What began as part of a tourist recovery effort is now a celebration of Toronto and Canada, plus some welcome wintertime fun, says the organizer of this week's visit of NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
O'Brien arrived in Toronto on Sunday night and the 100-plus crew of the popular New York-based TV talk show has been putting the finishing touches on facilities at the Elgin Theatre, where four shows will be taped Tuesday to Friday in front of live audiences for telecast later each night.
"When we first started out last summer with this idea with (Saturday Night Live producer) Lorne Michaels, it was going to be a story about SARS," says businessman Peter Soumalias.
"Today it's a story about stars, stars like Mike Myers and Jim Carrey and Eric McCormack, the Barenaked Ladies, Nickelback, Adam Sandler. It's an incredible event for the city of Toronto. As Mike Myers said to me the other day, it's turning into a real celebration and that's the way it should be."
Soumalias says Carrey had to move mountains to accept the offer to be the celebrity guest for Friday night's show.
"(He) had what we thought were some immovable situations with regards to studio commitments. He went to great lengths to persuade people in Los Angeles to make it easier to come up here, because he wanted to be a part of this."
Soumalias adds that the idea was never to fill hotel rooms but to showcase the city and the country and to "have some fun in the middle of the winter blahs."
In an interview from New York last week, O'Brien stressed, too, that they were not high-minded people and although the visit of his show might help a good cause (Toronto's beaten-down tourist industry) the main idea was to have fun by tapping into Canada's immense comedy talent.
"The whole idea is this could be really fun. . .with that lineup, in that theatre, with this kind of excitement, I think we can have really good shows and if nothing else that would showcase Toronto and Canada in the best way. So let's all just have a good time."
Soumalias is delighted with the huge media coverage of the event. He says it's now a national, and even international story with the likes of the Hollywood Reporter, US Weekly, USA Today, Reuters and The Associated Press weighing in with articles.
He believed they are now past the brief blip of negative publicity when some complaints were heard that $1-million in Canadian tax dollars were spent to help underwrite the cost of bringing the show from New York to Toronto.
"Sometimes we Canadians tend to naval gaze way too much," says Soumalias, who adds that while they have no handle yet on the ultimate economic fallout of the Conan event, NBC is also spending "well over $1-million locally."
But the Canadian Taxpayers Federation issued an open letter Monday to O'Brien asking for the Canadian $1-million back and even offering to help run cameras, haul equipment, hold cue cards for free and put crew members up in their homes.
"Heck, we'll even write your monologues for you," says CTF director John Williamson. "Now that's Canadian hospitality!"
O'Brien said whoever complained about the cost should know they were doing the whole thing on the cheap.
"We're eating cardboard lunches. Literally, lunches not in cardboard boxes but lunches made of cardboard!"
Toybox, a Toronto-based technical facility known primarily for motion picture special effects, is one beneficiary. The company has been tabbed to provide the final post-production, packaging and streaming of the four edited shows back to NBC in New York.
Soumalias also reveals that with 4,000 or so tickets handed out by lottery from the more than 50,000 applications, there are plans to make 50 or 60 obstructed-view seats available at the last minute to those who might want to fill them.
O'Brien also said there are plans to get a passport for Triumph the Insult Dog, a Late Night hand-puppet regular. But he says don't look for a showdown between Triumph and local CHUM Television character Ed the Sock.
Ed showed up at O'Brien's December press conference and issued a competition challenge and the American comic indicated it was possible. But last week he said while he was looking forward to meeting Ed the Sock again, it wouldn't be on the show. He said he never heard of Ed the Sock before and denied Triumph was a rip-off, even though both are cigar-chomping, wise-cracking, gravelly voiced puppet characters.
"I hate to disappoint Ed the Sock but grumpy puppets have been a mainstay of comedy for a long time," O'Brien said. "The grouchy puppet is not unlike the depressed clown, it's been a comedy staple for 40 years and everyone does their take on it. But more power to Ed the Sock!"
Asked the biggest impression made on him during his two advance visits to Toronto, the lanky American comic cited the revolving restaurant atop the CN Tower.
"I've never really grown up. I still have the mentality of a nine-year-old and I just kept squealing the whole time 'We're turning! We're turning!' You know people from the Canadian government were saying 'Yes, would you like more white wine, Mr. O'Brien.
'But we're turning!'"
Late Night is seen weeknights on NBC in the U.S., on CHUM stations in various Ontario markets and worldwide via the satellite signal of CNBC.