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    Kevin Hart Receives the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

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    The prolific comic was honored at the Kennedy Center for a 25-year career that has included movies, TV series and many live events.The Kennedy Center honored the comedian, who said he “fell in love with the idea of comedy” as something he could do for the rest of his life.Paul Morigi/Getty ImagesKevin Hart stepped into the spotlight on Sunday night with his usual swagger to accept the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, occupying a stage lit up with his signature pyrotechnics.“Can I pee?” Mr. Hart said after a heartfelt tribute from his friend the comedian Dave Chappelle, before waddling offstage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. He then reappeared to accept a bust of Mark Twain from David M. Rubenstein, the retiring chairman of the Kennedy Center.Mr. Hart, 44, is the 25th comic to receive the prize from the Kennedy Center, an honor given annually to the greatest humorists in American comedy. Mr. Hart was joined by his wife and four children, and grinned broadly even as he teared up at bitingly funny roasts and emotional tributes from friends and colleagues in the industry.“I played arenas with Chris Rock, and I would never play an arena before I saw you do it,” Mr. Chappelle said, crediting Mr. Hart with changing the business of stand-up comedy after a career selling out arena tours and even a football stadium in his hometown, Philadelphia. “You made me dream bigger, and you’re younger than me — it’s humiliating.”Over a roughly 25-year career — it was noted that he had been doing comedy since the inception of the Mark Twain Prize in the late 1990s — Mr. Hart has sold millions of tickets. He has built a loyal fan base through movies, TV series and many live events — some enhanced by fireworks — including eight comedy specials on relatable narratives, physical comedy and goofy re-enactments. But even when he rags on the cast of characters who file in and out of his life, he is usually the punchline of his own jokes.His peers also lauded him on Sunday for his work ethic, which includes appearing and casting friends in a slate of Hollywood movies, like the “Jumanji” sequels, dramedies such as “Fatherhood” and “Night School,” and a number of comedic action films.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What if ‘The Daily Show’ Used Guest Hosts Permanently?

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      Fill-ins for Trevor Noah have shown how exciting the lack of a permanent replacement could be. It’s an option with an illustrious history in television.For two months, Comedy Central has conducted something of a public audition. Nine different guest hosts have each taken over “The Daily Show” for a week, including Chelsea Handler, Wanda Sykes, Leslie Jones, Hasan Minhaj, Sarah Silverman and, currently, the former Democratic Senator Al Franken. Who should get the job?I’m a mere critic, not a network pinhead, as David Letterman referred to executives who made these kinds of decisions, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream up cockamamie ideas. My original preference was for a veteran correspondent like Roy Wood Jr. to fill the shoes of former hosts like Trevor Noah, who stepped down in December, or Jon Stewart before him. But after watching this lively parade of hosts, and surveying the shrinking late-night landscape, a more radical rethinking seems worth considering: Why not make temporary guest hosts permanent?My proposal rests in part on the reality that the success of “The Daily Show” has already made it less unique. “Late Night With Seth Meyers” has shrewdly filled the role that Stewart’s desk pieces once played by providing funny, progressive-leaning deadline comedy on the big news of the day. As for the prickly interviews that Stewart made famous on Comedy Central, you can now see them on his Apple TV+ series or, more likely, social media, where they go viral.“The Daily Show” remains a beloved institution with strong comedic bones primed for exploitation. It has always featured one of the best supporting casts in comedy, with its team of correspondents, many of them stalwarts of the New York standup scene, and nimble writers, whose skill and professionalism has only become more evident from watching these guest hosts.Even though each fill-in brought a distinct style, what stands out is the consistency of their desk monologues. Handler spits out jokes with a sneaky swagger, deftly skewering the machismo of President Biden announcing he shot down the Chinese balloon and offering a setup that you would never hear from a veteran host. “I’m going to be honest,” she said. “I have never watched the State of the Union before because I have a life.”Sykes dug deeper into wonky policy, offering a surgical breakdown of how over-ticketing by police punish the poor before suggesting we learn from Finland, which adjusts fines according to wealth: “$30 for a rich person is not a punishment,” she said. “Rich people don’t even know money goes that low.”Of the guest hosts so far, Hasan Minhaj turned in the most impressive week.Matt Wilson/Comedy Central’s The Daily ShowMinhaj brought a more flamboyant theatrical streak, turning a bit on giving up Twitter into a virtuoso and hilarious one-man show. Jones, who added elevated lewdness to analyzing a new Martin Luther King Jr. statue, may not have had the precision delivery