Conan O’Brien: “Once I Conquer Finland, I’ll Head South Through the Baltics and On To Belarus”
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 02.09.06 | 11:45 AM ET
I’m betting that Conan O’Brien’s visit to Finland next week will prove to be some of the best travel television programming of the year. Or at least the most amusing. The host of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” will broadcast all week from the country and even meet with newly-elected president Tarja Halonen, whose candidacy O’Brien had endorsed based in large part on their resemblance.
Some Finns had expressed concern that O’Brien, whose show is broadcast five days a week on Finnish cable channel SUBTV, was unduly influencing the election. But others thought it was a good development—for U.S. residents. “I think it’s quite funny,” Mia Myllymaki, a 28-year-old elementary school teacher, told the AP last month. “Of course we are proud that Conan O’Brien talks about Finland and Finnish people…People in the USA don’t even know where Finland is, so maybe it helps if he talks about it.”
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
sanjuro 02.09.06 | 4:12 PM ET
I’m French but I live in Finland. Yeah, Conan O’Brien is very popular here, I watch the show sometimes and it’s indeed very funny even if you’re not Finnish. I think it could be succesful in other parts of the world if it was broadcast elsewhere, yep, even in France. The show is funnier than other US comedy programs we get on the cable such as SNL and Mad TV, Conan’s humour is perhaps more international !
david 02.11.06 | 12:57 AM ET
i remember watching cover the Olympics in Sydney (picture him in huge sunglasses and safari shorts, holding a huge microphone). Even in the US, he wasn’t that popular back then (still isn’t), and he was making of fun of the fact that not a single person in Sydney knew who we was.
Then, lo and behold, along came a group of drunk 14 year old Austrialian boys, who exclaimed “OH MY GOD, IT’S CONAN O’BRIEN!!”. Turns out they watched him on some cable channel, and he was a kind of cult favorite in Australia. So yeah, I could see how he would have international appeal..
Kevin Baker 08.23.06 | 9:04 PM ET
I like Conan a lot, and I’m a 20 year old man.