In the moments when a hoodie-clad John Oliver accepted Last Week Tonight‘s fifth consecutive Best Variety Talk Series Emmy, he took a few moments to talk about his only “dream” for 2020. Well, his only attainable dream… one would assume that Oliver would like the pandemic to end and for Biden to win the presidency, but there’s no way to see those things happen at the moment. Instead, Oliver put his mind toward achieving the one goal that would make him feel slightly better about this year’s dumpster fire, and that’s having a sewage plant in Danbury, Connecticut named after him.
Well, some dreams do come true. Local ABC affliate WTNH is relaying the good news for Oliver with a statement from Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton: “Congratulations, Mr. Oliver, you now have a poop plant named after you.” The vote was almost unanimous (18 in favor, 1 against, 1 abstaining), and I’m wondering if we’ll hear from the person who officially wanted to poop on Oliver’s impending happiness. In the meantime, Mayor Boughton embraced his city’s sense of humor on Twitter.
Danbury City Council votes to name City Sewer Plant after @iamjohnoliver! Booh Yah! #DanburyPride
— Mayor Mark Boughton (@MayorMark) October 8, 2020
The pressure is now on for Oliver to visit (which he will hopefully do when it’s safe to travel again), given that council member Farley Santos told WTNH, “I just want to make sure that we welcome Mr. Oliver to come to the dedication so that he can receive this honor that he’s been so begging for.”
Yes, Oliver has truly been pleading for Danbury to bestow him with this honor. He even fired shots in a mock feud with Mayor Boughton calling the host “full of crap.” Well, Oliver enjoyed that barb, but when he found out that it was only a joke, he opened his wallet and made a $55,000 donation to the city. And as mentioned after the Emmys, he gushed, “My dream this year is to have a sewage plant named after me in Danbury, Connecticut … And I’m close. I feel like I’m real close.”
It’s been a months-long road for Oliver, who declared to the City of Danbury in August, “Listen, I didn’t know that I wanted my name on your sh*t factory… But now that you floated it as an option, it is all that I want.” Congratulations to John Oliver for getting all that he wants, or at least, everything that he could realistically see happen, in 2020.
(Via WTNH)