Conan O’Brien obtained the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Sunday evening on the John F. Kennedy Middle for the Performing Arts, drawing Sarah Silverman, Will Ferrell, David Letterman and Stephen Colbert to the middle’s most high-profile occasion since President Trump staged a hostile takeover of the place in mid-February, firing board members and declaring himself chairman.
Within the days main as much as O’Brien’s large evening, a tantalizing query loomed massive: With that many humorous folks packed into one of the contested areas within the nation, will the joke be on Trump?
The reply — as pointed jokes on the president’s expense volleyed throughout the historic room, now a entrance line of the tradition warfare — was an unequivocal sure.
When Letterman offered the prize to O’Brien on the finish of the evening, he stated, “I’m not a historian, but I believe that history will show, in history for all time, this will have been the most entertaining gathering of the resistance, ever.”
And at one other level Silverman stated to O’Brien, “I just really miss the days when you were America’s only orange … ” — ending the sentence with a colourful phrase for the exit level of the human digestive system.
The night was a take a look at for comedy, decorum, free speech and what sort of comedic excessive jinks the brand new Trump-appointed administration of the Washington heart would tolerate. Jokes abounded about whether or not the evening’s festivities could be the final for the storied award — thought-about the comedy world’s high prize. Earlier honorees have included Dave Chappelle, Adam Sandler, Letterman, Invoice Murray, Kevin Hart and distinguished Trump critic Jon Stewart.
Kennedy Middle watchers who questioned if O’Brien would deal with the Republican elephant within the room throughout his acceptance speech acquired their reply when the comic made this jab: “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.”
O’Brien’s oblique however scathing feedback about Trump echoed his method as host of the Academy Awards this month, the place he lobbed his Trump zinger with out talking the president’s title.
The Mark Twain prize was conceived of in 1997 as comedy’s reply to the Oscars and Grammys, and Richard Pryor obtained the inaugural award in 1998. The ceremony is usually a humorous, feel-good love fest — with comedians who care about different comedians handing out the large award. Jerry Seinfeld celebrated Julia Louis-Dreyfus when she received in 2018; O’Brien was there to roast his buddy Sandler in 2023.
Politics are usually not entrance and heart, though it isn’t unprecedented for the winner to make a loaded remark. When Stewart received in 2023, he stated: “Comedy doesn’t change the world. We’re the banana peel in the coal mine. When a society is under threat, comedians are the ones who get sent away first. It’s just a reminder to people that democracy isn’t the threat. Authoritarians are the threat to comedy, to art, to music, to thought, to poetry, to progress, to all those things.”
In 2025, politics have change into the first dialog concerning the Kennedy Middle after Trump fired each appointee made by former President Biden. The brand new board put in Trump as chairman and named his ally Ric Grennell as the middle’s interim president after firing longtime President Deborah Rutter.
It was Rutter who lauded O’Brien’s choice for the Mark Twain prize when it was first introduced in January. In an announcement she referred to as the late-night host and globe-trotting comic “a master of invention and reinvention, consistently pushing the envelope in search of new comedic heights.”
O’Brien respectfully tipped his hat to Rutter in the course of the ceremony, saying, “My thanks to the people who invited me here, several months ago: David Rubenstein and Deborah Rutter. I don’t know why they aren’t here tonight. I lost Wi-Fi in January. I’m guessing they’re in traffic.”
O’Brien is not any stranger to the Trump joke. In 2018, when he was internet hosting his eponymous speak present on TBS, he made enjoyable of Trump for not watching his personal impeachment hearings.
“Today the new evidence against President Trump was called ‘damning,’ and some say this could end his presidency,” O’Brien stated throughout his opening monologue, earlier than appearing flustered and saying, “No, wait, that joke was from two years ago.”
After getting a spherical of applause, O’Brien stored riffing in his signature having-too-much-fun-despite-himself fashion.
“That joke is also from one year ago, and six months ago,” he stated. “We’ve used that cue card, like, 15 times.”
