Tina Fey Acceptance Speech | 2010 Mark Twain Prize

[Applause] God! Listening to all of these speeches and performances for the last two hours I cannot help but feel grateful that I put a bag of pretzels in my purse [laughter] I want to thank everyone involved with the Kennedy Center or as it will soon be known the tea party, bowling alley, and rifle range [laughter] Can get about nine lanes in here... I want to thank everyone at WETA and PBS not just for televising this event but for showing the Benny Hill show so much when I was a kid [laughter] I don't know how that qualified to be on PBS, we may never know. [laughter] I promise to put this award in a place of honor to make sure that my daughter does not pretend it is Barbie's older husband [laughter] who lost his body in an accident [laughter] I never dreamed that I would receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor mostly because my style is so typically Austrian. [laughter] I never thought I would even qualify for the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor I mean maybe the Nathaniel Hawthorne Prize for Judgmental Nature [laughter] Or the Judy Blume Award for Awkward Puberty [laughter] or the Harper Lee prize for small bodies of work. [laughter] But never this. And yet I hope that like Mark Twain a hundred years from now people will see my work and think, "Wow, that is actually pretty racist." [laughter] [applause] Apparently I'm only the third woman ever to receive this award and I'm so honored to be number two or with Lily Tomlin and Whoopi Goldberg but I do hope that so that women are achieving at a rate these days that we can stop counting what number they are at things yes I was like yeah yes I was the first female head writer at Saturday Night Live and yes I was only the second woman ever to be pregnant while on the show and now tonight I am the third female recipient of this prize I would love to be the fourth woman to do something but I just don't see myself married to Lauren I'm so grateful to my friends who came here tonight to perform some people came all the way from Los Angeles and I know that you were all very busy people with families and it really it means so much to me to know that you care about show business more than you do about them I want to thank Alec Baldwin for not coming tonight I already have a reputation as a liberal elite lunatic I don't need that guy follow me Jonnie huffington post's actually i do want to thank alec genuinely for staying in New York tonight to continue to shoot 30 rock so that I could be here so Thank You Alec I love you I'm not gonna get emotional tonight because I am a stone-cold bitch but but I want to thank my family they say that's funny people often come from a difficult childhood or a troubled family so to my family I say they're giving me the Mark Twain prize for American humor what did you animals do to me I know my mother and father are so proud of me tonight so this is probably a good time to tell them I'm putting you both in a home we'll talk about it later I met my husband Jeff when we were both in Chicago and I had short hair with a perm on top and I would wear oversized denim shorts overalls and that is how I know our love is real at some point in the future our daughter Alice will will find a DVD of this broadcast or I don't know download it into the subdermal iPhone in her eyelids I don't know how far in the future we're talking about but I hope that it will make her laugh and I hope it will explain to her why her parents looked so tired all the time the one person without whom I really would not be here tonight except of course my mother who is pretty sure she delivered me even though she had a lot of Twilight sleep the other one person is Lorne Michaels in 1997 I flew from Chicago to New York to have a job interview for a writing position at Saturday Night Live and I was hopeful because I had heard the show was looking to diversify which by the way only in comedy is a know BD n't white girl from the suburbs and diversity candidate but I remember you know I came from my job interview and the only decent clothes that I had at the time Lauren's right was I had a pair of black pants and a sweater from contempo casuals and I went to the security guard at the elevator at 30 Rockefeller Plaza and I said I'm here to see Loren Michaels and I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of my mouth I'm here to see Lorne Michaels and I went up to the 17th floor and to have my meeting with Loren and the only thing anyone had told me about meeting with Loren having a job in the interview they said whatever you do do not finish his sentences a girl he knew in Chicago had done that and she felt like it had cost her the job and so whatever you do don't finish his senses and I was there and I really didn't want to blow it and Loren said so you're from and it just was hanging there so you're from and fun that couldn't take any more and I said Pennsylvania I'm from Pennsylvania a suburb of Philadelphia just as Lauren finished his thought and said Chicago and I thought that's it I blew it and I don't remember anything else about the meeting because I just kept staring at him thinking this is the guy from The Beatles check I can't believe that I'm in his office and you know I could have never have guessed that a couple years later I would be sitting in that office until 2:00 3:00 4:00 in the morning thinking if this meeting doesn't end I'm gonna kill this Canadian bastard the last time that I was in Washington was in 2004 to take this life magazine cover photo with John McCain and Senator McCain gave my husband and me a tour of the Senate and we all spent a lovely busy afternoon together and I have it on good authority that this picture of Senator McCain and myself has been hanging in his office by his desk since 2004 and he has been looking at it every day since 2004 getting ideas so guess what I'm saying is this whole thing might be my fault I would be a liar and an idiot if I didn't thank Sarah Palin for helping get me here tonight my partial resemblance and her crazy voice are the two luckiest things that have ever happened to me all kidding aside I'm so proud to represent American humor I am proud to be American I am proud to make my home in the not real America and I am most proud that even during trying times like an orange alert or a bad economy or a contentious election that we as a nation retain our sense of humor anyway I don't want to go on and on because I know we still have to talk about the other four nominees so thank you

Channel: The Kennedy Center

Views: 384,852

Keywords: the kennedy center, kennedy center, john f kennedy center for the performing arts, performing arts, washington d.c., Mark Twain, Mark Twain prize, humor, Carl Reiner, comedy, comedian, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin, Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, Neil Simon, Billy Crystal, George Carlin, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Ellen DeGeneres, Carol Burnett, Jay Leno, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, David Letterman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Id: M826uPUNCro

Length: 8min 24sec (504 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 01 2019