Canada AmBushed by loose Conan

The Gazette ^ | February 14, 2004 | JOSH FREED

[Columbine]

American talk-show host Conan O'Brien turned out to be Conan the Barbarian on his road show into Canada this week. His NBC program threw oil and matches down our national fault line Thursday night with crude jokes about French Canadians.

The show featured a puppet called Triumph the Insult Dog, which wandered around Quebec City's winter carnival, sporting a French beret. It stopped Quebecers in the street and said stuff like: "So you're French and Canadian, yes? So you're obnoxious and dull?"

Also: "You're in North America. ... Learn the language!"

Thanks for the insults, Conan. Somehow you forgot to step on Quebec's flag or make any frog jokes. I guess your show's "comedy" writers weren't up to date on their stereotypes.

O'Brien was in Toronto to help "save" the city from the tourism crisis caused by SARS, but he managed to fan a national crisis instead. Ottawa politicians were in damage mode all day yesterday, denouncing Conan's remarks - the first time NDP leader Jack Layton and Conservative leadership candidate Stephen Harper have ever agreed on anything.

On the plus side, Conan did save Don Cherry from all the flak he's been getting for his latest bit of franco-bashing. Compared with Conan, Cherry suddenly looks like an intellectual.

Next time Conan comes to Canada we should put him on a seven-second delay instead of Cherry. Or a 24-hour delay.

The "funniest" thing about O'Brien's show is the federal and Ontario governments poured $1 million of our tax dollars into the visit. This for a late-night U.S. show that only gets 3 million viewers, mostly college sophomores who like jokes about beer and burps.

O'Brien is a Harvard graduate, but he's been doing high school jokes about Canada on his show all week, slaying young Torontonians with moose, mountie and igloo routines, followed by the tasteless Quebec skit. Given the outcry yesterday, Conan will probably go home convinced we Quebecers are a humourless winter people who can't take a joke.

But I wonder how he'd feel if we let Canada's Insulting Beaver Puppet loose on U.S. TV to yuk it up about Sept. 11. We all have our raw nerves and O'Brien just hit ours. Where will this loose Conan take his show next? Maybe Ireland, where he could try out his Catholic-Protestant jokes?

The worst part is this was already a politically charged week with Quebec and Canada facing off over the Cherry incident. Then came the Alphonso Gagliano scandal, which ticked off many English Canadians who think Ottawa throws away too much money by pandering to Quebec. Then came O'Brien's remarks, which will probably set off another English-French feud. I don't want to be a conspiracy theory nut, but why is this happening at the same time? Military leaders say: "Once is incidence, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy action."

So is someone secretly behind this trouble, an enemy of Canada trying to get under our national skin and put an end to our current linguistic calm? Who gains by hurting Canada? Is this another Al-Qa'ida plot to pay Canadians back for Afghanistan? Could this be some Jacques Parizeau scheme?

No, I have a better theory.

For the last two years we Canadians have become more and more distant from a U.S. run by George W. Bush. We've proposed legalizing pot laws and gay marriage. We've refused to fight in Iraq. We've become so anti-Bush a poll in last week's Maclean's magazine found only 15 per cent of Canadians would vote for him as a leader.

Could it be that our growing U.S. criticism has set the Bush government out for revenge? Do the Americans secretly want to split up our two solitudes so they can pick up the pieces? Could the last week's events be part of a CIA plot to grab our oil, lumber, water and snow? Or our few remaining hockey stars?

I don't want to be paranoid, but is Conan O'Brien a CIA operative? Is his Insulting puppet a puppet of the CIA?

Fellow Canadians - English and French alike - don't be duped by this Yankee scheme to divide and conquer our country.

Let's resist the urge to get angry at each other and try to stay calm. We Canadians have enough problems of our own - we don't need foreigners to create more.

josh_freed@hotmail.com

[Columbine]

So now President Bush is responsible for Conan too.

Never mind that the fools paid to bring Conan to Canada! It's all the president's fault.

This so called writer included his email address with the article. I presume that means he wants comments!

[CFC__VRWC]

Back when the Left was in full swoon for Howard Dean, they just loved Triumph the Insult Dog making a complete ass out of John Kerry on Leno. All of a sudden he just isn't so cool any more. Go figure.

[freedumb2003]

The "funniest" thing about O'Brien's show is the federal and Ontario governments poured $1 million of our tax dollars into the visit.

Now, THAT'S FUNNY! LOLOL!

