isn't just about the intent of the comic. It is about the comic-audience relationship; the humour depends on the audience's sense of humour. The message that is conveyed depends on what the audience hears, not just what the speaker says. If the audience doesn't understand that what it is hearing is parody, it can either (a) be offended by it, or (b) laugh with it -- depending on whether they find it funny to make fun of minorities, for instance, or not. And one reason that an audience might not understand that what it is hearing is parody is that it was just lousy parody.

The studio audience, in this case, heard bigotry and thought it was funny. It didn't hear a parody of bigotry and laugh at it.

And yes, there probably were people who heard Archie Bunker and didn't hear parody, either, and laughed with him rather than at him. But that was good parody, even if some people didn't get it; and besides, there was a whole industry busy explaining it to them, and a whole social context making the bigotry in question unacceptable, in that case. Not the case in this Triumph instance.

.

.

[Exultant Democracy]

27. Well Triumph is not as high profile as Archie

so you don't get the whole industry busy explaining effect that you did with Bunker, but I have hear a few interviews with the voice of triumph and e makes it clear that it is all parody.

[Rich Hunt]

39. exactly

...I don't think you're supposed to 'identify' with Triumph. He acts out the worst in ... humanity. He's the canine Don Rickles. You laugh because you're shocked that someone would say such horrible things. You're laughing AT HIM.

I'm sure he's insulted my ethnicity at some time.

Also, Triumph is the creation of Robert Smigel, who is not known for conservative humor.

[iverglas]

43. aaaargh

I don't think you're supposed to 'identify' with Triumph.

But the audience *DID* IDENTIFY WITH TRIUMPH. That is the whole point I'm trying to make.

The question is whether the makers of the jokes should have known that, and are responsible for encouraging and approving bigotry, that being the message that the louts in the audience really did take from the thing: that it is cool to be bigots when the victims are incomprehending Quebecers. (And the victims' incomprehension really was a big part of the problem, again.)

You folks may not realize that there ARE bigoted assholes in Canada, and that it is completely unsurprising to find them in an audience at a Conan show taping.

To be quite fair, Conan and his people may not have realized this either.

You laugh because you're shocked that someone would say such horrible things. You're laughing AT HIM.

The studio audience was NOT laughing because he said such horrible things, they were NOT laughing at him. They were laughing at his targets and at the stereotypes he was invoking.

Maybe you folks don't realize just how tolerated this kind of anti-Québécois prejudice and bigotry is in polite society in some parts of Canadian society. Maybe Triumph really was just too subtle for the situation. But really -- the louts in the studio audience just did not get the fact that he was making fun of them.

I'm sure he's insulted my ethnicity at some time.

That may be, but there really and truly is a difference between exploiting truly ugly prejudices, about vulnerable and disadvantaged groups and their members, and making fun of, oh, rich old white men, or prissy WASPs. (I say, speaking as an obviously really prissy WASP.)

I had never seen the rubber dog in question before, as I'm not a talk-show afficionado. At 1 a.m., I am normally watching Star Trek or a Britcom or a crime drama rerun. But I really doubt that the dog would be taken out on the streets of a US city to screech racist stereotypes at African-Americans, or that African-Americans and their progressive allies would be too impressed if it were.

I'm softening here, notice. It does occur to me that the Conan crowd really may not have understood the history of oppression of the people of Quebec, and the persistence of those stereotypes. (One could look up the book White Niggers of America for some background.) They really may not have understood that the bigotry in question is too immediate and widespread to be a good subject for somewhat subtle parody. They might have thought that an idiot mocking Quebecers would be seen as an obvious idiot, and not taken to heart as an ally by an audience of louts.

So I'll go you one better. Alexa should have had something to say to and about the louts, not just the people who may indeed, now that I think more about it, have unwittingly played to them.

.

[Sparkle]

28. Probably trying to live up to his name....

Conan, the Barbarian of jokes?

[Rich Hunt]

40. oh, very funny

Conan is an Irish name.

I'm offended by your ethnic insensitivity, and demand you apologize.

