(audience cheering)
- Thank you, all.
Love ya, thank you, thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
All right, thank you, all right, thank you.
All right, I appreciate it.
Okay, well thank you.
That was, this is a nice feeling, and thank you.
I love ya and I appreciate it, so here we go.
Hello, my name is Adam Sandler.
(audience laughing)
And I am the 2023 Mark Twain Humor Prize Award recipient
for Greatness in American Funny,
and bringing the thunderous belly laugh
to the sweet people of planet Earth.
Can I get a hell yeah?
(audience whooping)
To all my amazing buddies who spoke earlier tonight,
thank you, from the deepest part of my heart.
The whole time I was listening to you,
I was filled with gratitude that the original people
the Kennedy Center asked to come couldn't make it.
(audience laughing)
Nicholson, Hoffman, Pacino all had
prior dinner reservations (laughs).
(audience laughing)
That they could not cancel.
And as you guys babbled on and on
about me, I couldn't help but think
to hell with ratings and talent.
You guys are my real friends.
(audience laughing)
All right.
To my family who all flew in from New Hampshire
and Florida to watch me get this award.
Yes, I will pay for your hotel rooms.
(audience laughing)
But you gotta pay for your own incidentals, Mother.
How many pistachios can one woman eat?
(audience laughing)
All right, I'm kidding, I love ya.
I'm gonna drop the voice and tell some, try to speak normal.
And I feel bad I've been making jokes about my mother
for many years, but she is a great lady.
And I'm sorry if any of 'em ever hurt your feelings, Mom.
All right, so honestly, I've had an amazing life.
I'll tell you what kind of led me to this night.
I come from a great family.
A sweet, beautiful, funny, incredible,
caring, loving mother who played me
Barbara Streisand, Johnny Mathis.
I had a as-cool-as-it-gets badass, funny, pony-tailed dad
who sang me Johnny Cash and Johnny Ray.
And he showed me the Marx Brothers,
Jerry Lewis, Jackie Gleason.
Whenever they were on, he'd call me into the room.
And growing up, my parents literally did everything
they could to give me crazy confidence
at literally everything I did.
School, sports, singing, joking,
they acted like I was the best at all those things,
even though other kids were way better than me.
My sisters, Elizabeth and Valerie, they included me
in everything they did.
They would always tell me to sing, tell stories,
they'd go to all my games, they'd root for me.
They'd even take me on dates with their boyfriends.
They just always made me feel
like I was the star of the family.
My older brother, Scott, I shared a bedroom with him
my whole childhood, and he was always nice to me.
And he's always calm with me.
And he would just tell me, I'm funny all the time.
He'd say, I was great on the guitar.
Tell me I could sing as good as Stephen Tyler.
(audience laughing)
He told me to read Mad Magazine.
And we'd watch Benny Hill together.
When it came time to pick my college major,
so my brother was the one who said I should be an actor.
I said, "What should I do with my life?"
He said, "You should be an actor.
"You're as funny as Rodney Dangerfield and Eddie Murphy."
And I never thought that,
but he sort of, he just made me feel like I was.
He's the one who brought me to Boston
when I was 17 years old.
I was a senior in high school and he brought me
to do a standup comedy at Stitches Comedy Club.
He set it all up.
He says, you're gonna get on stage, you have five minutes
to do jokes.
What are you gonna say?
I said, "I'm not sure, I'll just wing it."
Because I really didn't even,
I had no idea what the hell, I didn't even know
you were supposed to prepare.
So I went up there, I was terrible.
I don't even know what I said.
I was like in a fog.
Those weird fogs you get when you're a standup
sometimes where you lose your mind.
I just kind of was babbling.
I remember one guy screaming out, "He still has a retainer."
(audience laughing)
Anyways, I left.
For some reason on the way home, my brother made me feel
like I had the best set of any comedian that night.
And he's like, you just gotta prepare next time.
But they loved you.
And in my head I was like, "They did?"
But, and then I went to NYU.
And first guy I meet was the great Tim Hurley.
He was my roommate.
And I asked him, "What do you wanna do with your life?"
He said, "I wanna be a billionaire."
And he goes, "How about you?"
I said, "Oh, I wanna be a comedian."
He said, "Cool."
And then he asked me, "What are some of your jokes?"
And I said, "I don't have any jokes."
(audience laughing)
And then he went to Poughkeepsie to see his family.
He came back, and he handed me
three yellow pieces of paper with jokes on 'em.
And he just did it on his own.
Gave me these jokes.
That's when we like became a team
and started trying to kick ass together.
