David Letterman: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize

Humorist Roy Blount Jr. takes viewers on a journey down the Mississippi River, showcasing everything from areas with spectacularly beautiful scenery to ugly and dangerously polluted stretches bordered by industrial development.

An outstanding lineup of entertainers gathers in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall to salute Jon Stewart, recipient of the 23rd annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, two friends in a Mississippi River town, have one adventure after another - including attending their own funeral and being pursued by a murderer.

Celebrate the work of actor and comedian Eddie Murphy at the Kennedy Center, as the recipient of the 18th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. From the stage of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, a lineup of the biggest names in comedy salutes the 18th recipient of the humor prize, Eddie Murphy. Dave Chappelle, Kathy Griffin, Arsenio Hall, Sam Moore, Kevin Nealon, Trevor Noah, Jay Pharoah, Joe Piscopo, Chris Rock, and others salute Eddie Murphy at the 18th Annual Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize.

Celebrate the work of actor and comedian Bill Murray at the Kennedy Center, as the recipient of the 19th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

The escapades of Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and the runaway slave, Jim, drifting down the Mississippi on a homemade raft, and their encounter with the Duke and his cohort, Dauphin.

Short film for David Letterman's Holiday Film Festival in 1985 produced by Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara.

Documentary footage of the author and his two daughters at home.

Mark Twain's America interweaves the life and times of Mark Twain with the lives of current day enthusiasts who revel in the inventions and way of life of the 19th century. Utilizing archival stereo-optic photos, powerful images from the past seemingly come alive in a larger-than-life presentation. Archival photos representative of Twain and what he saw and experienced in his time are juxtaposed against scenes of actual present day recreations of that era.

Transposing Mark Twain's immortal anti-racist novel to 2017, "Huckleberry Finn: A Close Place" depicts the friendship that develops between a poor Missouri boy and an undocumented African immigrant as they drift down the Mississippi River on a makeshift raft in pursuit of freedom.

"In 1904, disgusted by the aftermath of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent Philippine-American War, Mark Twain wrote a short anti-war prose poem called "The War Prayer." His family begged him not to publish it, his friends advised him to bury it, and his publisher rejected it, thinking it too inflammatory for the times. Twain agreed, but instructed that it be published after his death, saying famously: None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth."