The PBS broadcast of Bill Murray: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize

In case you missed it due to a Halloween party or the World Series or college football, there was a major comedy event on TV this past weekend, too.

PBS broadcast the 19th annual ceremony awarding the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, this year of 2016 to Bill Murray.

It began with a cold opening video message from Steve Martin, mocking Murray and his movies, then onto Jimmy Kimmel and other presenters including Aziz Ansari, Roy Blount Jr., Jane Curtin, Miley Cyrus, Brian Doyle-Murray, Rhiannon Giddens, Bill Hader, Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, Paul Shaffer, Emma Stone and Sigourney Weaver.

Kimmel explained that Murray’s whole ethos sets about waking people up from their sleepy realities.

“He really does wake people up. He’ll steal French fries off of a stranger’s plate. He’ll pull a cigarette out of your mouth and smoke it. He would get physical. A man came up to Bill on the street and told him he was a fan. Bill wrestled the guy to the ground and bit him on the nose,” Kimmel said, adding later: “Bill Murray could shove you over the side of the Hoover Dam, and you’d be like, ‘Hey! Bill Murray!’ all the way down. There are so many crazy stories. There are hundreds of stories that, if they weren’t about Bill Murray, you’d read them in the biography of the world’s most arrested man.”

Watch the whole ceremony now:

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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