US comedian Jon Stewart is pictured in this undated publicity shot.

It was to be a fundraising event like no other. A small high school in northern Utah announced that it had managed to book Jon Stewart arguably America's most famous television comedian, and the man who presented this year's Oscars ceremony to appear at its annual dinner this Thursday.

After months of excited planning, 700 tickets were sold at US$50 each, and the school even produced a special invitation video on DVD, featuring Stewart's image. "The buzz around town is that tables are going quickly," the voiceover intoned.

That was until a local newspaper reporter called to check the story with the comedian's publicist.

Now the buzz around town is a little different. The school had accidentally booked Jon A Stewart, a 39-year-old part-time wrestler and former motivational speaker from Illinois.

"Very often I get e-mails intended for Jon Stewart from Comedy Central that are mailed to me," the wrong Jon Stewart said in a TV appearance after the gaffe was revealed. "And the first reaction, and the first response that I or my assistant make is: Do you have the right Jon Stewart?"' But the staff at the DaVinci Academy in Ogden, Utah, assured him that they did.

One person from the school told the local KSL-TV channel the staff had found what they thought was the famous Jon Stewart's Web page. "When you click on the link, it doesn't send you to a Web page, it goes to an email. The e-mail led to conversations. Conversations led to negotiations. Pretty soon we're all excited, we've got Jon Stewart."

"It's been a whirlwind ... but the community has really rallied around," Debbie Legge, president of the school's board of directors, was quoted as saying. "It's not about celebrities. It's about kids and helping them get a good education."

The jazz and symphonic wind ensembles from a local university will perform instead, provided school officials have got the right people this time.

(China Daily 04/18/2006 page6)