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GUEST INSECT EXPERT MAKES TALK-SHOW HOST SQUIRM IN HIS SEAT By CP -- The Toronto Sun -- May 7, 2004 -- Section: ENTERTAINMENT; Pg. E10 CONAN TOOK his punishment, if not like a man, like a squealing little girl. Late Night talk-show host Conan O'Brien invited French-Canadian entomologist Georges Brossard to his NBC-TV show in New York Wednesday night. Brossard, the first Quebecer to appear on the show since last January's controversial sketch that poked fun at the province, decided to impose some punishment on the American host. He brought along a few of his multi-legged friends and began placing them all over O'Brien while the studio audience roared with approval. At one point, O'Brien had everything from giant cockroaches to a tarantula crawling over his suit and head. "I apologize and now we make nice, it's all good," O'Brien said at first, explaining how Quebecers were angered by a taped-in-Toronto sketch in which show regular, the politically incorrect puppet Triumph the Insult Dog, was dispatched to the Quebec Winter Carnival to ridicule the locals. Brossard said he would shake hands with O'Brien -- but that first some punishment was in order. "We acknowledge that you were not fully responsible of that situation," conceded Brossard, who said it was time to reconcile. "As a man of honour, as a man of class, you apologized and you took full responsibility." But just when O'Brien seemed relieved, Brossard began to pull various big bugs out of his pockets and gingerly place them all over a clearly nervous O'Brien. "It's time for justice to be done," he added, as the critters began crawling over the lanky comic. "Oh my God!" O'Brien wailed when Brossard ended the "punishment" by pulling out a huge black scorpion. "No! No scorpion was discussed at the rehearsal!" At the end of the appearance Brossard not only shook O'Brien's hand but hugged him. "Now we're friends," he said. Brossard, who hosts his own Discovery Channel series Insectia, was in New York to help promote the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of The Blue Butterfly, a new film starring William Hurt and based on his experiences searching for a rare butterfly in Central America. GRAPHIC: photo by Adrian Wyld, CP ; CONAN O'BRIEN in Toronto in January to tape his show. Copyright 2004 Sun Media Corporation |