I had planned to just do a short little post about this but the more I look into it the more suspicious this whole thing gets. Something shady seems to have happened with the “Conan, please blow up my car” video contest. Let me start from the beginning before I lay out the case….

Shortly after taking over the Tonight Show, Conan O’Brian decided that there had to be a more interesting way to dispose of a “clunker” than just trading it to the government for some cash. So he announced the “Conan, please blow up my car” video contest. If you had a really crappy car you were supposed to create an interesting, creative video explaining why your car sucked and why you deserved to have it blown up and replaced by Conan with a brand new Lexus.

Since this contest was promoted on the Tonight Show for a few weeks they got a flood of entries. In all, 951 videos were submitted. Earlier this month, this video was selected as the winner:

Grand Prize Winner. Prize: A new Lexus Hybrid

Sure that’s a really crappy car but the video is as simple as can be. The rules of the contest encouraged participants to create over the top videos though. Judging was supposed to break down the score like this: Originality (50%) and Creativity (50%).

So was that video original and creative? No…not one bit. It was just a guy talking about his suspiciously crappy car. Commenters on the Tonight Show’s website are pretty upset that this video was chosen as the winner. Some even charge that some kind of fix was in. And you know what, as much as I love Conan I have to admit that I think something shady did occur. Consider these points made by commenters on the Tonight Show web site:

1. One poster points out that the entry should have been ineligible because the video features a business’ logo (A “Pizza Pirates” logo on the hood of the car and on the guy’s shirt) and that was prohibited by the rules.

2. Another mentions that he car is also totally illegal to drive because the seat-belts don’t work and apparently the car had to be a drivable clunker.

3. Yet another poster asks a question so brilliant it would make Columbo proud: “If this guy drives with one lft arm holding the door (oh pity me, could of said you used bungies mr. wizard). Can you imagine the right arm making gear changes and turning the steering wheel at same time. People this whole thing was preplanned to appear as a clunker. Aha!!!” (While that move might be tough it would at the very least make the car illegal to drive.)

4. The most astute observation came from a poster that suggested that this particular car was chosen because it was so wrecked that its make and model are a complete mystery. In the video, the owner of the car refers to it only as a “1980.” So instead of blowing up a crappy Ford or Toyota or whatever, Conan got to keep the car companies happy by destroying a completely anonymous car.

The damage to the car also seems kinda suspicious too. As the guy says, he intentionally cut the roof off because it would get hot while he was making his Pizza deliveries.  But who wants to eat a pizza that’s been wind-cooled by a ride in a homemade convertible?  Near the end of the video the guy shows of a bunch of mysterious dents in his driver’s side door. He said that one day at work someone threw eggs at his car and shot paintballs at it.  But look at those dents! Were those eggs shot out of a 44 Magnum? And listen, I have played paintball before and I don’t think they could do that to a car door. If paintballs really could dent metal, would it be legal to shoot them at fleshy human beings?  Most suspicious of all though is the guy’s front license plate.  It looks like someone took a hammer to that plate. And even if he didn’t, how can it be legal to drive around with a license plate that is so bent that it can’t be read?

But forget all that stuff. Here is the biggest red flag of all; The guy in the video says he delivers Pizzas for a place called Pizza Pirates. I googled Pizza pirates and guess what? They have several locations but the guy with the clunker works in Ontario, California…..a mere 52 minute drive from the Universal Studios lot where the car was blown up by Conan.  The winner lives in Chino, CA which is basically a suburb of Los Angeles.

Wow, how convenient

I hate to do this but I officially call “shenanigans” on Conan O’brian. Can you imagine how much money NBC would have had to spend if the winner of this contest was from New York or Florida? By picking a guy who lived in the LA area they probably saved at least $10,000. Besides paying for a trip for two and a hotel room for the winner, NBC would have had to get the clunker to LA! NBC lawyers would never let someone drive the winning “clunker” to the west coast so the chosen vehicle would have had to have been shipped inside a big ass truck. That would have cost thousands of dollars if the winner was from the East coast. Oh! And then NBC would have had to get a new Lexus Hybrid to that guy! The actual car that the guy won was presented to him at the Universal Studios lot after his car was exploded. If the guy lived 2,000 miles from LA would he have had to drive the Lexus all the way home? Of course not. NBC probably got 1 free car in exchange for all the publicity and they again would have had to ship it to the guy’s house. After all, how many Lexus Hybrid dealerships do you think there are in the middle or Georgia or Montana? Not many I’m guessing so they couldn’t just make arrangements with a local dealer if the winner lived outside of the LA area.  Because the winner lives in Chino he would have been able to drive that car right home after the taping.

While googling I found the Pizza Pirate’s Facebook page and they seem very proud of their employee and the death trap he drove while working for them. Several “fans” of Pizza Pirates have commented on the company’s wall that they have seen that beat up car driving around Ontario, CA many times. One girl says….

“haha dude that’s awsome. my school is like right by there and we use to walk by and see that car all the time,lol. so when we heard in was going to be blown up on tv we were like omg..haha.”

Kids say “dude,” “OMG” and “LOL” in every internet comment they make….right? That might be a little suspicious but like I said, a number of people on facebook have said that they will miss seeing that crappy car drive around town. So it probably was a real car at least.

So what’s the final verdict? After looking at all the evidence I believe that:

1. The car that won the contest was real and was a total mess.

2. The winner of the contest might have done a few things to the car to make it look even crappier.

3. The winning video should have been deemed ineligible to win because the car was not legally drivable and because it featured a company logo. (Pizza Pirates isn’t just one store, it’s a small chain with 3 locations.)

4. The judges of the contest that picked this clunker totally disregarded the judging (Originality/creativity) criteria outlined in the rules and picked this car as the winner because:

a. It was funny looking
b. No potential advertisers would be offended that one of their cars were being called a “clunker” since only an expert could decipher its make and model.
c. NBC would be able to save thousands in transport costs because the winner and his car were located just across town from the studio.

In conclusion, here’s what I think happened: The contest was announced and someone at the Tonight Show remembered seeing this beat up Pizza Pirates car driving around the LA suburbs. The car was easy to track down of course and someone contacted Pizza Pirates and the owner of the vehicle got a discreet call. Someone from the Tonight Show encouraged the owner of the car to create an entry so that they could pick a local winner with a really funny-looking car. Conclusion: Shenanigans abound!

To add insult to injury, the actual blowing up of the winning car was really lame! It didn’t EXPLODE at all. It just kid of popped and then was engulfed in flames. Here’s the video of the “Explosion:

For the record I should probably mention that I am not a disgruntled contest entrant. I did not enter a video into the Conan Contest and I have no stake in this unsavory affair.