Jon Stewart: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

How you been, man?

Looks great.

Ha.

Sing it if you want.

Please welcome the recipient

of the 23rd Mark Twain Prize for American Humor,

Jon Stewart, y'all.

Thank you very much.

That's our show.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jon Stewart!

My grandmother...

It's embarrassing, to be honest with you.

We go into restaurants, and she's like,

"Hello?

Reservations for the chosen ones."

Hey, I'm Jon Stewart,

and welcome to "You Wrote It, You Watch It."

He's always been the same guy.

As long as I've known him, he's exactly the same.

Welcome to "The Daily Show," ladies and gentlemen.

Are you eating it with a fork?

A fork? Oh,

marone!

He doesn't take himself seriously.

He takes what he does seriously.

Gitmo, it's true.

President Obama's already started closing Guantanamo.

He's even put an end

to those enhanced-interrogation techniques.

Then why Gitmo still have hand up his ?

America didn't create all the corruption

that cripples Middle Eastern governments.

He became a cornerstone

for what political comedy

and news comedy is

and political satire is,

not just in the United States, but everywhere else.

What Jon's really great at is, when there's something

so negative, he always finds the positive.

Even if it's the smallest thing,

he always knows how to bring people together

in a very kind and, like, effortlessly genuine way.

And there's not a lot of people in this business

that can do that.

We hear how fragile our country is,

torn by polarizing hate,

and how it's a shame that we can't work together

to get things done.

But the truth is we do.

We work together to get things done

every damn day.

He's, like, fearless.

Like, he doesn't care about what other people think.

He's always been instrumental

in just, like, sharing your truth

and being, like, fearless.

The impact can be seen around the world.

But for me, specifically,

I just feel like both Dave and Jon

have freed me to be the comedian I need to me.

I think Jon Stewart might be the single best person

I've ever met in comedy.

He's a great, great, great man.

Announcer: Please welcome the 2019 recipient

of the Mark Twain Prize, Dave Chappelle.

You know, this might come as a surprise to many of you.

I didn't prepare a speech.

But that's not because I didn't care.

In fact, it's because I cared so much.

If you could imagine sitting down

and trying to write something

about someone that you feel so much about,

the way I feel about Jon, it's very difficult.

I won this prize two years ago,

and I imagine, Jon, this is a surreal experience.

I imagine you probably didn't even give a

till last night.

And then last night you saw all your friends gathering,

you saw everyone dressed nice,

and you realized you were still alive to see this.

It's like getting a preview to your funeral.

In our line of work, context is everything.

And me and Jon have a very unlikely friendship.

The context of that friendship happened in a comedy club

in New York City...

Jon being ten years my senior.

I was 17 the first time I saw Jon Stewart.

Right before he walked in the door,

I heard two waitresses at the club

talking about how handsome he was.

And then they go, "Oh, my God, there he goes."

And I looked over, and I said, "Eh, he's all right."

So, what happened was at night,

I would go to the Comedy Cellar,

and they'd put me on as the last guy every night.

There's six billion people in the world.

You can't make six billion anything

without some of them being very up.

Open up a bag of potato chips. What are there, 40 in there?

At least five of them are burnt and bent over

and ...

It's the slot that they give someone

that, for some reason, they think,

"Let's just see what happens to this guy."

The thing I remember, being 17 in an adult world

trying to make something of myself, is how kind he was.

People like Jon made me feel safer.

He's a friendly guy.

Now, the early part of any comedian's career

is embarrassing in hindsight

because so many of us imitate our influences

or try on different personalities

to see what works.

But Jon has been...

he's been the same

since the very first time I met him...

nice and present.

In 1999, he got "The Daily Show."

That show languished for three years before he got it.

No disrespect to Craig Kilborn, but you know what I mean?

Yuck.

It was like the body of the show was there,

but when Jon got the show, it had a soul.

It made people take notice.

And in 2002, suddenly, somehow,

he became the most popular news show on television.

Actually, I know how.

He had a good lead-in with "Chappelle's Show."

And in that context, it was post-9/11.

In my career, it was the first time

that I can really remember

that there was a stove too hot to touch.

No comedian was allowed to talk about the war

or Janet Jackson's coming out at the Super Bowl.

You remember that?

You remember that memo that went around?

As we've all learned in our lives,

war time is crazy in America.

They do what Noam Chomsky called "manufacture consent."

And the news was off the chain, and Jon was the only voice

that helped people decipher that madness.

It was a really remarkable thing to watch.

We told you that it wasn't gonna go so well.

Yes, we called it Shock and Awe,

but we meant that in the way of,

you'll be shocked at how it doesn't go so well.

And that will make you say, "Aw."

He's been a great friend to me.

I'm not here because I love Jon Stewart.

I'm here because he loves me.

'Cause there's never been a time that I called on him

and asked him for his help

that he wasn't the first responder.

When it was "Half Baked" and I was doing my first movie

and I needed a celebrity lift,

Jon was the first one to say, "Ah, it, I'll do it."

I didn't even know if he smoked weed.

He seemed like a coke guy.

And a few years back,

the city close to where I live, Dayton, Ohio,

had a terrible mass shooting.