Out of a job because of Conan O'Brien? "Oh great, a talking gecko." Wanna rock your boobie...body! body! Does this really need any extra explanation?

• Conan says at the beginning of the show that he was hired to make Don Cherry look good. This is a direct reference to the actions of the Hockey Night In Canada analyst on January 24, 2004, where he accused French-Canadian and European players of being wimps for wearing visors. As a result, Cherry and the CBC faced a public outcry from French-Canadian groups, forcing Cherry's segment to be broadcast on a 7-second tape delay. Conan of course made Cherry look like nothing after Triumph the Insult Comic Dog "pooped" all over Quebec on the February 12 episode of Late Night, which aroused even more anger across the country, even becoming a topic of conversation in the Canadian House of Commons. • Conan is seen leaving the Niagara Border Commission Office on the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge, dressed in a full RCMP outfit. The Bridge Commission, which facilitates the Queenston-Lewiston, Rainbow and Whirlpool bridges, all in Niagara Falls, is solely responsible for collecting tolls on both sides of the border, and take no responsibility for immigration or customs. That is handled by Canada Customs and Immigration on the Canadian side, and by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on the American side. http://www.niagarafallsbridges.com/crossing-border/index.htm • The Toronto Sun reported on January 28 that during filming of the border sketch in Niagara Falls, extra scenes were filmed, but not aired live. These sequences are explained here by authors Chris Doucette and Alex Urosevic: After shovelling the road clear for vehicles entering the country from the U.S., O'Brien stopped various unsuspecting motorists and conducted mock Customs checks. "So what are you doing, driving in circles?" O'Brien asked two women who told him they were from St. Catharines and heading to St. Catharines. When the pair said they had nothing to declare, O'Brien handed them a six-pack of beer -- so they would have something to declare. O'Brien stopped a truck driver and accused him of smuggling small people into Canada in the storage box under his rig. And in an attempt to push the 18-wheeler down the road from behind, O'Brien slipped and fell flat on his face in the snow. Another motorist in a pick-up truck, the back of which had filled with snow in the storm, received a ticket from O'Brien for his illegal load. "There may be free trade, but you can't import snow," O'Brien joked with the motorist. "Canada already has enough of it." http://www.geocities.com/conaninto/articles/jan28.html • Conan asks Terry from Brantford what the state bird of Canada is. Obviously this is a trick question, as Canada has provinces, not states, but if one bird did have to be selected as Canada's national bird, it would most likely be the Canada goose (Branta canadensis), the only black North American goose, which is distincly Canadian, and is featured on the Canadian $100 bill. As for individual provincial birds, you can click here to see a list of each Canadian province and territory, and their respective birds (along with other symbols). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_goose • Conan asks Brantford Terry how much chicken broth would you have if you filled Lake Ontario with it. Although Conan asks why would anyone do that, as it is virtually impossible to drain the lake of water and replace it with chicken broth, the calculation is not impossible. Lake Ontario contains 1639 cubic kilometres of water, which converts into 1.639 trillion millilitres. To convert it easier, it would take 1,821,111 cartons of Campbell's chicken broth (at 900 mL each) to fill Lake Ontario. But then again, why would anyone do that? http://www.nearbuy.com/cw/conv_index1.asp http://www.campbellsoup.ca/en/products/family.asp?fam=2 • Conan sings a verse of the Gordon Lightfoot classic "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," from his 1976 album Summertime Dream, about the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, the American vessel that sank to the bottom of Lake Superior on November 10, 1975 in 60 mile winds, carrying 26,000 tonnes of iron ore pellets and 29 crew members to their watery graves. It is hard to make out what he is singing, as his Lightfoot impersonation is a little off, but you can make out the words nobody knew what they would get into (or something along those lines), but the words nobody knew do not even appear once in the song. As well, Conan claims that Lightfoot rhymed Gitche Gumee with Gitche Gumee (a nickname for Lake Superior), however, Conan had his lyrics mixed up on February 13. The opening and closing verse of the song goes: The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the gales of November come early So obviously, Lightfoot does not rhyme Gitche Gumee with itself anywhere in the song. However, it was still a nice try on Conan's behalf, for an American boy to try and capture the spirit of an ol' Orillia boy singin' about Gitche Gumee. http://www.corfid.com/gl/Albums/Summertime_Dream/ • Carrey goes through a list of the items that keep him coming back to Toronto. These exclusively-Canadian items include: - ketchup chips: pretty self-explanatory...they're ketchup-flavoured potato chips - Crunchie: a chocolate-covered sponge toffee bar - Big Turk: a low-fat, chocolate-covered "Turkish delight" jelly bar - Fruitella: a chewy fruit roll (sort of a fruit-flavoured version of Mentos) http://www.ctai.ca/products/crunchie-1.htm http://www.nestle.ca/en/Products/Browse_by_Category/Chocolates/big_turk.htm • Carrey and Conan sing the Expo 67 classic, "A Place To Stand," premeired at the Ontario Pavilion during the 1967 World's Fair in Montreal, Quebec, as part of a 16 minute introductory film to the province, which aired 8 times daily. The song, written by Dolores Claman (who also co-wrote the theme to Hockey Night in Canada) has now become somewhat of an unofficial provincial theme song, which Carrey belted out proudly on Late Night, to teach a younger generation this wonderful tune from the days of yore. http://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/expo67/map-docs/ontario.htm • Carrey mentions that he understands what a hard year it was for Toronto, with SARS and the blackout, and pestilence...forgetting the latter, the two were both serious issues for Torontonians during 2003. The SARS outbreak began on March 5 when Torontonian