Though O’Brien’s show is relatively unknown in Japan, his reaction to discovering the existence of Conan Town reached all the way to Hokuei, which responded through the city’s official Facebook page with a message that starts off formally cordial… but then makes a demand of its own.

“To: Conan O’Brien
From: Hokuei Town (“Conan Town”) in Japan

Thank you for introducing Hokuei to the world. Here is a famous Sir Arthur Conan Doyle quote to serve as a present to you from the mayor of Hokuei: “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

It is elementary, my dear Conan O’Brien.

If you want the money, come visit Hokuei.”

But if he’s going to go all the way to Japan, O’Brien says he wants more than just three trillion yen, and he laid out three additional conditions in a new segment of his show.

Now, Hokuei mayor Akio Matsumoto has issued a video statement of his own, addressing American Conan in English. But if O’Brien is upping the ante, so too is Matsumoto, who says he has three demands of his own.

Obviously, O’Brien lacks the political power to add someone’s face to Mount Rushmore, and he probably doesn’t have the necessary entertainment industry clout to get Matsumoto a star on the Walk of Fame either. And of course, given O’Brien’s farcically huge financial demand, and Matsumoto’s equally over-the-top requests, it’s clear that both sides are going for comedy first, and serious negotiation second.

But procuring fifteen thousand hamburgers, then personally delivering them to a sleepy town in rural Tottori prefecture seems like not only a a doable task for O’Brien, but exactly the sort of comedy he does best. So we look forward to his eminent and beefy arrival.

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