:eyes:

[CrownPrinceBandar]

29. I can't believe this is even an issue...

First off, I'm not Canadian, so I can't totally sympathize with those that were offended.

However, as an American, I am used to hearing comedians from all over the globe poking fun at us here in the US. I have even heard comedians from Canada make jokes about Americans. I doesn't bother me, personally. But maybe I'm thick-skinned.

I saw a few nights of Conan in Toronto, he barely got his monologue in because of all the cheering. They certainly seemed to like him there. I even thought it was funny when the CN tower cheap-shotted the Seattle Space Needle after losing a limbo contest.

However, what surprises me is that Jack Layton and the NDP is getting behind the plan to extricate the cash from Conan for this. It amazes me that what seems to be such a progressive-thinking party trivializing themselves by going after a silly offense. It was a joke, for chrissakes. These people want to take a bold, progressive move like legalizing weed, and they are getting hung up on a stupid puppet dog. Sheesh!

So does this mean that we can get all the money back that we have given to Canadian comedians that have made fun of the US? Lets see we can collect from Jim Carrey, Tom Green, Kids in the Hall, Red Green, oh and the biggest offender of all Lorne Michaels. Sounds silly doesn't it?

[iverglas]

32. forgive me

Lets see we can collect from Jim Carrey, Tom Green, Kids in the Hall, Red Green, oh and the biggest offender of all Lorne Michaels. Sounds silly doesn't it?

but yes, it surely does. I wasn't aware that any of those individuals had been offered cash inducements, by a US government, to do anything. Yup, they were paid for what they did by the people for whom they did it -- television production companies, movie production companies, Yuk Yuk's customers ... .

But when did the US taxpayer hand over, say, 10 or twelve million bucks (let's make it fair, as a proportion of GDP, say) to someone who then went out on the streets of Los Angeles and said unpleasant things to African-Americans in a language they did not understand, for the entertainment of the folks back home?

Rick Mercer did make his Canadian career partly out of getting USAmericans on their home turf to make idiots of themselves by demomstrating their complete ignorance of Canada.

But I'm not aware of him receiving US taxpayers' funds to do it with.

It amazes *me* that anybody would get this upset over what is basically a grandstanding comment, in the run-up to an election, by an obscure politician in a foreign country ...

.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

35. I'm sincerely sorry you were offended by this...

and if you feel your tax money was ill-spent, then thats your right.

And your'e correct, none of the comedians I mentioned ever got cash inducements to come an make fun of Americans on the street. I've seen some British comedians do it, but not with gov't monies. Its an unfortunate fact about comedy, there always has to be a butt of the joke.

My point was that it seems like such a trivial issue to get up in arms about. I realize the Quebecois have a strong identity and have endured many slings and arrows because of that cultural pride. Maybe this was just one step over the line for some of them.

Again, sorry for your offense. Personally, I greatly respect the nation of Canada. I feel Canadians have many of the basic needs of their citizens firmly ensconced in their governmental practices in a way that I wish the US did.

[HootieMcBoob]

33. I have to agree with you

The funniest thing of all is that the NDP has gotten so worked up over Triumph the insult comic dog!

I mean come on! I'm laughing my ass off here about this.

They're playing right into Triumphs paws. The next thing that will happen is that Triumph will be on the show to make an apolgy with his cigar falling out of his mouth and then when he's done he'll say something like "C'mon folks, i love you guys...Montreal is one of my favorite cities....FOR ME TO POOP ON!"

Oh my god! I'm laughing here! :silly:

[Voltaire99]

36. He should apologize for having a boring show.

Hasn't Conan coasted on his one-note slacker irony long enough? Is it going to be 1992 forever?

[prodigal_green]

47. I was in the studio audience

When he made the apology.

When television shows go on the road, the local tourist board usually has something to do with it because it brings attention and $$$$ to the local economy.

I watch Conan, I know a lot of people that work on the show (including Andy Blitz--very funny guy!). They are not bigots or xenophobes or jingoists. Conan is very popular in Anglophone Canada. The producers probably didn't take into account the vast cultural divide that exists within Canada between the Francophones and Anglophones.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is a spoof on insult comics like Don Rickels and stupid frat-boy humor.