Jay Leno To Receive Mark Twain Prize For American Humor

Jay Leno will receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor later this year.

Although life has slowed down a bit for Leno following his departure from The Tonight Show, the guy is still out there doing his thing. To honor the comedian for all the hard work he’s put in over the past several decades, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Jay will receive the aforementioned honor during an event this fall.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, Jay Leno received the honor for his years of work delivering social commentary and humor. The former talk show host will officially take home the award on October 19.

Mark Twain Prize for American Humor executive producer Cappy McGarr explained:

“Leno and Twain both have turned humor into a national conversation and a national conversation into humor, and I’m also quite confident they drove the same car. You know, we receive bad news every day, and it’s important for us to keep our humor intact, as difficult as that might be. And thank goodness Jay has contributed to our American humor for a generation and made us keep things in perspective.”

Variety points out that Jay Leno is one of the hardest working comedians in the game. Even during his stint as the host of The Tonight Show, Leno was performing nearly 300 shows every year. Although he’s not longer chatting up celebrities during late night, he’s still bringing his brand of humor to the masses.

“Like Mark Twain, Jay Leno has offered us a lifetime’s worth of humorous commentary on American daily life. For both men, no one was too high or too low to escape their wit, and we are all the better for it,” Kennedy Center chairman David M. Rubenstein explained.

The Inquisitr previously reported that Jay Leno isn’t too depressed about saying goodbye to The Tonight Show after spending decades behind the desk. The comedian told The Associated Press that Jimmy Fallon is doing a fantastic job making the talk show his own.

Leno discussed the perks of not having to cook up a monologue on a regular basis:

“You don’t have to watch ‘Noah’ and all these other films, these kinds of kid movies. You get to a certain age where ‘Okay, I’m over the superhero thing.’ I don’t have to do that anymore so that’s fantastic!”

Do you think Jay Leno deserves the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor?

[Image via Bing]