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Danbury's Mayor Joked About Naming A Sewage Plant After John Oliver; Now Oliver Wants Him To Do It

Left, comedian John Oliver, right Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.
Greg Allen and Jessica Hill
/
Associated Press
Left, comedian John Oliver, right Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.

The mayor of Danbury, Connecticut, proposed naming a sewage treatment plant after comedian John Oliver. He may have been joking, but Oliver says he’s all for it.

It started with a profane, tongue-in-cheek rant against Danbury on Oliver’s show, Last Week Tonight. Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton responded with a proposal for the John Oliver Memorial Sewage Treatment Plant.

“Why? Because it’s full of *bleep*, just like you, John.”

Oliver responded Sunday night.

“Excellent. Simply excellent. I mean, just calling it the John Oliver Sewer Plant would have comfortably been enough, but they went a step further and went with the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant, which is completely appropriate, ’cause it does seem that I’ve just been murdered by the city of Danbury.”

But Oliver said he was dismayed to learn that Boughton later told reporters the name was just a joke.

“So you’re not doing it? Aww, *bleep* you, Danbury. You had the first good idea in your city’s history and you chickened out on the follow through. What a classic Danbury move. Listen. I didn’t know I wanted my name on your *bleep* factory, but now that you’ve floated it as an option, it is all that I want.”

Oliver said he would donate $55,000 to local charities if the city followed through with the plan. And he said he would even pay for the sign. He gave Boughton one week to decide.

Copyright 2020 WSHU

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Davis Dunavin loves telling stories, whether on the radio or around the campfire. He fell in love with sound-rich radio storytelling while working as an assistant reporter at KBIA public radio in Columbia, Missouri. Before coming back to radio, he worked in digital journalism as the editor of Newtown Patch. As a freelance reporter, his work for WSHU aired nationally on NPR. Davis is a proud graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism; he started in Missouri and ended up in Connecticut, which, he'd like to point out, is the same geographic trajectory taken by Mark Twain.

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