John Oliver can add a sewage plant namesake in Danbury, Connecticut, to his list of accomplishments. Why did he earn such an honor? According to Danbury’s Mayor Mark Boughton, “Because it’s full of crap, just like you, John.” Oliver earned the city’s good-humored ribbing after a random and contextless rant against them on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight.”
In a discussion of representative juries and a historical failure to account for cities with high black and Latino populations due to clerical errors, he aimed at Danbury, stating, “If you’re going to forget a town in Connecticut, why not forget Danbury? Because, and this is true, f-ck Danbury.”
Starting in the video below at 6:16, the profanity-laced tirade has absolutely nothing to do with bias in jury selection. Likewise, Oliver uses nothing of substance to criticize the town, only referencing charming aspects of the town amidst his threats in what is an attempt at humor.
Oliver praised the “charming railway museum,” “historic half-stone castle,” and its history as the “center of the American hat industry,” while promising any residents “a standing invite to come get a thrashing from John Oliver, children included.”
This non sequitur jab is not the first time Danbury has been the target of Oliver’s teasing. In 2017, he poked fun at a video Boughton made, in which the Republican mayor personally invited Amazon to move its headquarters to his city.
Of course, Danbury was not going to take this slight lying down. Boughton made a video defending Danbury and its newest attraction, “The John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant. Why? Because it’s full of crap, just like you, John.”
Boughton also thanked Oliver for more widely publicizing his 2017 Amazon video, as Amazon announced in June that they’d be opening a facility in Danbury, which is set to bring hundreds of jobs to the city.
The video’s caption simply read, “John Oliver, don’t mess with Danbury.”
https://www.facebook.com/MayorBoughton/videos/306895947194975/?extid=C5433myoj1nFmMfI
The John Oliver Memorial Sewage Plant is not the only embarrassing and funny enterprise that bears the comedian’s name. He is also the namesake of a Koala Chlamydia Ward, courtesy of Russell Crowe.
When Crowe auctioned off movie memorabilia in the aftermath of his divorce, Oliver (using HBO’s money) purchased the leather jockstrap Crowe wore in “Cinderella Man” for $7,000, along with other items, to be donated to the last remaining Blockbuster Video in Alaska.
Crowe donated the proceeds of the jockstrap’s sale to create the John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward. Working with Terri, Bindi, and Robert Irwin, the ward bearing Oliver’s name studies and combats the very real chlamydia problem among koalas.
