Full spoilers for Conan O’Brien: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, a Netflix recording of a very prestigious and very insane event.
Disclaimer: This will be a long one. I have time to make up for and much to say on this topic.

Conan O’Brien: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor(2025) stars Conan O’Brien, John Mulaney, Will Ferrell, Nikki Glaser, Bill Burr, Kumail Nanjiani, Andy Richter, Sarah Silverman, Stephen Colbert, Sean Evans, Tracey Morgan, Reggie Watts, Adam Sandler, David Letterman, Fred Armisen, Will Forte, and Paul Rudd.

The Synopsis
Comedy stars unite to honor Conan O’Brien as he receives the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Background
Originally I was going to throw this one out here because I was working on Finals and about to graduate and I needed to focus. Then I was going to just slap this together because I was packing and getting ready to move. Now I’m well behind and needed something quick to throw out and prove I’m still alive and invested in blogging. Thankfully for me, Netflix dropped a wonderful recording of a wonderful man receiving a long overdue award, just as the longevity and stability of the organization giving the award comes into question.

I don’t know if it’s ever directly come up in any post I’ve written, but you could most likely guess based on my sense of humor and general personality, that I am a Conan O’Brien fan. I love Conan O’Brien. I believe it was around high school that I became obsessed with all the weird shit he does. I can’t remember the exact video or skit. But there is something incredibly special about that man, which I believe John Mulaney even references during his segment in this special.

Conan O’Brien, despite being a very rich man who is now 62 years old and has been in the industry for several decades, remains something of an underdog. Someone that people love to root for. And as is said in the special, he’s not an underdog. Not anymore, not really. But it’s what he represents, the idea that this weird hyper-intelligent man could have a talk show where bears masturbate, where Tom Selleck suffocates his mustache to death and dogs repeatedly shoot people out of nowhere. He is the ultimate counter-cultural comedian. He comes from the same DNA that birthed David Letterman and Steve Martin. He continually proved over and over again that you could be truly silly and stupid in a smart way. His comedy speaks to so many people because it is truly special.

So it is wonderful to watch something like this, to see everyone applaud him and his legacy. Maybe it’s not fun for someone else to see a rich white comedian get celebrated by a bunch of other rich comedians in this day and age. I can completely understand that. I’m quite frankly surprised by some of the people that received this award before he did. No offense to Kevin Hart or Adam Sandler who are both deserving (And some offense to Jay Leno, we Conan fans still hold the grudge for no real reason), it’s just long overdue that Conan win this particular award. But this was possibly the greatest time to celebrate a silly man and his silly jokes.

General Thoughts
– This special is feature length. I’ve never seen one of these on Netflix before, so I don’t know how long they typically are.
– And, as we’re told up top, this was recorded almost immediately after Donald Trump took control of the Kennedy Center and vowed to massively change everything. So there are many jokes throughout about the current administration and the fact that this prize may not be around much longer. And that’s completely fair. Yes, these are rich comedians, they are not the minority or in trouble, but the people who work at the Kennedy Center and uphold the values it’s meant to espouse are scared, and rightfully so.
– And who better to open the show after that, than Conan’s most wholesome character, the Masturbating Bear.
– Conan O’Brien had a talk show of some variety for thirty-two years. I’ve been aware of his comedy for maybe seven of those. I dedicated more time to watching his comedy than I did to passing high school and college. I will never be able to watch it all. But so much of the bits I love are referenced here, and, unsurprisingly, some I’d never heard of.
– And though I call myself a massive fan, I don’t listen to every episode of his podcast. So you can disregard much of what I say.
– Another great touch is that the whole show is emceed by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Though all his bits are pre-recorded so Robert Smigel, the voice of Triumph, can sit in the audience.
– The first special guest is none other than the legendary John Mulaney, whose comedy I adore. Shout out to Ella, my good friend who introduced me to his Netflix specials, and my good friend Zach, who will be going with me to see him perform live in Hinckley this summer. The best jokes from his segment are as follows:

