2 posts tagged “conan o'brien”

This is graduation speech delivered by Late Night with Conan O’Brien’s host Conan O’Brien (obviously) to the Stuyvesant High School Class of 2006.

Alright, yeeaaaah!  I said yeeaaaah!  Thank you.  Thank you graduating seniors, faculty, parents….(several girls shout “we love you Conan!”) I love you too sir.  Thank you graduating seniors, faculty, parents, SAT tutors, college placement coaches, jealous siblings, grandparents who have no idea who I am…  (applause)  “Who is this horrible man?” and people who wandered in accidentally because they have season tickets to Lincoln center.Before I begin, I’d like to thank you for inviting me today.  Over the years, I have been asked to give commencement speeches at many prestigious institutions.  Just last year, I was offered fifty thousand dollars to speak at a graduation.  But I said, “you go to hell, Bronx Science!”  (applause)  Then they said “sixty thousand!”  And I took it but I never showed up!  Man, those guys are idiots.

Hang on, grandma.  “What’s happening?”  I am truly honored to be here today.  Of course when I first got the call no one mentioned I’d have to show up at 8:45 in the morning and wear a dress.  By the way, true story, I am wearing a ceremonial robe decorated in the colors of my Alma Mater, Harvard University.  (applause)  But I choose to wear it because it’s the fastest way to let everyone know I’m a pompous, self-important jackass. (applause)  I’ll go to Starbucks later, “I’ll have a mocha latte, BUT DON’T STAIN MY ROBE!”  By the way, if you’re curious, yes, under this thing I am going commando. (students “woo”-ing)  I call it “Conando.”   That was dumb.

I’m especially honored because I was told it was the students who wanted me to be here today.  It’s very flattering to know I was up there with your other first choices, skateboarder Tony Hawk and Bow Wow.  This is a sentimental occasion for me, because I remember my own high school graduation so very well.  Just like you, I sat in a large auditorium, daydreaming about experiences yet to come — college, my first job, puberty… thirty eight.

Continue reading Conan O' Brien's speech.

I’d like to thank the Class Marshals for inviting me here today. The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit suspicious. I’d like to announce up front that I have one goal this afternoon: to be half as funny as tomorrow’s Commencement Speaker, Moral Philosopher and Economist, Amartya Sen. Must get more laughs than seminal wage/price theoretician.

Students of the Harvard Class of 2000, fifteen years ago I sat where you sit now and I thought exactly what you are now thinking: What’s going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin? I still have 24 hours and my roommate’s Mom is hot. I swear she was checking me out. Being here today is very special for me. I miss this place. I especially miss Harvard Square - it’s so unique. No where else in the world will you find a man with a turban wearing a Red Sox jacket and working in a lesbian bookstore. Hey, I’m just glad my dad’s working.

It’s particularly sweet for me to be here today because when I graduated, I wanted very badly to be a Class Day Speaker. Unfortunately, my speech was rejected. So, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to read a portion of that speech from fifteen years ago: “Fellow students, as we sit here today listening to that classic Ah-ha tune which will definitely stand the test of time, I would like to make several predictions about what the future will hold: “I believe that one day a simple Governor from a small Southern state will rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack political skill, but will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority.” “I believe that Justice will prevail and, one day, the Berlin Wall will crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under Communist rule.” “I believe that one day, a high speed network of interconnected computers will spring up world-wide, so enriching people that they will lose their interest in idle chit chat and pornography.” “And finally, I believe that one day I will have a television show on a major network, seen by millions of people a night, which I will use to re-enact crimes and help catch at-large criminals.” And then there’s some stuff about the death of Wall Street which I don’t think we need to get into….

The point is that, although you see me as a celebrity, a member of the cultural elite, a kind of demigod, I was actually a student here once much like you. I came here in the fall of 1981 and lived in Holworthy. I was, without exaggeration, the ugliest picture in the Freshman Face book. When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, I thought it was just for their records, so I literally jogged in the August heat to a passport photo office and sat for a morgue photo. To make matters worse, when the Face Book came out they put my picture next to Catherine Oxenberg, a stunning blonde actress who was accepted to the class of ‘85 but decided to defer admission so she could join the cast of “Dynasty.” My photo would have looked bad on any page, but next to Catherine Oxenberg, I looked like a mackerel that had been in a car accident. You see, in those days I was six feet four inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. Recently, I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model and, according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan.

Read the full speech here.