The "I'm With Coco" Rally First Account

I attended the "I'm with Coco" rally yesterday at NBC Universal along with an estimated 500 other supporters. The rally began at noon continuing on until 4 o'clock. Mike Mitchell, the creator of the "I'm With Coco" logo was there as well, and was giving out t shirts in different sizes to supporters. Despite the huge mob, (there are no such things as lines at Conan rallies) I managed to get a t shirt for me and my sister. The rally took place in some of the worst rain L.A. has seen in years, but us ralliers pressed on for a better cause. Many, if not most people's umbrellas were destroyed, and the radicals came out in swim wear and painted orange.People had banners and signs, and many chants were going around, some of which I started including, "We want Coco, Lenos' gotta go," "Who's wet, we're wet, we're all wet for Conan!" and of course shouts of his name and nicknames. many news outelts and people frmo sites such as TMz came out to interview and film the mob. People from funnyordie.com alos came out and did a fake fight between Asian Conan and Asian Leno. Around two hours after the rally started, cast and band member La Bamba greetd the crowd in a pope-mobile like car, and later came Tonight Show blogger Aaron Bleyart and writer Deon Cole. Towards the end, Conan came out and ran along side the protestors up the street, causing a stop in he traffic on the street. miraculously, as Conan ran with the crowd towards Gate 2 of Universal, the rian that had gone on for hours stopped, and everyone screamed and ran joyously. Tonight Show staff then came and rewarded the ralliers with pizza and drinks, while Conan gave a speech thanking everyone for all the support. The grand finale was Andy standing from a top a building on hte street giving a speech, and finally Conan at the edge of the roof waving with a large banner of his "I'm With Coco" logo hung on the building, and the crowd below.

Later that day the Tonight Show's blogger Aaron Bleyart blogged about the event and saying the firts 40 commentors and attendees of the event would receive "I'm wet for conan" buttons, which is sure to be a collectors Item in no time. Unfortunaterly, the future for Conan at the Tonight Show still looks grim, and the New York Post and TMZ report that this will be Conan's last week on television with NBC, but nothing has been confirmed. The fans and rallies knew this, but we all came out anyway. The general consensus was that even though Conan may be getting booted and we can't change that, its still incredibly important that we all came out and showed our support, and stuck it to NBC who didn't give him the chance and didn't believe in him.

For videos and more pictures of the rally, go to these links:

http://www.tmz.com/2010/01/18/live-conan-obrien-rally-protest-the-tonight-show-im-with-coco-nbc-jeff-zucker-supporters-facebook/

http://www.tmz.com/2010/01/18/conan-obrien-photo-picture-protest-nbc-jay-leno/

http://www.undertheradarmag.com/galleries/im_with_coco_-_conan_obrien_rally/%2072157623114797997 (I'm actually in one of these pictures! :D)