American talk-show host Conan O'Brien took his cameras to the Quebec Winter Carnival where he launched a satirical attack on French Canadians that is sure to further offend Quebeckers still stinging from comments made by CBC hockey analyst Don Cherry.
"So you're French and Canadian, yes? So you're obnoxious and dumb," a satirical sock puppet told one passerby in a taped segment on Mr. O'Brien's show last night.
"You're in North America; learn the language," Triumph, the cigar-smoking dog, hollered at another Quebecker at the carnival.
"Jesus. This is not going to play well here," said John Parisella, a communications specialist and a former adviser to late Liberal premier Robert Bourassa, after hearing the quotes over the phone.
"This is tasteless. It's extremely offensive to Quebeckers," he said. "This is not the kind of humour that is healthy for the country."
Officials in Quebec Premier Jean Charest's office said they would not respond to the comments until they had seen a tape of the show.
The federal government and the government of Ontario contributed $1-million to help bring Mr. O'Brien's show to Toronto in an effort to boost the city's image.
Mr. Parisella said he did not think people would associate the comments directly with the City of Toronto, but would consider them the misguided humour of one comedian.
Mr. Cherry wryly chuckled when told about the comments Thursday night. "It's easy for Conan. He can leave the city at the end of the week."
Mr. Cherry has been under fire for his comments on a Jan. 24 segment of Coach's Corner, in which he said that hockey players such as the "Europeans and French guys" were "turning into sucks" for wearing visors on their helmets to protect their eyes.
His remarks drew the ire of Canada's official languages commissioner, who said her office will investigate. And officials at CBC's Hockey Night in Canada have said they will delay Mr. Cherry's future broadcasts by seven seconds so they can catch any further comments before they hit the airwaves.
During the taped O'Brien piece, the sock puppet asked one couple if they were separatists.
"Listen closely," he said after they said they were. "Hear that? It's the sound of no one giving a...," followed by an expletive bleep.
French-language street signs were changed to English, bearing names like Celine Dion Sucks Street, Eat Me Frenchy Street, and Quebecqueer Street.
"You can tell you're French," the puppet said to one person. "I can smell your crotch from here."
Reaction to Mr. O'Brien's comedy sketch is unlikely to be limited to Quebec.
Globe and Mail Review editor Elizabeth Renzetti was in the audience for the taping of the O'Brien show and said the segment received a disturbing amount of applause from the young audience.
"It left me with a real sour taste in my mouth. It seemed over the top; it seemed cruel, because a couple of the people didn't speak English and he mocked them mercilessly," Ms. Renzetti said. "It was like they had no idea that this is a bilingual country."
She said a few people around her reacted with stone-faced silence, but when Mr. O'Brien appearedon stage to ask the audience if they wanted to see more scenes from Quebec, many applauded enthusiastically.
"For it to offend me, it had to be pretty offensive," Ms. Renzetti said.
Earlier in the week, Mr. Cherry used an appearance on the Mike Bullard Show to say he had turned down an invitation to appear on Conan O'Brien because he was embarrassed at the way Canadians reacted to the host's arrival in Toronto.
"He brings his show up here. Oh goody, goody, goody. He's going to say something good about Toronto. Oh boy, we're so happy," Mr. Cherry said mockingly. "We don't like Americans and then they bring up an American and all of a sudden we're rolling around the grass about them. I don't get it."
With a report from Canadian Press
