‘I’m with CoCo’

Facebook groups, chain emails, street supports all strongly supported Conan O’Brien and “The Tonight Show.” On Jan. 12 it was announced that Jan. 22, 2010 would be O’Brien’s last show. Just seven months after O’Brien started hosting, “The Tonight Show” announced that he would no longer continue his show; NBC announced that they were going to move Jay Leno back to his spot at 10:35p.m./ 9:35c because of poor viewing numbers for his new show and move “The Tonight “Show” up to 12:05a.m./11:05p.m. central time. O’Brien felt that he had worked up to this position at 10:35p.m.

O’Brien’s last show was filled with emotion. He expressed how after 20 years with NBC, starting in 1989 with “Saturday Night Live,” he was sad to leave the network, but knows his career in comedy is not over. Although viewers’ spirits were down, O’Brien did his best to keep them up with funny lines like “We officially have one hour to steal everything in this studio.” Tom Hanks, an old friend of O’Brien’s who actually gave him the nickname “CoCo,” was a guest for the last show.

O’Brien clarified the terms of his contract with NBC stating that he cannot host another show for seven months. He proceeded with the joke, “So next week you can look forward to seeing ‘The Andy Richter Show’ with me as his sidekick.”

Many fans hate to see “The Tonight Show” with Conan O’Brien go, and the amount of support from his fans has been enormous. O’Brien noted that there were fans waiting outside the studio for his last show in the pouring rain. Other actions were taken, such as the creation of Facebook groups. The biggest group is the “I’m With CoCo” group, which boasts over 800,000 members. Among those groups of supporters were college-
aged students who are also one of the largest viewing audiences according to examiner.com. Conan O’Brien was very thankful to his entire viewing audience and all of his fans.

The show ended with wise words from O’Brien. He thanked his audience for all of their support and his staff for their hard work. Because of the large amounts of young supporters, O’Brien wanted to leave them with good advice.

“To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism. It’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”