Last week I posted about NBC’s ridiculous proposal to move The Tonight Show from 11:30 to 12:05 to better accommodate Leno and his fat face. I wanted to touch base after watching several late night talk show hosts’ monologues on Gawker.TV.
Obviously a huge mix-up like this would affect a lot of people on NBC. I can’t comprehend why a network that just moved a good portion of a loyal 17-year staff across the country would just can them after 7 months. Now technically, they never talked about firing Conan or his staff, but it might be happening since Conan refused the 12:05 slot. And with good reason! A show starting after midnight is not tonight! Sixty years of a pattern becomes not only routine, but tradition and somehow Leno is worth all this terrible aggravation and complete disregard to an entire Tonight Show staff?
Despite the ridiculous decision making at NBC, fans of Conan are outraged. A petition has been going around online to be sent to NBC to rethink their executive choice at changing programming times, with an impressive amount of electronic signatures. The Conan support team, “I’m With CoCo” has organized several rallys at various NBC studios around the United States, of course including the actual Tonight Show Studio. Are these acts of fandom too much? I don’t think so, but then again I’m almost too passionate about most things. I’ll be in attendance at the rally today, covering it for Re:Generator and supporting my favorite comedian and talk show host. Long live COCO!
