00:00Can you all hear me? Is this okay? We good? I'm here for the rebuttal.
00:08Before I begin, I want to acknowledge two of the most important people here, Greg's parents, Aaron and Judy,
00:18who nurtured us both back in the day, and we owe you guys everything. Thank you so much. Seriously.
00:27When Greg Daniels called me last month and asked me to speak on his behalf at a prestigious show business
00:35ceremony,
00:36I had only two requests that it take place in a dicey section of Hollywood Boulevard
00:44and that it be high noon during a record setting heat wave. Greg said, I'm on it.
00:52And here we are. Thank you, Greg.
00:57I am honored to share this stage today with the magnificent Steve Carell.
01:05And he is certainly the perfect person to talk about Greg's enormous contributions to American comedic culture.
01:13But Steve, you never shared a hideously dented used Isuzu opal with Greg or watched Greg steam six pounds of
01:25broccoli
01:26because he read a New York Times piece that it's all humans need to live on.
01:33Or roomed in a small apartment with Greg and watched as he furnished that apartment, not with tables and chairs,
01:42but with bundled stacks of LA Times,
01:45he hoarded, hoarded because Greg said, who needs furniture when we can sit on these newspapers?
01:57All true. Greg and I were 22 years old when we partnered up and came to Los Angeles together in
02:08the summer of 1985.
02:09But physically and emotionally, we were about 14.
02:16We wandered these streets oblivious to all danger, babbling aimlessly about comedy and chatting up anyone who seemed off or
02:28dangerous just out of immature curiosity.
02:32The miracle today is not that the two of us succeeded.
02:36It's that we survived.
02:40So why, you may ask, did I partner with this man?
02:45It's a question I ask myself every single day.
02:50But let me tell you why.
02:52Because from the moment I met Greg, I knew I was not going to find anybody funnier.
02:59Greg's brain is and always has been a wonder to behold.
03:25Much of comedy writing is built around patterns.
03:29And I can never guess what Greg is going to say.
03:33When we wrote sketches together for Not Necessarily the News and Saturday Night Live, his ideas were elegant and arrhythmic.
03:42And they had no logical origin.
03:46I have worked with some incredible and iconic comedy minds, but Greg is singular in his originality and his seeming
03:57disregard for the way comedy has been done in the past.
04:02After Greg met and married Suzanne, who deserves another shout out today.
04:10Talk about better half, Suzanne.
04:13You're the only reason I still talk to this man.
04:17After Greg met and married Suzanne, I knew our romance was over and we went our separate ways.
04:23Me to become a slacks catalog model and Greg to become probably the most prolific comedy creator of his generation.
04:32And here is when I saw Greg really thrive.
04:36Because a hallmark of his work is that it is imbued with humanity.
04:41King of the Hill, The Office, Parks and Recreation, and The Paper, just to name a few, are all hilariously
04:48funny because they resonate emotionally.
04:52Greg is wonderfully stubborn and he will only accept the premise of any joke if it resonates with that character.
05:00And this is the secret of Greg.
05:02He can play nine dimensional comedic chess with his brain.
05:08But his focus is always on creating and nurturing characters that are real and flawed and invested in one another.
05:17In his casting choices, and no one reflects this better than Steve, he always finds actors with the rare emotional
05:26reservoir to make us believe in them.
05:29And when that happens, any joke is ten times richer.
05:34These are worrisome and uncertain times when the writer and the actor are threatened by automation.
05:42And we need Greg and people like Greg now more than ever.
05:48Because artificial intelligence cannot write like Greg and it never will.
05:59So enjoy this iconic honor, Greg.
06:02You deserve to have your name drilled into the cement of this future crime scene.
06:13It's going to be a homicide right there.
06:17No one deserves this honor more.
06:20And I can say that if it were not for your friendship and brotherhood over four decades ago, I'm not
06:28sure anyone here would know my name.
06:31Congratulations.
06:31Congratulations.