And all my buddies, my buddy Eric Lamonsoff,
who I grew up with, and the guys from my dorm,
Jack Giarraputo, Frank Coraci, Allen Covert
who I met in my history comedy class.
We just all got very tight with each other.
And comedy just, that became our obsession.
And Colin Quinn, who's a great comedian, and I was,
he used to host a show at a place called the Paper Moon
in Greenwich Village.
And they used to book me all the time,
and it wasn't due to my talent,
but they knew when I showed up,
so did at least 30 NYU students from my dorm.
So they were like, let's hire that guy.
But I had no idea I was being used
because again the confidence thing made me think,
wow, these Greenwich Village comedy clubs,
they get it, I'm gonna be a sensation.
(audience laughing)
Then I graduated college.
Bud Friedman, he saw me at Catch a Rising Star.
He told me I should move out to LA.
And he said he would put me up at The Improv.
I told my dad, "Should I go out there?
"Should I move out there?"
He said, well, if Bud Friedman said you should come out,
you gotta go out there.
That guy knows what he's talking about.
So the next thing I know, I'm living with Judd Apatow.
We're writing away, laughing all the time.
Had the best time together.
Dennis Miller saw me, told Lorne Michaels about me.
Then with the help of my manager, Sandy Wernick,
nudging Lorne, they hired me.
I ended up on SNL with all my buddies.
Every one of these, my castmates became my best friends.
We all had each other's backs immediately.
Lots of the castmates and lots of the writers
I got to know seemed to have that same kind of confidence
about themselves I had.
Like a weird comedy confidence
that we thought we knew what was funny
and the world needed to see it.
Me and Hurley, he started writing
"Billy Madison" over the fax.
And Bob Simons, who produced "Airheads," he read the script.
He said, you really wanna make that movie?
I can get it done for you.
We were like, yeah, absolutely.
And Bob did that for us.
And then we really started getting cooking.
We started writing all our stuff,
and producing, and directing, and editing.
And very hands on, and it became like an addiction.
And we knew the movies we worshiped
growing up and quoted growing up.
And we kind of wanted to attempt to do stuff
like that for the next generation.
And having a kid come up to you
and say they liked the line from your movie,
or one of the comedy albums,
or something like that,
that literally was the best feeling I could ever get
until one night.
And that night was will always be
my favorite night of my life.
So Stephen Dorff was having a birthday party
and my agent and buddy Adam Bennett said to me, "Let's go."
I go, I sit at a table.
My buddy, Dallas, introduces me to that woman over there.
And from that moment on,
I just couldn't keep my eyes off her.
She was sweet, she was gorgeous, as nice as it gets.
And as luck would have it, she also had the habit
of telling me I was great at everything.
(audience laughing)
My jokes were great.
And she said I have good hair, said my cheeks smell good.
Everything I did in her eyes, I was the best.
Or that's at least how she made me feel.
Then.
(audience applauding)
Thank you, thank you.
And then along came two of the true best things,
babies showing up, Sadie and Sunny.
And they're the love of our lives.
(audience applauding)
The most pride and joy that Jackie and I could ever feel.
The life-changers.
When they speak, we either laugh,
tear up, or just stare at 'em in amazement.
Every conversation we have, every day, every night,
every drive, every meal, every smile,
every hang we have, I'm only wishing time will stand still
'cause being with you two and Mommy,
that's the best life can get.
And they look like their mama,
and they're smart like their mama.
And they also give me confidence
every year on my birthday too by buying me t-shirts
that say World's Best Farter.
(audience laughing)
And I don't even (beep) fart that much,
but they think it's fun.
So anyways, in summary, my career's been tremendous.
I, nothing has let me down.
I do work my ass off.
It's fun, I wake up early, it's fun.
I stay up late, it's fun, I go on locations.
If I bring the family, it's fun.
Everyone in this room tonight has made my life fun.
People always would ask me those bad reviews you get,
how does that make you feel?
Make you feel like (beep) shit?
And I'd say no, it really doesn't.
I think the reason I get to say that didn't hurt me
is 'cause so many of you guys in this room
made me feel great about what we've done together.
And all my fellow comedians, actors, writers,
collaborators, crew members, people on the streets,
my family, my kids, my forever girl Jackie,
all make me feel like the critics
didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
So thank you for all that.
(audience applauding)
Thank you.
Thank you for creating a delusional psychotic man
who is now the proud owner of the 2023 Mark Twain Award
for athleticism, math,
sexual prowess, guitar virtuosity,
and best cheek smell, goodnight.
Keep lying to yourselves, everybody, and God bless America.
Thank you so much for this!
(audience applauding)
Love, y'all.
Thank you, thank you.
(audience applauding continues)
Thank you!
(audience applauding continues)