This year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor will go to Tina Fey, sad-eyed lady of the NBC lowlands, making her the third female comedian to receive the Kennedy Center-presented honor in its 12-year history. Naturally, some might say this award is a trifle, Have-a-Nobel-Peace-Prize-Mr.-Obama premature, considering she’s joining a winners’ circle that includes nothing but legends who have put in way more time than her, like Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin, Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, Neil Simon, Billy Crystal, George Carlin, and Bill Cosby. And yet, if they were giving this award to, say, Mel Brooks, we wouldn’t even be talking about it, now would we?
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