As the opening text onscreen reminds us, the Kennedy Center that awarded Conan O’Brien the Mark Twain Prize in American Humor for 2025 was not the same Kennedy Center by the time O’Brien and his funny friends showed up in D.C. to fete him this spring, as President Donald Trump announced an overhaul of the center’s artistic mission and installed himself as its director. Several performers with gigs at the center subsequently boycotted, but O’Brien decided to go on with the show. Turns out he had good reason to.
The Gist: The Kennedy Center has awarded The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor since 1998 to recognize comedians and people in the funny business for their impact on American society.
“For four decades, Conan O’Brien, has brought his unique blend of the smart, silly, insightful, and hilarious into our homes,” said Deborah F. Rutter, then-President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “From Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons—including the unbelievably funny monorail episode—to late night, podcasts, and all things Team Coco, Conan is a master of invention and reinvention, consistently pushing the envelope in search of new comedic heights. I look forward to honoring his immense legacy and enduring impact with an uproarious evening in the Concert Hall on March 23.” Rutter announced the prize on Jan. 16. Trump took office on Jan. 20, dismissed her days later and installed himself as head of the center.
Past Twain Prize winners Will Ferrell (2011), David Letterman (2017), and Adam Sandler (2023) showed up to honor O’Brien anyhow, along with John Mulaney, Nikki Glaser, Bill Burr, Kumail Nanjiani, Andy Richter, Stephen Colbert, Tracy Morgan, Reggie Watts a filmed bit with Fred Armisen as a Harvard dean, O’Brien’s TV band led by drummer Max Weinberg, plus appearances by past Late Night characters such as the Masturbating Bear, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (Robert Smigel), The Interrupter (Brian Stack), Paul Rudd, Will Forte as Twain, and even Hot Ones host Sean Evans.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Netflix presents this as “A Netflix Comedy Event” and not a special, so just look to past Mark Twain Prize events to see how it’s been done before. Although O’Brien’s ceremony feels substantially different to last year’s feting of Kevin Hart.
Memorable Jokes: The nods to O’Brien’s Late Night tenure all come across as both nostalgic and genuinely humorous, and perhaps even more symbolic given the political atmosphere.
Rudd somehow finding a way to still surprise O’Brien by popping up in the unlikeliest of sketches to continue his decades-long prank is a joy to behold.
But nothing compares to O’Brien’s acceptance speech, which is worth reading, listening, and watching, again and again.
“I think accepting an award named after Mark Twain is a responsibility. One cannot invoke Twain without understanding who he was and what he stood for. Now, don’t be distracted by the white suit and the cigar and the riverboat. Twain is alive, vibrant and vitally relevant today. Yes. He is America’s greatest humorist. But his enduring power springs from his core principles, principles that shaped his comedy and made him one of our greatest Americans. First and foremost, Twain hated bullies. He populated his work with abusers, such as Huck Finn’s alcoholic father, Tom Driscoll in Pudd’nhead Wilson, and he made his readers passionately hate these characters. He punched up, not down, and he deeply, deeply, emphasized with the weak. Twain was allergic to hypocrisy, and he loaded racism. Twain wrote: ‘There are many humorous things in the world, among them the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages.’ Twain empathized with the powerless in America. Former slaves struggling in Reconstruction, immigrant Chinese laborers in California, and European Jews fleeing anti-Semitism. Twain’s remedy for ignorance abbot the world around us was to travel at a time when travel was very long and very difficult. Twain circled the globe, and he wrote, ‘Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.’ Twain was suspicious of populism, jingoism, imperialism, the money-obsessed mania of the Gilded Age, and any expression of mindless American might or self-importance. Above all, Twain was a patriot in the best sense of the word. He loved America, but knew it was deeply flawed. Twain wrote, ‘Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time and your government when it deserves it.’ Some of you might be thinking, what does this have to do with comedy? It has EVERYTHING to do with comedy. Everything. The comedy I have loved all my life, comedy that is self-critical, deflating, and dedicated to the proposition that we are all flawed, absurd and wallowing in the mud together. Twain is funny and important today because his comedy is a hilarious celebration of our fears, our ineptitude, and the glorious mess of being human. When we celebrate Twain, truly see him for who he was, we acknowledge our commonality, and we move just a little closer together. So I accept this award in the spirit of humility, stupidity, inanity, irrelevance, fear, self-doubt, and profound, unceasing silliness. I thank you. It’s the honor of a lifetime. Thank you so much.”
Our Take: On his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, O’Brien asked and answered “the question of, ‘Should I go, should I not go?’” And he explained that he felt like he should honor the “old regime” who had picked him, as well as the people who worked at the Kennedy Center. “It just felt like this is not a normal event, and we all need to be on our toes and be funny, but also bring some optimism,” he said.
That they did.
The millennial comedians all reminded us just how influential O’Brien was for inspiring a generation of creatively funny kids, including Mulaney, Glaser and Nanjiani. Watts, normally an absurdist, turned sweetly sincere in thanking O’Brien for bringing him along as the opening act on Team Coco’s “The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour” years before Watts ended up being part of the late-night TV pantheon himself.
And unlike last year’s event, which felt more like a roast of Hart than a tribute, this year’s ceremony turned all of its zingers on Trump and his administration.
Mulaney joked of The Kennedy Center: “Or as it will be known next week: The Roy Cohn Pavilion for Big Strong Men Who Love Cats.” Ferrell cracked: “I’m supposed to be shutting down the Department of Education.” Burr said:“There’s something about, you know, starting and prolonging wars while crushing the working man for your own self-interest that really inspires all who gather on this fertile ground.” Silverman noted: “I just really miss the days when you were America’s only orange asshole.” And Letterman claimed: “I’m not a historian, but I believe that history will show this will have been the most entertaining gathering of the resistance ever.”
For his part, O’Brien started off his acceptance speech by remembering a time when he wasn’t so successful, sitting in an L.A. diner, two years out of college, unemployed, and only dreaming of a destiny where he could write for Letterman. He touchingly thanked his parents, “who missed witnessing this by three months. They would’ve absolutely loved this.” And he somehow remained humble yet humorous throughout. Samuel Clemens would’ve been proud. I say that because anyone with a lick of humor will be inspired watching O’Brien then or now.
Our Call: STREAM IT. As much as we all would’ve loved to see the Kennedy Center honor Catherine O’Hara (she backed out due to scheduling issues before they landed on O’Brien), in comedy, timing remains everything, and O’Brien turned out to be the comedy hero we needed right now. Watch this and understand why.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. His podcast, The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First, consists of half-hour episodes with comedians revealing their origin stories.