1. When I heard Conan O’Brien was receiving the 2025 Mark Twain Prize, I was reminded of something that David Berkowitz, AKA the Son of Sam said, when he was apprehended on a hot Yonkers night in 1977. “Hey. What took you guys so long?”
2. Being a Conan fan since the early days has been so stressful. There’s always a goddamn petition to sign or some kind of protest to save him. It’s like being the fan of a rec center in a gentrified neighborhood that developers want to tear down.
3. Conan has been clear that he moved on with wisdom and with grace, meanwhile all his radicalized acolytes, we’re just left wandering around the country jaded and paranoid that the people paying us are actually our enemies. Conan was like “Don’t be cynical” and then collected a cool $50 million.
4. I am reminded of a quote that is often attributed to Mark Twain, though many claim it was first said by the Son of Sam. Historians still debate its origins, but either way, it’s apt for tonight. So again, unclear who said this, Mark Twain or the Son of Sam. “Dear Jimmy Breslin, this is the Son of Sam. Don’t think that because you haven’t heard from me for a while, that I went to sleep. No. Rather, I am still here, like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty. Hungry. Seldom stopping to rest. Anxious to please Father Sam. I love my work, and now the void has been filled. Yours in murder, Mr. Monster… AKA the Son of Sam.”

– Notable absences: A meaningful acknowledgement or mention of Norm MacDonald. An appearance from Steve Martin, Martin Short, Bill Hader, Dana Carvey, Tig Notaro, Jeff Goldblum, Kevin Nealon, or some of his other most beloved guests and real-life friends. Many of these people appear in archived clips, so that’s fine. There’s a lot to cover.
– There’s a wonderful return from Conan’s house band, the Max Weinberg Seven, who score the night.
– Will Ferrell makes a joke about how Conan promised when Will won the Twain prize that he would never accept the Twain prize, in Will’s honor, and freaks out multiple times, which is classic Will Ferrell.
– Nikki Glaser, a comedian I’ve not seen much of, but I enjoy her comedy in this and his podcast, pays tribute to many of Conan’s ridiculous comedy bits like the Walker, Texas Ranger lever and has a long conversation with a character I’d not seen before called The Interruptor played by long-time Conan writer and performer Brian Stack. She also tells a joke about her dad accidentally showing her his sex tape, which is quite funny.
– Bill Burr makes light of the pale ginger nature that he shares with Conan and fires compliments his way, than doubles down on the Catholic instinct to avoid those compliments at all cost. I like Bill Burr, his angry rants on Conan’s show are always delightful.
– We don’t get to hear Triumph’s introduction for Kumail Nanjiani, instead we’re treated to more backstage footage.
– I’m a Kumail Nanjiani fan, I just don’t think he’s always utilized correctly. And sometimes his performances in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Only Murders in the Building (He wasn’t bad but he didn’t bring much to the role) overshadow his brilliance in Silicon Valley or The Big Sick, which is his story.
– Anyway, he immediately wins me over by analyzing whether Conan deserves to win the award using charts and statistics. He points out that Conan is known for his influence on the comedic stylings of The Simpsons despite only writing three episodes, which is fair. You don’t often hear that. They’re good episodes, and I think he was a producer for a season or two, but he did less than people think. Though I suspect an episode like “Cape Feare” still has his fingerprints all over it.
– Next we get Andy Richter, the quintessential TV sidekick, who is truly funny in his own right. There are thousands of compilations of his comebacks and one-liners. And we get another self-effacing dig about Andy’s career:

It’s gratifying to realize how far we’ve made it. I mean, you’re receiving the Mark Twain prize. And I have one of the top five podcasts on the Team Coco network.

– I do wish Andy was there for longer than the minuteish he spends on stage, but they use him to segue into a melding of two of the Conan show’s most notorious bits, the first one being a still photo of Bill Clinton with moving lips. When this starts, Conan is very confused. He spends the whole time asking who this is. I was confused too when I first watched this.
– Though now that I know who the voice is, I can recognize him, and, I’m sad to say, I also recognize his mouth. I’ve spent most of the last four years staring at this man’s mouth, and I shouldn’t be surprised to hear him doing a bad Bill Clinton impression, which becomes a bad Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, and finally, an impression of long-deceased British actor James Mason, who apparently spends his days in Hell talking to the Devil about Conan O’Brien, a man he never met.
– Are you lost? I’m not surprised. James Mason says that with advancements in AI, we’re now able to see what it would have looked like if James Mason had been on Conan’s show, and he has a clip to show. Suddenly the still image of James Mason disappears and it’s revealed that the mouth we’ve been watching belongs to none other than famous prankster Paul Stephen Rudd. And the clip he has to show is actually a scene from the film Mac & Me.