But I wonder how he'd feel if we let Canada's Insulting Beaver Puppet loose on U.S. TV to yuk it up about Sept. 11.

Apples and oranges and really, really bad, stupid and hurtful analogy. It is one thing to make witty observations on people's behavior -- that is 90% of humor through the ages. It is another thing to suggest the unprovoked killing of 3,000 innocent people -- ANYWHERE -- could be the target of humor. To my knowledge, there is no analagous event in Canadian history. Also, many Canadians were killed on 9/11. These Canuks really take themselves seriously if this is the analogy they with to propose.

[counterpunch]

You gotta love Canada. While so many nations in the world practice deception, Canadians don't even try to hide their stupidity.

[Catspaw]

I saw clips of thise piece and it was hilarious. Then again, I'm not Canadian and therefore humor-free.

[VadeRetro]

All I ever see are the same two jokes quoted from that show. Are they all copying from one another? Where is the funny stuff?

[counterpunch]

Well, maybe eating yellow snow really is a deep and serious wound for Canadians.
Remember the Yellow Snow Epidemic of '97?
Thousands were lost.

[Bogey78O]

'But I wonder how he'd feel if we let Canada's Insulting Beaver Puppet loose on U.S. TV to yuk it up about Sept. 11'

Jeez, Canadians must lack a sense of perspective. That's like me joking abut someone's bad haircut and they respond with a joke about my mother being a whore.

[Ciexyz]

My sympathies to the Canadians who had to shell out one million for Conan's visit. Let advertizing cover all his costs.

[SaveTheChief]

For the last two years we Canadians have become more and more distant from a U.S. run by George W. Bush. We've proposed legalizing pot laws and gay marriage. We've refused to fight in Iraq. We've become so anti-Bush a poll in last week's Maclean's magazine found only 15 per cent of Canadians would vote for him as a leader.

Hear that Conservatives? They are doing polls in other countries to discuss business that isn't even theirs. If it hasn't been declared already, this is going to be a war between us and the world. The enemy already has a huge foothold in this country. It is called the Democrat Party.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Let me get this straight.

1. Canadian taxpayers shelled out C$1mil, which is probably almost half a million, to import an American talk show host, who is (to be charitable) not the most popular in America.
2. A key ingredient in his unpopularity is his persona. Maybe he's charming in person, I don't know, but on TV he comes across as: a jerk.
3. Imported to Canada at Canadian behest, paid in money earned by regular Canadians, the jerk -- Lo! and behold -- acted like: a jerk.
4. His "insult dog" alter ego acted like an even bigger jerk. This is predictable even to me, who like most sensible people on either side of fifty-four forty hasn't seen a cumulative five minutes of this show.
5. So, now Canadians are upset, and of course, like everything Canada screws up, from their quintessentially French defence policy ("Ten-SHUN. Dress right, DRESS! Hands UP!") to their great health care system ("Sorry, you're too old for a heart transplant. Best bet is to try to establish US residency..."), it's all the fault of Uncle Sam.

Cry me a river.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[martin_fierro]

Apples and oranges and really, really bad, stupid and hurtful analogy.

Exactly. That'd be like joking about an intentionally-set Halifax Explosion.

[Alas Babylon!]

Well, actually, according to the writer, it's all Bush's fault.

[SevenDaysInMay]

54/40 or fight!

[Columbine]

All I ever see are the same two jokes quoted from that show. Are they all copying from one another? Where is the funny stuff?

The funny stuff is that these nutty people used tax dollars to pay for being insulted.

That cracks me up!

[PoorMuttly]

Not CIA...grass-roots !

ANNEX CANADIA !

[freedumb2003]

Wow! Thanks for the link and the history. Reading about that tragedy (and that is the correct word in this context) my first reaction was one of deep sorrow. The compounding of the delay between collision and explosion that brought all those eyes to be in range was particularly heart-wrenching.

And like you point out, that was an ACCIDENT!

The idea that someone would even consider using a tragedy like that (which is what this author is doing) to make ploitical and journalistic hay is sick.

[per loin]

The idea that someone would even consider using a tragedy like that (which is what this author is doing) to make ploitical and journalistic hay is sick.

On the other hand, having the French embedded in Canada may be a comparable tragedy up there.

[freedumb2003]

On the other hand, having the French embedded in Canada may be a comparable tragedy up there.

LOL! I shudder to even think of it. Another beautiful irony is that the French DESPISE the French-Canuks (or at least so I have been told by my Canadian friends).