of Silverman. Kal Penn was more likely to gush, while D.L. Hughley adopted a skeptical eye. The most impressive accomplishment is how everyone, with the benefit of typical “Daily Show” video and script, is, at least, fine.It’s evidence that this vehicle, more than a quarter century old, has become a smooth-running, user-friendly machine, a strength and a weakness. You saw both sides in the Trevor Noah era, which was competent, charming if a little dull. The current guest-host shows are not that. They display passion, unpredictability and the looming possibility of disaster, particularly in the interviews.As you might expect, these hosts, some of whom have publicly lobbied for the job, are trying to impress, calling in favors. Penn, who has called “Daily Show” host his dream job in the press, got a (mostly wasted) interview with Biden, and Marlon Wayans not only talked to Mayor Eric Adams, but also did it in the character of a kid name Quan. Was it a little cringey? Sure, but that made for fun TV.Not surprisingly, considering his experience as a correspondent and a host of his own show, Minhaj has put on the most impressive week so far, staging a confrontational interview about FTX with the businessman Kevin O’Leary from “Shark Tank” that was bracing in its tension. Franken also tried to introduce some much-needed tension into the talk-show interview by booking Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. It didn’t generate sparks but it was a worthy idea. Stewart once decried “Crossfire”-style talking-heads debate shows, but the relative dearth of debate that we have now is worse.A full-time guest host might seem like a desperate move, but in fact it celebrates one of the most venerable television traditions. David Letterman, Jay Leno and Joan Rivers earned full-time talk show jobs by guest hosting for Johnny Carson, who was a fill-in on Jack Paar’s “Tonight” show. John Oliver got his current job, on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” based on a “Daily Show” guest-host stint replacing Stewart, who himself was one of many guest hosts of the longtime NBC show “Later.” That program pioneered the permanent guest host in the late 1990s, using everyone from Martin Mull to Cindy Crawford and even Joe Rogan (who interviewed a UFC fighter on network television long before he did on a podcast). Since “Later” aired in the early-morning hours, no one noticed, which The Onion giddily mocked with an article headlined, “Police Seek Suspect in Series of Random ‘Later’ Hostings.”There’s a long tradition of guest hosts in late-night talk shows. Joan Rivers, here interviewing Oprah Winfrey, filled in for Johnny Carson. Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal, via Getty ImagesAfter Leno took over “The Tonight Show” and Letterman started “The Late Show,” these major combatants in the late-night wars of the 1990s stopped using guest hosts. (Conan O’Brien never used one either.) “Our attitude and Letterman’s was to ‘never give up the chair,’” the longtime Letterman producer Robert Morton told me in an email. Among the few times they did, in 2003, “The Late Show” offered Jimmy Fallon his first late-night hosting gig. Watching it now reveals an altogether different Fallon, more sarcastic wiseacre than chipper enthusiast. It’s clear he loved and was influenced by Letterman’s early comedy, and one of the fun aspects of guest hosts is seeing comics working out their personas.Jimmy Kimmel has done more than anyone to bring back guest hosts, using them during his vacations. Some of the comics who substituted for him, like Handler, Franken and Sykes, have gone on to weeks on “The Daily Show,” creating something of a modern guest-host circuit.The most successful model with a permanent guest host is of course “Saturday Night Live.” There are many decisions Lorne Michaels made that have resulted in a singularly enduring show, but this foundational idea is at the top of the list. It keeps the comedy staple in the news, builds anticipation and injects star power. In style and cadence, “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show” are very different machines, but both have an experienced staff, well-honed style and a deep bench of talent.Imagine monthly stints with alumni Samantha Bee or Larry Wilmore. Give Josh Gad some time to plan a musical version with former “Daily Show” producer and musical maker David Javerbaum. If Eric André wants to promote a movie, let him smash up the set for a week.If there is one conspicuous absence in the lineup of guest hosts so far, it’s youth. Many hungry young stand-ups would surely love the opportunity. The 24-year-old Leo Reich, the self-described “youngest comedian ever,” just finished a very funny downtown show about Generation Z called “Literally Who Cares?!” and represents the opposite of the engaged righteousness of Iraq war-era Jon Stewart. What mess would Reich make?“The Daily Show” producers are probably cursing my name right now. Getting new talent up to speed is not easy. And sacrificing the advantages of consistency and experience should not be underestimated. But considering the dwindling ratings of late-night talk shows, their future is not secure. That James Corden’s show is not being replaced with a talk program is an ominous sign.The late-night talk show is one of the most illustrious, essential genres in television history, one that many of us hope remains artistically vital. But that will require risk and reinvention.The current plan is to keep rotating guest hosts through the spring and then restart “The Daily Show” in the fall. Every great late-night talk show starts with excitement and experimentation before settling into routine, but the utopian goal of a permanent guest host would be to build innovation into the DNA, to make it the point.Could it produce train wrecks? For sure. But people like to gawk at those. More important: Better to fail interestingly than slowly fade into irrelevance. More

