Danbury Mayor on John Oliver Saga: ‘Yes, We Did Plan It’

Danbury Mayor, Mark Boughton. joined us on the Ethan and Lou Show Thursday morning (10/22/20) in his regular weekly spot.

We wanted to put the final ribbon on this John Oliver saga. Back in August, Comedian John Oliver shouted out the Hat City in the worst possible way on his show, "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver". Oliver offered to thrash us and added "F--- Danbury."

The Mayor responded and a seemingly never ending social media volley ensued. The Mayor jokingly remarked he'd name the sewer plant after Oliver because he was full of s**t. Oliver returned serve by offering a handsome financial gift to local charities if the city did name the plant after him.

The Mayor agreed on the condition that Oliver show up for the ribbon cutting, the City Council approved the name change, the name was changed, the sign was installed and finally, Oliver showed up for a secret ribbon cutting ceremony.

I started the interview off by saying, "now I'm starting to go back to my original theory that you and he crafted this entire story-line from the beginning and if that is the truth, I gotta give you a lot of credit because it is genius. Did you or did you not, work with John Oliver ahead of time to create this entire story line, your thoughts? Go." He replied:

Well, you know, I can't really say, but I will say that it was tremendous and you are absolutely right, he is a germaphobe. And, were there discussions? Maybe.

At this point, Boughton changed the topic to a funny aside. He mentioned that Danbury residents and even people from as far as New Jersey have been visiting the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant unannounced to tour the site. They have been arriving to see what all the fuss is about and take selfies with the sign.

I managed to get us back to the original question and said, "I want to go back to before you pivoted away from the truth, which is that you planned this entire thing from the beginning and manipulated everyone in the public, I love it". He responded with:

Something like that doesn't happen with a little bit of planning, come on.

He continued:

But yes, we did plan it, no we couldn't tell anybody about it. I did laugh at people that were like posting on my Facebook page and were like, hey man, he's never going to come here OK. You're an idiot, why don't you focus on being Mayor? Well, there, I got you back.

It was all planned from the beginning, good for them, good for us, good for everyone. Let's never speak of this again.

Below is the John Oliver portion of our interview.

Oliver did come up in the mock diner debate Mayor Mark and I took part in at the Holiday Diner in Danbury.