The Dumbest Long-Running Joke Ever
Now, for background if you don’t know and I haven’t mentioned it. Paul Rudd doesn’t like promoting his movies. He’s always felt that it’s shallow and weird and he likes to go on talk shows just to have fun.
So in 2001 when he was on Conan’s show to promote the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. finale, he claimed to have a clip to show, which just wound up being a scene from a McDonald’s sponsored E.T. ripoff called Mac & Me where a boy loses control of his wheelchair on a hill and plummets off the side and into a large body of water. At which point an alien pops up from the nearby grass and looks guilty. After the clip played, Paul Rudd acted oblivious and said “As you can see, there’s a lot going on. Matthew Perry was in a wheelchair.” The audience loved it.

So for twenty years, with only a couple of exceptions, Paul Rudd has kept this bit going. He has showed this clip dozens of times. When he stopped surprising Conan he would show the bit once, insist he wouldn’t show it again, and then play it a second time. When he came on to promote Ant-Man he got somebody to edit Ant-Man into the clip. When he promoted Living With Yourself he edited it so there was two aliens. Initially studios were not on board with this but they realized this gets better press than him actually showing a clip of their movie.

During the last week of Conan’s TBS show, Paul crashed Bill Hader’s interview to do the bit again, only to bring it back the last time he was on Conan’s podcast. He spent five minutes telling Conan about an entirely fake narrative podcast he was making with Ken Marino only to surprise him with the audio of a mainly visual clip. This is one of the only times he genuinely surprised Conan, I believe.

This bit has gone on for so long and transcended their interviews. In 2014, three time Paralympic gold medalist and Conan fan Alana Nichols came on the show and said she had a clip of her achievements as an Olympic skier, only to play that very same clip. What a legendary move.

Anyway, back to it.

More General Thoughts
– I’m about to transcribe what Paul says but you should watch this. I would like to question I suppose why you’re here? I’m here to talk about a silly joke cameo and break down several short congratulatory stand-up bits about one man. But why are you here reading my hastily written and overly late account of these bits, especially when you can just go on Netflix and watch it? I don’t want you to leave, I just want you to analyze your actions a little. Hmm.

Paul Rudd, Filmed in a mini movie theater: Hi, Conan. Ugh, sorry, it’s just getting harder and harder to surprise you with that dumb clip. I just want to say how happy I am that you are the recipient of this year’s Mark Twain Prize for comedy. I think you’re the best. I love you, man. And congratulations. Oh…
(Everything after this point is maybe still sincere but it’s said with that classic tone he uses when he’s doing a bit, also he directs all this to a random second camera)
And keep doing what you do. Hmm? The world needs it now more than ever. Deal? See you at the movies.
(Paul now turns back to the movie screen and we watch from this second camera angle as he watches the clip again, fully shocked at the events that unfold.)

