He then paused and slowly spoke about the Kennedy Center staff worried about their future. “I am eternally grateful for their selfless dedication to art,” he said to the roar and 25 seconds of standing ovation. O'Brien joked, “That's big.”
But the heart of his speech was the enthusiastic and serious consideration of what Twain represented. O'Brien said Twain was “alive today, energetic and vital”, citing his novels and his career as a travel performer. He believes that Twain’s enduring power stems from his core principles, which shapes his comedy.
“First of all, Twain hates bullies,” he said. He filled his work with them and made readers hate them. Twain was allergic to hypocrisy and annoying racism, sympathized with former enslaved people struggling during the reconstruction, immigrant Chinese workers in California and European Jews fleeing anti-Semitism.
O'Brien paused and said some people might be wondering what this has to do with comedy. “It's about comedy,” he said thrilledly. “I love all my life-long comedy, which is self-criticism, shrinking and dedicated to claims that we all have flaws, absurdity and troubles.”
When O'Brien left The Tonight Show in 2010, refusing to agree to move his time slot back to half an hour (making room for Jay Leno), he spoke directly to the audience with humor and stupidity, but also in the new register. He told them never to be cynical, it's everywhere.
The tribute to Twain has a similar serious tone. O'Brien's harlequin always has a moral foundation, a prudent commitment to make themselves jokes in ways that emphasize our shared humanity. He leans here. When O'Brien describes Twain's confidence in travel (quoting him to say “the serious intentions behind his performance abroad”) you can find at the travel show “Conan O'Brien has to go.”
