Too Soon

One of my biggest problems with the news (and society in general) is that whatever just happened is now the biggest thing in the history of ever. Every new basketball player is the best in a generation, every comedian is going to redefine the way the genre is viewed and what happened today is going to change the world until the end of time. The only problem is that it rarely works out like that. Most of these things have a much smaller impact than we think they will at the time. I get it, though - the bigger the story the more eyes that are going to check in to learn about it and getting eyeballs is the name of the game. I just always though the things that would stay out of this kind of instant-gratification were honors like lifetime achievement awards. I know you want to make sure that people are still around to get them, but more and more it feels like we're giving out lifetime awards to people who aren't done living yet.

This weekend the Kennedy Center presented Will Ferrell with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Will Ferrell. I check Funny or Die all the time, "Elf" might be my favorite Christmas movie and I quote "Anchorman" whenever possible. But, doesn't it seem a little soon to be giving Will Ferrell a lifetime achievement award? It just feels as though we are only at the mid-point of his career and I'll be interested to see which way he might take comedy in the future. Giving this to him now is like putting Kevin Durant in the Hall of Fame. Everyone thinks he'll get there eventually, but shouldn't we wait a little while and make sure? After all, look at what happened to Adam Sandler's career. Wouldn't the Kennedy Center feel and look pretty stupid if they had him alongside Cosby, Carlin, Pryor and Winters?

I think the reason this bothers me is that in the clamor to put people in before their time people out there have been overlooked. For example, Mel Brooks still hasn't been given this achievement. That means that Will Ferrell can get recognized for his work on "The Producers" but the guy who wrote it is still waiting. Last year they gave it to Tina Fey, who was the youngest person to ever get the award at just 40 years-old. While I am a fan of the her, I think it is a pretty safe bet to say that Mel Brooks has done more to advance American comedy than Tina Fey. "Mean Girls" and "30 Rock" are good, but are they better than "Young Frankenstein" or "Blazing Saddles"? I think the answer there is a clear no.

I'm sure the Kennedy Center doesn't want this to turn into an event where the aisles are lined with oxygen tanks and the youngest person in the room is 50. I get that. But just because you are trying to stay hip (although saying hip almost immediately makes you un-hip), it doesn't mean you should ignore people who have been around for a while. Frankly, making some of today's youth watch classic comedy bits would beneficial for everybody. It would be good for kids to learn that a well-crafted joke is something to be appreciated and getting drunk and falling down is not an original punchline. I just hope this trend gets reversed before I read the headline that the 2013 Mark Twain Award winner is Daniel Tosh.