Comedy's biggest stars gather to toast and celebrate late-night legend Conan O'Brien as he accepts the Mark Twain Prize | dG1fWXI4cVBLVG84eUE
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00:00This honor feels very different to me. I think accepting an award named after Mark Twain is a responsibility.
00:08One cannot invoke Twain without understanding who he was and what he stood for.
00:16Now, don't be distracted by the white suit and the cigar and the riverboat.
00:20Twain is alive, vibrant, and vitally relevant today.
00:24Yes, he is America's greatest humorist, but his enduring power springs from his core principles.
00:34Principles that shaped his comedy and made him one of our greatest Americans.
00:40First and foremost, Twain hated bullies.
00:44He populated his works with abusers such as Huck Finn's alcoholic father, Tom Driscoll in Puddinand Wilson,
00:49and he made his readers passionately hate those characters.
00:52He punched up, not down, and he deeply, deeply empathized with the weak.
01:00Twain was allergic to hypocrisy, and he loathed racism.
01:12Twain wrote,
01:13There are many humorous things in the world, among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.
01:19Twain empathized with the powerless in America, former slaves struggling in Reconstruction,
01:25immigrant Chinese laborers in California, and European Jews fleeing anti-Semitism.
01:30Twain's remedy for ignorance about the world around us was to travel at a time when travel was very long and very difficult.
01:39Twain circled the globe, and he wrote,
01:41Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
01:51Twain...
01:52Twain was suspicious of populism, jingoism, imperialism, the money-obsessed mania of the Gilded Age,
02:05and any expression of mindless American might or self-importance.
02:09Above all, Twain was a patriot in the best sense of the word.
02:13He loved America, but knew it was deeply flawed.
02:18Twain wrote,
02:19Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time, and your government when it deserves it.
02:25Now...
02:27Some of you...
02:34Some of you might be thinking, what does this have to do with comedy?
02:38It has everything to do with comedy.
02:43Everything.
02:45The comedy...
02:47I have loved all my life.
02:50Comedy that is self-critical, deflating, and dedicated to the proposition
02:54that we are all flawed, absurd, and wallowing in the mud together.
03:00Twain is funny and important today
03:02because his comedy is a hilarious celebration of our fears, our ineptitude,
03:08and the glorious mess of being human.
03:12When we celebrate Twain, truly,
03:16see him for who he was,
03:18we acknowledge our commonality,
03:20and we move just a little closer together.
03:24So I accept this award
03:26in the spirit of humility,
03:31stupidity, inanity,
03:33irrelevance, fear,
03:34self-doubt,
03:36and profound, unceasing silliness.
03:40I thank you.
03:41It's the honor of a lifetime.
03:42Thank you so much.