14 DAY TRIAL // The NBC situation has been labeled anything from a disaster to a complete mess, but that doesn’t change the fact that, as it is, the network is determined to change the nightly timeslot, moving Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon out of their usual air time. O’Brien, for one, has said that he will leave if NBC insists on the change – and his fans have his back all the way with a new, “I’m with Coco” campaign.
Facebook is the place to be to show one’s support for Conan O’Brien. Currently, 79,854 fans who think NBC is treating the host as “a redheaded stepchild,” as several US media outlets put it, have joined the campaign initiated more or less as a joke by LA-based designer Mike Mitchell, as EW’s PopWatch has learned. Conan himself has reportedly heard of the campaign and has even seen the photo that promotes it (also included here, in this article), but he’s yet to go on the record with how he feels about it.
“Mitchell set out to design a campaign-style poster, which initially read ‘I’m with Conan in 2010,’ in the hopes that it would ‘maybe start a movement thing?’ A friend suggested just ‘I’m with Conan,’ and Mitchell landed on the far-catchier ‘I’m with Coco.’ It’s a slogan even Swiss Miss could be jealous of,” EW writes of how the campaign got started. As we speak, more and more fans are joining the cause and are taking to Facebook to show their support for the comedian.
“Mitchell says he’s heard from an O’Brien staffer who told him O’Brien had seen the image, and Mitchell’s hopeful that maybe the host will reach out himself. Ultimately, though, the fan-turned-iconographer just wants the comedian to land somewhere, ‘and hopefully he can bring his whole staff with him. It’s embarrassing as an Angeleno: We bring Conan all the way here [from New York] and after seven months say “never mind”?’” PopWatch further writes.
We were also telling you the other day that O’Brien broke his silence in an open letter to “The People of the Earth,” in which he explained clearly why he found NBC’s offer of have The Tonight Show moved up in the night preposterous. Also then, he hinted that he would look for another job, should the network insist on the move, though he did say out loud that, as of now, no other network has shown interest in him.