I totally agree, there were far better people for this award than Ellen.
Jules

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Harold Bush
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 8:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The 15th Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is . . . . .

Ellen DeGeneres.  really? ? ? ?

Wow.  All due respect, but I'm wondering what some older folks like Carol Burnett must be feeling right about now.  Surprising choice, given folks like Letterman and Leno, or even Jon Stewart, have not gotten it yet....

Political correctness aside, I'm a bit confused about all this....  who, if anyone in the "Twain scholarly community," are they consulting??  I DVR-ed the event, and it is funny; but Wow!

 I recognize they are going for the ratings.  But I thought -- originally, with the awarding of the likes of Jonathan Winters and Carl Reiner, Bob Newhart and Lily Tomlin --  that it was meant to be some sort of lifetime achievement award.  And the picture of the white-suit Twain on the website seems to confirm this, along with the description of the award.

But I feel bad for the likes of Carol Burnett, or even David Letterman, who reinvented the talk-show format.

Every year we hash this out a bit -- and maybe I'll get slammed for this jeremiad -- but I just thought I would bring it up again and see if others had any response.

-hb

--
Harold K. Bush, Ph.D
Professor of English
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, MO  63108
314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h)
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>