Conan hates my homeland…

I’ve been a fan of Conan O’Brien for quite some time now. I even thought he was funny in the dreaded early years. I traveled from Albany to NYC on more than one occasion during my college years for tapings. Back then, you could call the day before a taping and get free tickets. Now the wait is months.

The definite highlight of my trips to Conan was when I danced with Andy Richter. He gave me a fruit tray which I shared with the audience.

I still watch Conan on a daily basis (albeit two days after the American broadcast) and he continuously cracks me up. There is no such thing as too much of the masturbating bear, Coked-Up Werewolf, or Preparation H Raymond. My favorite bit by far is Pierre Bernard’s Recliner of Rage. Simply classic.

Over the past year Conan has featured a new segment called “Conan Hates My Homeland.”

From the wikipedia entry:

Conan O’Brien Hates My Homeland – The premise of the skit began when O’Brien alleged to have received angry letters from viewers in Ukraine after mocking that nation in another recurring skit, New Euro Coins. Unaware that his show was even airing in Ukraine, O’Brien reads fast-paced insults of each of the nations of the world in alphabetical order [1] to determine where else the show is being aired without his knowledge. O’Brien insults about five-ten countries (with a bell ringing between each one) each time the bit airs. A sample insult: “Georgia: It’s where Europe and Asia get together to dump their trash.” Announcer Joel Godard then requests more angry letters from insulted viewers around the world.
An announcer on the Finnish entertainment channel SubTV, which airs the show couple of days after it is aired in USA, asked people to defend Finland before Conan got to insult it, and the viewers in Finland began sending mail before the bit had even gotten to the letter F. Starting with only one post-card that was shown on the show it was quickly followed by overwhelming amount of post-cards that apparently forced Conan to give Finland a formal apology, going as far as having the flag of Finland shown in the background during his speech and slandering the Finns’ hated neighbor Sweden with a board with the words “Sweden Sucks!” printed over the flag of Sweden.

Some of my favorites:

Andorra: How does it feel, being Luxembourg’s bitch?

Bahrain: A thriving centre of trade and culture… until 2000 BC!

Bhutan: So they took away your freedom of the press? Who needs it when your only headline is “Bhutan Continues to Suck?”

Burma: The bad news is, you’ve got rampant malaria. The good news is, it doesn’t stop the kids from making those shirts.

Ghana: The ‘h’ is silent, like a room full of people after you ask “What’s worthwhile about Ghana?”

Kyrgystan: If your country could afford vowels, you could spell “this place sucks.”

And of course since this blog is Israel-centric I must include his insult about my homeland as well…

Israel: Hey, remember when life in Israel was vibrant and carefree? Man, that was the day.

Some blessed soul is doing God’s work and keeping track of all of Conan’s insults at the “Conan O’Brien Hates My Homeland Archive” which can be found here.