– Anyway, now Sarah Silverman is here(Love her), and it should be said that throughout the whole show Conan is sitting next to his wife Liza and his two children, Neve and Beckett. Got it?
– Now Sarah Silverman makes many self-deprecative jokes, she references the time Conan’s team got her to play Hitler for a sketch, and makes a joke at Donald Trump’s expense. All of this is leading up to a callback that may be even better than the Mac & Me clip.
– On YouTube you can find a clip on Conan’s channel of her taking a photo of Conan’s mouth and placing her phone in front of her crotch like his mouth was a vagina. She complains that the network pixelated that photo of his mouth, and rectifies that here. Because every single person in the audience, in this theater, has a photo of Conan’s mouth under their seat and is instructed to place those photos on their crotch. It is truly horrifying. Great job.
– Fred Armisen does a Documentary Now! bit as the Dean of Harvard so we can see clips of all the truly dumb things this man has ever done, paired with Armisen saying things about how Harvard students should be mature and intelligent and reserved.
– This is followed by Stephen Colbert reminding everyone that he sent Conan a writer’s packet to try and work on his show multiple times, while doing a five wing mini Hot Ones episode with Sean Evans. This surely has never been done at the Kennedy Center before, and it is truly ridiculous, but isn’t that fitting? He also brings his packet again, on floppy disc, which is wonderful.
– I don’t have much to say beyond saying what is happening in the special, but I will say I recently tried Da Bomb hot sauce, which was truly terrible, and then several weeks later, I ate Da Bomb again, because I am quite the idiot. I’ll talk about this more in an upcoming post, but don’t do that.
– Next up is the legendary Tracy Morgan, who I’m a huge fan of. He makes a few jokes about how different they are and how pale he is, but mainly he is sincere and lovely. This segues into behind the scenes footage of Conan and his writers plotting out the Oscar’s, which then segues into what I feel is the only weak part of the night.
– No offense to Reggie Watts, he seems really nice and he is funny, but he does a weird and slightly cringey backtrack song and then gets really sincere and talks about how much he loves Conan and tears up. I haven’t seen any clips of him on Conan or watched his comedy that much so it just didn’t work for me.
– And it was unfair of the people who planned the order of the speakers to have him go on before Adam Sandler, who has the whole audience participate in a long bit about Conan’s physical appearance, sexual history, and general weirdness versus how awesome Adam Sandler is.
– I’m not the world’s biggest Adam Sandler fan, I haven’t seen most of his movies and I’m not a huge fan of body humor or Rob Schneider. I was also traumatized by the movie Click as a child. But he is undeniably cool and funny, and he tells maybe the best joke of the night:

Conan looks like if one of the Little Rascals grew up in Chernobyl.

– And now it’s time for David Letterman, who receives a standing ovation, and fair enough. He does say in his speech that history will show this will be the most entertaining gathering of the resistance, which I do think is somewhat exaggerated. You’re talking about how the guy sucks and is ruining America, mostly vaguely, but what are you really resisting? Because I would know better than you, industry legend David Letterman.
– We’re almost at the end here, because Conan’s on stage, and I can’t do his words justice here so I’m not going to try to write out any of his speech. Not because I’m lazy but because it’s brilliant and people should watch it.
– I will mention his parents both passed three months before this event, which sucks.
– And I will pay credit to one line, which is my favorite part:

I wanna thank all the insanely generous and talented speakers who flew to DC on my behalf for this evening. I will never recover from this. It is what my people call a mitzvah. (Conan O’Brien is not Jewish) My people borrow stuff we like.

– The rest of his speech is equally brilliant and deserves a watch. In true Conan fashion, in between saying eloquent and fantastic things about our nation and why we tell jokes, he uses a professional livestock auctioneer to very quickly rattle off everyone he needs to thank, and speaks to Mark Twain, who is in the audience.
– Now Mark Twain does look a bit like comedian Will Forte, but I think that’s probably not relevant. Twain professes his love to Conan and joins him on stage with a gaggle of many other Mark Twains who all hug each other while smooth jazz plays. And then Adam Sandler comes out and plays guitar with Conan while all the Twains dance to “Rockin in the Free World”.
– In short it is ridiculous, sappy, sincere, weird, stupid, confusing, and hilarious. I am over a month late to saying something about this and this thing is too damn long. I am under no illusions that this is poignant or interesting. But I love this man. I love what he stands for, what Mark Twain stands for. And though these are uncertain times and scary and weird, I continue to take my cues from the man who looks at that world and continues to make dumb jokes that only a very intelligent man could make. Dumb jokes that call out through the dark to idiots and weirdos everywhere and make them believe that some day they, too, could make people laugh with their weird shit. Thank you, Conan.

Overall Rating: 10/10(This kind of thing is literally made for me. I wish I’d seen it live.)
Rudd Rating: 10/10(You can’t get any Ruddier than Rudd being Rudd.)

Next time: A shorter post about a newer thing(Released on time hopefully) and, presumably, some thoughts about male friendship dynamics. See you then! And watch this. It’s very important you watch this, if not the whole thing. This.