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      Chelsea Handler Needs More Jennifer Coolidge in Her Life

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      The comedian, whose new Netflix special is “Revolution,” talks about siblings, Kristin Hannah and no longer being annoyed when people talk about gratitude.Early in the pandemic, one of Chelsea Handler’s sisters moved in with her. That wouldn’t have been a problem, except that she brought her three adult children.“I didn’t have children on purpose, and everyone knows that,” Handler said in a phone interview this month. “Just because I have five extra bedrooms doesn’t mean I’m looking for company.”Handler’s new comedy special, “Revolution,” is equal parts Covid diary — Covid sex, Covid pets, Covid houseguests — and social commentary, particularly on the fraught subjects of power, gender and race.“My brother was like, ‘Chelsea, not all white guys are bad guys,’” she says in the special, which begins streaming Dec. 27 on Netflix. “I go, ‘Nobody said that. Nobody ever said that. But now you sound suspicious.’”Handler spoke with us about what it took to move her family out (“I had to put my house on the market and sell it”) as well as some of her favorite things, including skiing, oysters and fiction by Madeline Miller and Kristin Hannah. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Future Islands Somebody turned me on to the band Future Islands about six months ago, and I’ve been loving it. It’s nice and mellow. It’s great background music when I’m home. It’s my cup of tea. You can only listen to so much Top 40 before you want to rip your eyes out.2. My Siblings It’s really nice to have adult closeness with all of your siblings. They’re the only people in your life who understand exactly what you went through with your parents growing up. We’ve gotten closer and closer as we’ve gotten older. There are five of us. We’re a big pack, a unit. My most meaningful relationships are with my siblings.3. “The Great Alone” Kristin Hannah’s “The Great Alone” is a book about something that I would never normally read about: Alaska, the wilderness, living off the grid, all things that I have no interest in. It’s really about aloneness and survival and Mother Nature and what it brings to everybody in terms of mood, in terms of stability, in terms of livelihood — and it’s one of the most beautiful books ever. It’s far out of my comfort zone, and I like it a lot when I enjoy something that I normally wouldn’t have an appetite for.4. “Circe” Madeline Miller’s novel “Circe” is a book that took me to another planet. It was so beautifully written. You would read the end of a chapter and just have to put it down and think about what you just read because it’s so poetic. It’s kind of a metaphor for life and the people that come in and out of your life, and loss and love and death and, again, aloneness. For a long time I was very scared of spending time alone and reading about people being alone. That’s why “The Great Alone” and this book both struck me so much. It made being alone seem like something almost mythical and mystical.5. Oysters My favorite in the world are the grilled oysters at Blue Plate Oysterette in Santa Monica. But I will eat oysters almost every night before I go onstage, whenever I’m somewhere that they’re going to be fresh. I try not to have them in Iowa.6. Gratitude I’d heard people banging on about gratitude for a long time, and it usually just annoyed me. Then someone told me that you can actively shift your energy by writing down everything that you’re grateful for. So, a few months ago, I started writing down 20 things I’m grateful for every morning. I can’t describe to you what a difference it makes. You are on a higher vibration and frequency when you wake up and start counting all the things that you’re happy about.7. Stand-Up Comedy To be able to get onstage and command an audience of a few thousand people every night feels really good. Strangers are sitting next to each other, laughing at the things that you’re saying. That is the best gift that you could give anybody.8. Martha’s Vineyard When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was go to the Jersey Shore with the rest of my friends, and my parents were like, ‘You’re not going to the Jersey Shore. We have a house in Martha’s Vineyard. That’s much nicer.’ Now that I’m older, I think it’s one of the most magical places. I have the best memories of being there with all of my family. We grew up there every summer of our lives. We still go there every summer. It’s one of the milestones of my life.9. Skiing I’m not very coordinated, so 10 years ago I decided to pay somebody to teach me how to be a good skier. I wanted to be good enough to be able to ski off anything. I had a private ski guide for seven years and now I’m an expert skier — I can heli-ski, I can ski off the top of anything — and that was a big dream of mine. I take skiing very seriously.10. Jennifer Coolidge She’s been great in “The White Lotus.” Everything she serves up in all of her performances is everything that we could all use a little bit more of. The ridiculousness, the kind of wide-eyed, bushy-tailed approach to life, and the kind of unapologetic nature of who she is, I think, is a great example for all women not to take ourselves so seriously. We all need a little bit more Jennifer Coolidge in our lives. More

