Hilarious, Touching Moments From Conan O'Brien’s Mark Twain Prize Tribute

Get the inside preview of America’s top comedy honors show airing May 4 on Netflix

Cindy Clark Kramer,

Updated May 01, 2025

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Published March 24, 2025

/ Updated May 01, 2025

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Conan O’Brien, 61, found himself on the receiving end of an epic, two-and-a-half-hour roast-and-toast by a star-studded comedic lineup March 23 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. O’Brien was honored with the 26th Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which celebrates the contributions of comedians to American society. Richard Pryor was the first to be honored in 1998, and subsequent recipients include Whoopi Goldberg, 69, Carol Burnett, 91, Eddie Murphy, 63, Steve Martin, 79, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, 64, Adam Sandler, 58, and Dave Chappelle, 51. The concert event will stream on Netflix May 4. Here are the moments everyone will be talking about:

Tracy Morgan claimed he and Conan were birds of a feather

O'Brien's fellow Saturday Night Live veteran Tracy Morgan, 56, noted that as young boys, he and O'Brien had something else in common: "We both watched a lot of TV and old movies when we were kids." Morgan explained that his reason for staying inside and glued to the television screen was because "I didn't want to get shot," while fair-skinned O'Brien "wasn't allowed to go in the sun." After razzing him, he turned to O'Brien and said more seriously, "I appreciate all of the comedy magic you've made over the years."

Tracy Morgan on stage at the Kennedy Center.

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Between the laughter, Reggie Watts was reduced to tears

Musician and comedian Watts, 53, also got emotional while saluting O’Brien. “Conan’s been a great example to me in the industry. This guy knows how to do it. He knows how to live." O'Brien catapulted him to fame on the Conan show, and Watts is grateful. "Thank you for taking the time to trust me,” he said, tearing up.

'Hot Ones' host Sean Evans and Stephen Colbert.

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Stephen Colbert made fun of the Kennedy Center's recent change of direction

Colbert, 60, took on a “Hot Ones” challenge, a bit in which he had to answer questions while eating a spicy chicken wing. “In light of the new administration at the Kennedy Center, all of these are right wings,” he quipped. He also noted how when O’Brien first accepted the award in January, “this was a very different place. Today they announced two board members, Bashar-al-Assad and Skeletor.”

Adam Sandler pelted O'Brien with Irish jokes

Sandler, the 2023 recipient of the Mark Twain Prize, mocked the honoree in his signature fast-talking spiel, quipping that O'Brien is "so Irish his skidmarks taste remarkably like Shamrock shakes.” After the laughs died down, Sandler said, “We never thought there’d be a late-night genius again, but he came along and did it…You’re faster than all of us, you’re nicer than all of us." Speaking for many in the room, he added, "I’m just so happy.”

David Letterman

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Late-night genius David Letterman compared himself to the greatest American funnyman (or rather, to his cadaver)

Letterman, 77, who got his own Mark Twain Prize in 2018, took the stage to a thunderous standing ovation. "I believe I'm the one who looks most like Mark Twain — most like Mark Twain looks now," he joked. He hailed the quirky originality of O'Brien's show. “They took great risks. The comedy was peculiar in the best way. There was nothing like it on television.” Letterman also took a stand for comedy as an art of protest. “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."

Conan O'Brien accepts the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

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O'Brien got an ovation to rival Letterman's

After an introduction by Letterman, O’Brien took to the stage to accept the award, a brass bust of Twain. “To be handed this award by David Letterman, to be honest, is very hard for me to comprehend,” he said. O’Brien said when he was just starting out he believed his “destiny was to write for The David Letterman Show,” but at the time, his comedy career prospects seemed bleak. Had he known that in 40 years “the most prestigious award in comedy is going to be handed to me by David Letterman…I would have said, ‘Wait a minute, David Letterman is still alive?”

O’Brien went on to thank his parents, “who missed witnessing this by three months – they would have absolutely loved this," his “perpetually unimpressed” children, and "the people who invited me here several months ago, David Rubenstein and Deborah Rutter [former Kennedy Center president and Board chair]. “I don’t know why they’re not here tonight, I lost wi-fi in January.”

The laughs turned to roars and cheers when he thanked the Center’s longtime staff. "My eternal thanks to their selfless devotion to the arts." This prompted an instant standing ovation from the audience.

O'Brien gave a shout-out to the guy they named the prize after

“Accepting an award named after Mark Twain invokes a responsibility,” noted O’Brien. “He is America’s greatest humorist. Twain hated bullies [and] punched up, not down, and he deeply, deeply, empathized with the weak. Above all, Twain was a patriot in the best sense of the word.”

“When we celebrate Twain, we acknowledge our commonality and we move just a little closer together,” said O’Brien. “I thank you. It’s the honor of a lifetime.”

adam sandler holds a guitar in front of a group of people dressed as mark twain

Adam Sandler performed with a group of Mark Twain look-alikes.

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Many Mark Twains rocked out with the prizewinner clowns

The show concluded with O’Brien and Sandler both shredding on guitar on a stage full of Mark Twain clones. “Keep on rockin’ in the free world!” they sang.

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