I doubt that Twain would "have ben one of Whoopi's biggest fans." While not above a bit of bathrrom humor himself, it's hard to believe he would have found the scatology of Whoopi's early work to be impressive. Recall her routine about the various categories of her bowel movements. Unless you're on something really fun, it's not funny, nor is it, more to the present point, Twainish. Yes, Twain's humor was sometimes shocking, for those days, but he did not often use shock for humor. Surprise, of course, but not gratuitously. The secret of any good joke is surprise, as in "It's easy to quit smoking, I've done it a hundred times." But Twain, like Groucho or George Burns, had a subtlety of delivery that kept the joke from being telegraphed. "Goodnight, Gracie," is only funny when Gracie says it because George delivers "Say goodnight, Gracie," with such silk. Twain could do that, cigar and all. He could also have done "Why a duck?" and without Chico. He would have found "Who's On First?" hilarious. However, he would not have admired "Jumping Jack Flash" or much other of Whoopi's film work, with the exception of "The Color Purple," where Spielberg should get the credit and where Twain would have seen Pap in Danny Glover and wondered about his copyright and cursed its expiration. He would have thought "Where's Poppa?", Carl Reiner's supposed masterpiece, not just dark--Twain could do dark--but neurotic and ultimately sterile. Jonathan Winters would have brought Twain to the theater if he'd been performing a hundred years ago, because of timing. Nobody, nobody, except maybe Richard Pryor, ever had oral timing like Winters, yet Twain's writing reeks of it. He'd have approved. Still even Winters, among these prize winners, couldn't have written "Puddn'Head Wilson," much less Huck finn. So we come to Richard Pryor, who could hve written Pudd'n Head, but not Huck. Are Mudbone, banana knife, Moline tractor, Tupelo down below One Below, and all his rest really in the same league with the Jumping Frog, the Yankee, Tom, or Huck? Pryor's humor was shock humor, too, though of a higher grade than Whoopi's, and it was probably of a grade Twain would have much appreciated. Just as did Twain, when Pryor used the word "nigger," as he often did, it was always in the *good* fighting sense of the word. He was out there on the edge to make, and indeed prove, a point. Alright, come to think of it, I'll give the Kennedy Center Richard Pryor's prize as a damn good try, anyway. But that's the only near-hit I'll concede so far to this so-called Twain Prize. MacN