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      Chelsea Handler Chides the Supreme Court

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      “At this point I’d probably have more rights if my vagina was an AR-15,” Handler mused on Monday.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Speaking From ExperienceChelsea Handler kicked off four nights of guest hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Monday night, saying, “I will be here all week long, or at least until Republicans make it illegal for women to talk.”“Jimmy is off right now doing whatever the [expletive] he wants with his body.” — CHELSEA HANDLERHandler dedicated her monologue to the Supreme Court’s Friday decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.“Remember like five days ago when Fox News told us the biggest threat facing America was drag queens? That was cute.” — CHELSEA HANDLER“At this point I’d probably have more rights if my vagina was an AR-15.” — CHELSEA HANDLER“And by the way, I’m speaking from experience on all of this as someone who had three abortions in high school. And if that sounds too extreme, let’s pretend I had two. Because here’s the thing: This planet is a much safer place without me polluting it with my children. I’m responsible enough to know that we don’t need any more pothead molly-loving alcoholics running around topless.” — CHELSEA HANDLER“Not only has this decision further divided our country, most families now have two separate group texts going: one with relatives who support the rights of women and one with the relatives who live in Florida.” — CHELSEA HANDLERThe Punchiest Punchlines (Supreme Court Edition)“Everyone is talking about the Supreme Court after they made some pretty major decisions over the last few days, and let me just sum it up for you: They basically said whether it’s a gun or a baby, you’re carrying something.” — JIMMY FALLON“So, reproductive rights in America lasted for less time than ‘The Young and the Restless.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“People just want things done. No one cares about Kente cloth or singing on the Capitol steps and especially not poetry, all right? I feel like any moment now Chuck Schumer is going to throw on a fake pregnant belly, and just take a knee in the Capitol and be like ‘We are all pregnant now and we’re standing together.’” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth Watching“The Daily Show” correspondent Michael Kosta investigated vasectomies on Monday’s show.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightRepresentative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will appear on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutAnnie Hardy, left, and Angela Enohoro in “Dashcam.”Blumhouse ProductionsThis month’s picks for five new horror films available to stream now are scary, but not too scary. More

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      Best Comedy of 2020

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookBest Comedy of 2020Comedians like Leslie Jones, Chelsea Handler and Hannibal Buress adjusted to the new abnormal, turning to Zoom, YouTube, rooftops and parks.The pandemic halted most live performance but comedians adjusted and adapted. Clockwise from bottom left: Leslie Jones, Eddie Pepitone, John Wilson and Ziwe Fumudoh.Credit…Clockwise from bottom left: Rahim Fortune for The New York Times; Troy Conrad; HBO; Chase Hall for The New York TimesDec. 15, 2020, 5:59 p.m. ETThe comedy boom finally busted. Not only did the pandemic shut down comedy institutions, but New York clubs like Dangerfield’s, which was half a century old, and the stalwart The Creek & the Cave closed for good, as did the city’s branches of the improv powerhouse, the Upright Citizens Brigade. At the same time, comedians adjusted to the new abnormal, transitioning to Zoom and Instagram Live, and to shows in parks and on rooftops. It was a period of experimentation and stagnancy, contraction and accessibility, despair and occasional joy. In a low year, here were the highlights:Funniest SpecialDo you find an angry blue-collar guy yelling about being high on molly funny? Does the phrase “Stalin on Spotify” amuse you? Do pivots from ragingly unhinged roars to an NPR voice make you lose your breath in laughter? No? Not to worry: Eddie Pepitone will still delight. An overlooked master of the form, he’s perfected a persona of the silly grump that makes anything funny. Smart comedy that aims for the gut, his new special (available on Amazon Prime) is titled “For the Masses,” but he jokes that is by necessity, in one of several insults of his audience: “I would be doing jokes about Dostoyevsky if it wasn’t for you.”After leaving “Saturday Night Live” in 2019, Leslie Jones had a viral year that included the Netflix special “Time Machine.”Credit…Bill Gray/NetflixBest Complaint About 20-SomethingsLeslie Jones made the most of her first year after “Saturday Night Live.” Not only did she go viral roasting the clothes, furniture and décor of cable news talking heads in social media videos, but she made a dynamite Netflix special, “Time Machine,” where she castigated today’s young people for failing to have fun. “Every 20-year-old’s night,” she preached, “should end with glitter