I’m With Coco – Save Conan O’Brien Rally : Comedy News

The events of the last few weeks in late night TV land between Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno (and every other late night host with a gag writer) have been absolutely insane, truly unprecedented.

Sure, that could have a lot to do with the power of social networking (believe me – had Letterman had Twitter support back in 93, we wouldn’t even be writing about this right now) but none the less, it’s all been pretty hilariously amazing.

Events to another turn for the strange, this time, not even on TV… but on the streets of the USA. That’s right, the infamous I’M WITH COCO rally!

Here’s a quick run-down of events from Tonight Show insider Aaron Bleyaert who was on the scene…

Once again, we’d like to remind everyone that there are things out there that are REALLY important right now – actual news, and actual tragedy.

Our good friend Ben Stiller has a charity called “StillerStrong” that is donating 100% of its proceeds to the crisis in Haiti, and we urge everyone to donate what they can: $5, $1, whatever – no donation is too small. These people are in life threatening circumstances, and they desperately need our help. Thanks!

In other news, today here in LA there was an “I’m with Coco” Rally planned for noon. Now, I have gotten up every day for the past … 5 months… and been greeted with sunshine. Not only sunshine, but glaring, blinding, not a single freaking cloud in the entire sky, sunshine.

However, today when I woke up, it was to the sound of A TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR THE LIKES OF WHICH GOD NOR MAN HAS EVER SEEN. It was that kind of rain that just seems silly: There’s no way that much water could ever spill down from the heavens.

It was silly rain. Biblical, end of the world 2012 type stuff. I expected to see John Cusack running around over acting – THAT’S HOW HARD IT WAS RAINING, GUYS.

And you awesome Conan fans were unfazed. UN. FAZED.

Hundreds of people showed up outside of Universal Studios today to show their support for Conan. I’m not exaggerating. Hundreds of cold, soaking wet, cheering fans. Holy moses.

There was a flurry of horns from cars passing by showing their support; It was the picture of crazy insanity and unfettered fun: Broken umbrellas littered the streets; dudes in running shorts and orange body paint ran around screaming their heads off; someone from Funny or Die was dressed up as the (waterlogged) Masturbating Bear; fire engines kept driving by with their lights flashing and horns honking; “I’m with Coco” shirts were EVERWHERE; and on and on.

Around 1pm or so, LaBamba got driven out in a specially made “Popemobile” to serenade the LaBamba blew on the horn a bit, waved to the crowd, “acted” confused (I think he didn’t understand how plexiglass worked and why he wasn’t getting wet), and generally lifted everyone’s spirits.

Shortly thereafter, writer Deon Cole ran out and with the cry “let’s get into the thick of it!” jumped into the middle of everybody (people started chanting “Deon! Deon!”); and generally mixing it up! It was super awesome).

And shortly after that… Conan O’Brien himself jumped out of a white van, and started jogging up the street towards Gate 2 and our building!!

It was like The Beatles dropped out of the sky holding the Jonas Brothers on their shoulders – everyone went CRAZY and ran with Coco up the street and into Gate 2!

Then, the weirdest thing happened: Just as Conan started running up the street, THE RAIN STOPPED. It was magical. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life; the cops blocked off lanes of traffic as everyone cheered and screamed and jumped up and down and blue sky actually peeked through the thick dark clouds and I almost expected the booming voice of Ed Harris to come rolling out of the clouds like in that part at the end of The Truman Show.

Anyway, Conan ran up the street, into the entrance way to Gate 2, and then inside the building, as the people stopped and chanted outside… Moments later the screams started again when Conan appeared on the roof, unfurling a gigantic “I’m with Coco!” banner!

Conan grabbed a megaphone and said a few words; he thanked everyone for coming out, etc. Then, as if things could possibly get any more awesome, he announced that there was free pizza! People went INSANE. My favorite chant of the whole day was then: “Conan stopped the rain! Conan stopped the rain!”

As the pizza got passed around, Andy took the megphone and cracked everybody up; then Pierre said a few words, Max came out to massive cheering, then Sweeney. Andy then took back the mic to introduce… Jordan Schlansky (I tried to get people to boo and chant “weirdo! weirdo!” but it didn’t really catch on).

All in all, it was a super fun and fantastic experience. Again, THANK YOU to everyone who showed up in the POURING RAIN to come out and show their support. You guys really went above and beyond for us, and simple words cannot express what seeing you guys out there means to all of us here at the show.

Tonight, as we kick off what could be our last week of shows, all of us here are riding high on the wave of love from you guys… And I think you’ll be happy with what we’ve got planned to give back!

Academy Award winning director Martin Scorsese, A Single Man’s Colin Firth, and the incredible Cirque de Soleil act KOOZA are all joining us tonight; we’ll also be featuring more Craigslist offers (you can see the original posting here), we’ll be taking a look at Conan’s NEW Craiglist romance posting (that can be found right here), Conan will be discussing jobs offers that he’s gotten from other places (to vote on those go here), and much much more! Don’t miss it!!

Does anyone else feel left out, not being in the thick of the Conan O’Brien action. Seriously, did you see Conan doing the run? You don’t see Andrew O’Keeffe getting that kind of respect!

Was it the best entertainment based rally ever – or was our SAVE THE TOTE rally just as kick ass awesome?