NO COMMERCIALS, NO MERCY: I will no longer complain about the Kennedy Center's selections for the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, because they have clearly given up on trying to make it an award recognizing lifetime achievement in comedy. After honoring folks like Richard Pryor, Carl Reiner, Bob Newhart and Neil Simon in its first decade and George Carlin and Bill Cosby more recently, they've now gone to honoring Tina Fey in 2010 and, for 2011, Will Ferrell?
I'm sure they can do a nice tv show with tributes and montages galore, but there's no prestige to the thing anymore. It's just a way to fill two hours on PBS. Apologies to David Letterman, Norman Lear, Eddie Murphy, Woody Allen, Carol Burnett, Mel Brooks, and Nora Ephron -- you just haven't done as much to deserve it yet, I guess.
