John Oliver's Danbury Sewer Plant Still Butt Of Late Night Jokes

DANBURY, CT — Comedian John Oliver is still talking about that time he managed to get a city in Connecticut to rename its sewage plant after him.

Last October, Danbury renamed its municipal sewage plant the John Oliver Memorial Sewage Plant. The christening occurred after the satirist made a series of donations, totaling $55,000, to local charities, including the Connecticut Food Bank.

That act of charity is still getting laughs.

On Monday, the host of "Last Week Tonight" on HBO appeared on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon." In a tangent-pinging interview that touched upon famous dogs, Grumpy Cat, Harry, Megan and Ted Cruz, Fallon eventually asked the satirist about the many donations to food banks he made during the coronavirus in 2020.

"I think what we were really doing was money laundering HBO's production budget to food banks over the past year," Oliver explained. "Each week, we were trying to come up with different ways to force a donation to a food bank. 'Sell us this painting, name your sewage plant after me, we'll donate to a food bank.'"

"That was the best," Fallon interrupted the comedian, giggling. "The sewage plant was the best!"

Oliver's improbable trek to Hat City began in an August episode of his show, when he invited Danbury's residents to "come get a thrashing from John Oliver, children included," during a segment on jury selection in Connecticut. Former mayor Mark Boughton, who promised the next night to come "hard" after Oliver, did just that, vowing to name the city sewage treatment plant after the comedian. Nearly two months of badinage followed, from Oliver on his HBO show, and Boughton on videos uploaded to Facebook, before the City Council approved the name change and the comedian got his sewage plant.

On Monday, Oliver joked that his donating money to charities after HBO budgeted it for production of his show may have been vaguely unethical.

"Is that the definition of fraud? Seems to be," Oliver joked. "But let's assume that charity has happened and not an actual crime."