Last week I wrote that the main goal of a commencement speech should be to entertain and keep it light. No one wants to be depressed on graduation day. Well, for the last couple of years Harvard has been trying to do it both ways. On Class Day, the day before graduation, they have an actor, comedian or television personality come in and make everybody laugh. They follow that up by having a serious speaker on the day of the actual commencement. For example, this year they had "Parks and Recreation" star Amy Poehler speak at Class Day and tomorrow's Commencement address will be given by the first female President of Liberia. As you can imagine, I would much rather just go to Class Day.
That was especially true in 2000 when Conan O'Brien, at what I would argue was the peak of his comedy powers, came in to speak at Class Day. What followed was fantastic and hilarious, but I only was able to get the transcripts. You see, this was all the way back in 2000, before everyone recorded everything and posted it on the Internet within 4 hours. Or so I thought.
Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon a bootleg copy of Conan's speech on YouTube. I present it to you now. Some of the jokes might be dated, but the main comedy holds up 11 years later. That's when you know it's good writing.
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