With Thursday’s announcement of Conan O’Brien‘s 30-city tour, the former late-night comedian is fully embracing his online fan base, Team Coco.
Conan O’Brien’s tour poster uses an image created earlier this year by Mike Mitchell, a Los Angeles artist, in support of O’Brien.The official poster for the tour reuses the image made famous on the Internet of Mr. O’Brien, orange hair aflame, in front of an American flag. The image was produced by Mike Mitchell, an artist in Los Angeles, as a show of support for Mr. O’Brien when NBC tried in January to move “The Tonight Show” with him as host to 12:05 a.m. Within days, the image and its message, “I’m with Coco,” were a viral sensation, inspiring dozens of pro-Conan groups on Facebook. Several of Mr. O’Brien’s employees even made the image their Facebook profile photo.
Now they have formally adopted the image as their own. Days after Mr. O’Brien signed off of “The Tonight Show” on Jan. 22, one of the comedian’s producers contacted Mr. Mitchell and said that Mr. O’Brien’s camp wanted the “Coco” illustration to be the emblem of a nationwide tour it was planning.
“They wanted it to be the main image,” Mr. Mitchell recalled in an e-mail message Thursday. “They are all such fans of the ‘I’m with Coco’ poster and what it means to everyone.”
Mr. Mitchell met with Mr. O’Brien’s executive producer, Jeff Ross, about a month ago, to talk through a licensing deal.
“Apparently Conan wanted to get me on board for it — obviously I was honored,” Mr. Mitchell said. He said he retained the rights to the widely distributed image; Mr. O’Brien’s team will use it for the tour and for some merchandise sales.
Mr. O’Brien has set up an online presence on Twitter and at TeamCoco.com. His representatives do not own ConanOBrien.com, so TeamCoco could become his primary Web site. The site currently promotes the tour, and says it is “Copyright © 2010 Team Coco Inc.”
Asked about compensation for the image, Mr. Mitchell said “a fair deal was made for both parties.”
Mr. Mitchell said Mr. O’Brien called to thank him for creating the image. He recalled Mr. O’Brien’s joking that “I love anything with my face on it, and CONAN in huge bold letters.”
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