TVSquad

The Cone Zone is fulfilling his Manifest Destiny and heading West for a week of shows. Starting April 30th, Late Night with Conan O'Brien will broadcast five nights of shows from San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre. Judging from Conan's past outings to Chicago and Toronto, it should be a great week for late night television. Of course, there was that Toronto slip-up in which Triumph insulted the national pride of our great neighbor to the North. (What did they expect? He's an "insult comic dog.")

While these week-long tapings are fun for viewers, I'm partial to Conan's travels to truly foreign shores - Conan's adventures in Finland, his staffer's remote from a call center in India, etc. After San Francisco, I think it's time for another overseas outing. I'm thinking Thailand, Poland or another trip to Ireland. Or, maybe, that's my desired travel itinerary. Regardless, taking the late night host out of his element every now and again is never a bad idea.

Viewers can request tickets for the San Francisco tapings at Conan's website.

(S10E10) Tonight's race takes us to Finland where we see a lot more talking about alliances and a lot less actual allying (finally). In the wake of the "six pack" the other teams attempt alliances but the whole race seems a lot less heartfelt without David and Mary in it. It's supposed to be intensity time but someone needs to tell that to the Cho brothers in this endlessly boring leg of the race.

All of Conan O'Brien's attention on Finland lately has come to the inevitable conclusion: he's getting an award from the Finns. You see, Conan looks an awful lot like the president of Finland, a red-haired, pale-skinned woman named Tarja Halonen. He's been mentioning the resemblance a lot on his show, even creating some skits that are mock campaign ads for Halonen's re-election. Every time Conan mentioned Finland or did a sketch, he made the papers in that country. His ratings have been up in Finland and recently Halonen won re-election. Whether it was due to Conan's influence is anybody's guess.

Next week, Conan is going to visit Finland to meet his twin and accept a Finnish Telvis Award for being "the most surprising and entertaining TV personality in Finland." Of course, all of this will be part of his show.

Said Conan, "Soon all the world will find me amusing."

She didn't lose, either. Finland President Tarja Halonen, a dead-ringer for American talk show host Conan O'Brien, received only 46% of the vote in this weekend's election, forcing her into a run-off against a conservative candidate. Finn laws require the winner to receive at least 50% of the vote.

Leading up to the election, there were several articles that expressed some concern among the Finns that Conan's mock-campaign endorsing Halonen would influence the election. I think we can expect to see some more campaigning on Conan's part all week long, assuming he's not in reruns.

This is one odd story. While we're used to hearing our late night television hosts make fun of politicians, their jokes never seem to weigh heavily on whether a candidate actually gets elected. That may not be so in Finland, where Conan O'Brien's endorsement of Finn President Tarja Halonen in today's election is getting a lot of attention. Why did Conan endorse this woman? Because of her looks. She has a remarkable resemblance to tall, pale-faced, red-haired Conan O'Brien, who airs five nights a week in Finland. Every time he mentions his endorsement of the president, the Finn tabloids pick it up. One fake campaign ad in Conan's show had Conan and some "Finns" fishing on a frozen lake and talking about the election. When they mentioned the name of President Halonen's competitor, a dead fish shot out a hole in the ice and one of them said that even a mention of the competitor's name causes fish to commit suicide. The president's competitor, of course, is annoyed by Conan's running gag.

Whether Conan's endorsement actually holds any weight at the polls today will never be known, but let's hope not, because that would be sad on so many levels.