Kwan Sui Chu brought the virus over from Hong Kong after a visit, leading to 44 deaths over the next few months within the Toronto area, and hundreds of more infections, causing thousands to isolate themselves in voluntary quarantine. SARS crippled Toronto on March 15, when the World Health Organization put up a global travel warning on Toronto, practically putting tourism at a standstill. Once the SARS crisis ended, the problems did not stop there, as most Torontonians, as well as millions more across southeast Canada and the northeastern United States, were left without electricity for hours, even days, when all power shut down at 4:10 P.M. on August 14, 2003. http://www.thestar.com/ • On his second attempt at a joke, Carrey jokes that he saved a lot of money on his car insurance by switching to Geico. Ads for Geico Direct, famous for featuring the computer-animated Geico gecko, are known for clients always proclaiming how much money they saved on their car insurance by switching to Geico, regardless of the sticky situation they are in. http://www.geico.com/ • The first member of Jim Carrey's "Canadian Posse" is The Amazing Kreskin, "The World's Foremost Mentalist," who rose to fame on his television show The Amazing World Of Kreskin, aired exclusively in Canada on CTV from 1971-75. Although an American citizen, Kreskin acredits his success to Canadian viewers, and is seen as a Canadian icon to this day. http://littleegyptmagic.com/kreskint.htm • The second member of the "Canadian Posse" is Peter Puck, who taught Jim Carrey, along with thousands of other young Canadians, the wonderful sport of hockey. Created in 1973 by Brian MacFarlane for NBC, Peter, hockey's new cartoon educator (or self-proclaimed "ol' pokecheck professor") was originally created to educate new American viewers about hockey, but dumped by NBC in 1975. However, the CBC picked up Peter for five more years on Hockey Night In Canada, teaching young Canadian fans the history of the game, before retiring in 1980 due to CBC budgeting. http://members.aol.com/boardwalk7/petepuck.html • The third and final member of the "Canadian Posse" is Bonhomme, the official mascot of the Quebec Winter Carnaval every February. Bonhomme (translates into "good man" in English) serves as carnival chief for the 17 day festival, overseeing events and bringing joy to the faces of Quebecers young and old. Bonhomme was introduced at the first Carnaval in 1955, and has been there ever since, up to and during the 50th anniversary, where Triumph the Insult Dog "pooped" on the Carnaval, and even Bonhomme, during a skit that never made it to air. http://www.ijs.k12.nf.ca/~voyageur/quebec/bonhomme.htm • The agent who brings out a United States "passport" for Jim Carrey is said to be from the U.S. Department of Immigration & Naturalization. The agency that actually handles American Immigration and Naturalization is United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They normally do not make house calls to drop off passports...especially to people in Canada. http://uscis.gov/ • When Carrey says that the U.S. Passport tastes like Manifest Destiny, he is referring to the belief that in the 19th and early 20th century, the United States was determined to spread its form of democracy and freedom throughout the world, to establish an American-dominated colonial planet. Although the U.S. was unsuccessful, and has given up attempts at major world domination, it can still be argued that they are flexing their democratic muscle in the Middle East (Gulf War, Iraq War), and some believe that the U.S. is still determined to make Canada its 51st state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny • McCormack says that he had to perform the Canadian and American national anthems in front of 19,000 people at the 2004 NHL All-Star Game. Well, I don't mean to be one of those guys, but the host venue of the game, the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, only seats 18,064. Sorry Eric. http://www.wild.com/arena/ • McCormack said that his breasts wouldn't have felt safe if Justin Timberlake were performing the American national anthem at the NHL All-Star Game. He is taking a shot at Timberlake's super-controversial halftime performance with Janet Jackson at SuperBowl XXXVIII on February 1 in Houston, Texas. Towards the end of the duet of Timberlake's hit "Rock Your Body," Timberlake supposedly meant to rip off a part of Jackson's outfit to reveal a piece of lingerie, but "accidentally" ripped it all off, exposing Jackson's breast to about 300 million viewers worldwide. JT felt a public wrath afterwards, having his video censored on MTV, being denied the opportunity to attend the 2004 Grammy Awards, as well as host a Motown special with Lionel Richie, and being the butt end of just about every late night talk show joke. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXXVIII_halftime_show_controversy • McCormack and Conan both share the same birthday (April 18, 1963), which McCormack points out is the night that the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. This date actually does check out, as the Leafs defeated the Detroit Red Wings 3-1 in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals to take home their 11th Cup, their second of 3 straight between 1962-64. http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nhl/hkn_stanleycupresults.html • McCormack mentions that he would have a Charlie Brown moment during a hockey game when he was eight years old, and finally be the hero, rather than the goat. Charlie Brown is of course the main character from the famed Charles M. Schultz comic strip Peanuts, spanning in syndication from 1950 to 2000. Charlie is famous for his constantly contradicting personal views, as at times he is very optimistic, and others he is extremely pessimistic and negative. Charlie even describes himself to friends in the strip as "kinda between being a hero and being a goat," thus giving meaning to McCormack's anecdote. http://www.nypress.com/ http://www.peanuts.com/comics/peanuts/history/timeline.html • Not really a point brought up on the show, but did anyone else notice not a single guest of Conan's the entire week was a female? There are dozens of Canadian female actors (Pamela Anderson, Natasha Henstridge, Neve Campbell) and musicians (Shania Twain, Nelly Furtado, hell, even Avril Lavigne!) to choose from, but I suppose the staff at Late Night perceived bigger ratings from the stars they picked. Oh well, maybe next time...