Conan showcases Finnish trip on 'Late Night'
Last Updated: Friday, March 10, 2006 | 10:17 AM ET
CBC News
Late night host Conan O'Brien will share scenes from his recent "surreal" trip to Finland with North American audiences Friday.
"[David] Hasselhoff is big in Germany, but I'm the king of Finland," O'Brien told the Associated Press.
While the New York-based Late Night with Conan O'Brien was on hiatus during the Olympics, O'Brien and a camera crew travelled to Helsinki for a few days.
Conan O'Brien presented Finnish President Tarja Halonen with a Valentine's gift when he met her at the presidential palace in Helsinki on Feb. 14. O'Brien will showcase his trip to Finland on his show Friday.
(AP Photo/Antti Aimo-Koivisto , Lehtikuva)
The popularity of O'Brien's show, which airs after a three-day delay in Finland, skyrocketed after he began making jokes late last year about his supposed physical resemblance to Finnish President Tarja Halonen, who was running for re-election. He also ran mock campaign ads supporting her and poking fun at her rivals. Halonen was re-elected earlier this year.
Despite the buzz, including criticism from Halonen's political rivals, the Late Night crew didn't know what to expect from their trip.
"We were thinking we were going to arrive at the airport and that no one's really going to be there," O'Brien said.
Instead, thousands of fans and a group of paparazzi awaited them at the airport and followed them throughout their trip. Local media ran cover stories on O'Brien's visit, he was presented with a special prize at a TV awards gala and met President Halonen in a formal ceremony.
"It was treated with the same dignity and gravitas as Nelson Mandela meeting with Mother Teresa," O'Brien recalled.
"My feeling was, 'Is this really happening?'"
O'Brien described the whole experience as "surreal. It was a fevered dream," he said.
The Massachusetts-born O'Brien has been called "the most intelligent of the late-night hosts." He is a former president of the Harvard Lampoon humour magazine and has a strong history of comedy writing, with credits including HBO's Not Necessarily the News, Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons.
Two years ago, O'Brien brought his show to Toronto, where he filmed skits and four episodes of his show featuring Canadian guests such as Michael J. Fox, Mike Myers, Jim Carrey, Eric McCormack, Nickelback and Barenaked Ladies.
The trip also spawned a mini-scandal after a skit in which Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a hand puppet often featured on the show, visited Quebec and insulted French Canadians. The self-deprecating host offered a televised apology, in which a French translator converted O'Brien's words into insults about the comic.