and cocaine.”Best 20-Something CounterAbout six weeks after the release of Jones’s special, the breakout young comic Taylor Tomlinson made an impressive Netflix debut with “Quarter-Life Crisis”; in it, she says she’s sick of people telling her to enjoy her 20s. “They’re not fun,” she said exasperated, in one of many cleverly crafted bits. “They’re 10 years of asking myself: Will I outgrow this or is this a problem?”Best Opening GambitBy describing her special in detail, beat by beat, at the start of Netflix’s “Douglas” — Hannah Gadsby’s follow-up to “Nanette” — she seemed to be eliminating the most important element of comedy: surprise. But like Penn & Teller deconstructing the secrets of magic while hiding some new ones, she just found a new way to fool you.In his YouTube special “Miami Nights,” Hannibal Buress told a story about an encounter with a police officer that led to his arrest.Credit…Isola Man MediaBest Closing StoryIn his funniest and most stylish special, “Miami Nights,” on YouTube, Hannibal Buress ended on a 20-minute story about an unsettling encounter with a police officer in Miami that led to his arrest. It’s a master class in comic storytelling that sent himself up, skewered the police, hit bracingly topical notes with throwaway charm while adding on a coda that provided the visceral pleasures of payback. It’s stand-up with the spirit of a Tarantino movie.Best Silver LiningOne nice side effect of the shutdown for live comedy is that in transitioning to digital, local shows became accessible to everyone with an internet connection. So it was a nostalgic treat that the weekly Los Angeles showcase Hot Tub, which pioneered weird comedy in New York before moving to the West Coast, once again became part of my comedy diet, via Twitch. While there were many new faces, much hadn’t changed, like the eclectic and adventurous booking and the dynamite chemistry of its hosts Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler.Best Alfresco SpecialStreet comedy, a subgenre of some legend, was all but dead when the pandemic pushed stand-up outdoors. By the fall, several comics, like Chelsea Handler and Colin Quinn, even made specials there, working crowds whose laughter did not echo against walls. The sharpest was “Up on the Roof” by the workhorse comic Sam Morril (it’s his second punchline-dense special of the year), the rare person to translate New York club comedy to rooftops (with the help of cameras on drones).Cole Escola portrays a cabaret performer in his YouTube special, “Help! I’m Stuck! With Cole Escola.”Credit…Cole EscolaBest Sketch ComicWhen comedic dynamo Cole Escola produced his own special featuring deliriously bizarre characters wrapped in pitch-perfect genre spoofs, and released it on YouTube under the title “Help! I’m Stuck! With Cole Escola,” he was surely not trying to embarrass networks and streaming services for never placing him at the center of his own show. But that’s what he did.Best New Talk ShowThe charismatic Ziwe Fumudoh has long been comfortable creating and sitting in the tension between the comedian and the audience in small alt rooms, but in her interview show on Instagram, she repurposed this gift for cringe and applied it to probing conversations on racism with guests like Caroline Calloway and Alison Roman. It made for essential viewing during a protest-filled summer.Best Siblings“I Hate Suzie” provided serious competition, but the best British comic import this year was “Stath Lets Flats,” which found a home on HBO Max. This brilliantly observed office comedy focuses on the mundane travails of an awful real estate agent and his sister. Jamie Demetriou (who created the show) starred, along with his real-life sister Natasia, better known in the United States because of her dynamite deadpan in the FX vampire comedy “What We Do in the Shadows.” The show is cringe comedy whose beating heart comes from their relationship. Look out Sedaris siblings. A new talent family has arrived.The stand-up comic Beth Stelling released a special on HBO Max titled “Girl Daddy.”Credit…HBO MaxBest Debut SpecialThe stand-up comic Beth Stelling’s pinned tweet is from 2015: “I’ve been called a ‘female comic’ so many times, I’ll probably only be able to answer to ‘girl daddy’ when I have children.” This year, she released a knockout special on HBO Max titled “Girl Daddy.” It’s a virtuosic performance, conversational while dense with jokes — with a portrait of her father, an actor who works as a pirate at an Orlando mini-golf course, that manages to be scathing, loving and sort of over it, all at the same time.Best Experimental ComedyIt’s a good sign for adventurous work that last year’s winner (Natalie Palamides’s solo shocker “Nate”) is now a Netflix special. But the revelation this year was HBO’s “How To With John Wilson,” a kind of reality show about New York City that pushed formal boundaries while unearthing the hidden and the overlooked in poignant, funny new ways.Best DirectionIn one of her final projects, Lynn Shelton masterfully shot the latest Marc Maron special “End Times Fun,” on Netflix, demonstrating that great direction doesn’t need to be about showy camera movements. Her shot sequences emphasized and played against Maron’s jokes, working together effortlessly, like dancing partners that intimately know each other’s moves. Two months later, in May, she died of a blood disorder. Memorializing her movingly on his podcast, Maron, her boyfriend, said: “I was better in Lynn Shelton’s gaze.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More