James Oddo - Norwegian Comedy Show Incident

Norwegian Comedy Show Incident

James Oddo received attention when a video of the councilman appeared on YouTube around October 5, 2007. In the video clip, Oddo is shown being interviewed by a film crew from the Norwegian comedy show Rikets røst (meaning "Voice of the Nation"), a show similar to The Colbert Report. The comedians had gained entry to councilman Oddo's office by posing as TV journalists who wanted to get the view of a Republican on the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Instead, the interviewer, Pia Haraldsen, played the role of an uninformed foreigner. She asked how Barack Obama could run for president, "as he is not a U.S. citizen" (when informed by Oddo that Obama is indeed an American, she wondered about that, given that she had read somewhere that he was "African-American") and asked if Senator Clinton could be president "after that embarrassing incident with the cigar?" On the aired clip, Haraldsen cannot refrain from smiling as Oddo starts swearing at and threatening the film crew. One of the film crew's cameras continues recording the incident, as Oddo, in a profanity-laced tirade, furiously tells them to get "the fuck" out of his office. Oddo later apologized, stating the tirade was "inappropriate" but that the sentiment beneath it was entirely appropriate.