There is nothing like a hilarious commencement speech. It might seem easy to pull off since, after all, graduation is one big party celebration. However, when you tally them, in the past ten years, there are really only a few funny graduation speeches. Here below is the list of some of the funniest commencement addresses I know of. Sit back, relax, and enjoy!
| 1. ELLEN DEGENERES Actress Tulane University, 2009 |
 Follow your passion, stay true to yourself, never follow someone else’s path unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and you see a path then by all means you should follow that. |
| 2. CHARLIE DAY Actor Merrimack College, 2014 |
| Now, I know that having an honorary doctorate degree will do nothing for me, but I’m here to tell you today that your degrees, the ones you toiled to get, the ones you actually took classes to earn, those degrees, will also basically do nothing. Let me clarify. You can’t exchange your degree for cash. You can’t have a degree audition or interview for you. You can not eat it. Please don’t make love to it. You can maybe smoke it but I wouldn’t advise it. |
| 3. ERIC IDLE Mounty Pyton Actor and Comedian Whitman College, 2013 |
| You probably remember the first time you got drunk. Who knew the room would go round and round and round? They don’t say that on the bottle, do they? ‘Warning: The room will go round and round and round.’ So be careful of that. When the room is spinning, you’ve pretty much had enough. It’s the same with marriage. |
| 4. STEPHEN COLBERT Writer, comedian and TV host Northwestern University, 2011 |
| And we didn’t have cell phones. If you made plans to meet someone in a snowstorm, and they didn’t show up, you just had to assume they were devoured by wolves and go on with your life. |
| 5. TIM MINCHIN Musician and Comedian University of Western Australia, 2013 |
| I never really had one of these big dreams. And so I advocate passionate dedication to the pursuit of short-term goals. Be micro-ambitious. Put your head down and work with pride on whatever is in front of you… you never know where you might end up. Just be aware that the next worthy pursuit will probably appear in your periphery. This is why you should be careful of long-term dreams. If you focus too far in front of you, you won’t see the shiny thing out the corner of your eye. |
| 6. STEPHEN COLBERT Comedian, Author, TV host University of Virginia, 2013 |
| And don’t worry if we do not approve of your choices. In our benign self-absorption, I believe we have given you a gift; a particular form of independence, for you, do not owe the previous generation anything. Thanks to us, you owe it to the Chinese. |
| 7. FRED ARMISEN Actor Oregon Episcopal High School, 2011 |
| Remember that there’s no one way of doing things. You know how when you unscrew something it’s ‘righty tighty, lefty loosey’? If you just get a hammer and hit it really hard, whatever it is, I guarantee you it’ll open. |
| 8. AMY POEHLER Actress Harvard College Class Day Address, 2011 |
| Even though, as a class, you are smart, you are still allowed to say, “I don’t know.” Just because you are in high demand, you are still allowed to say, “Let me get back to you.” This will come in handy when your parents ask when you plan to move out of their basement and you answer, “I don’t know. Let me get back to you.” |
| 7. LISA KUDROW Actress, Phoebe in the TV sitcom Friends Vassar College,2010 |
| I sat exactly where you’re sitting, exactly 25 years ago. (Pause for disbelief. Thank you!) Well it WAS 25 years ago — I know it’s hard to believe — and Governor Mario Cuomo was our speaker. I had been up all night so I was drifting in and out of consciousness [looks around the crowd] — like that guy. |
| 6. JON STEWART Comedian The College of William & Marry, 2004 |
| Let’s talk about the real world for a moment. We had been discussing it earlier, and I…I wanted to bring this up to you earlier about the real world, and this is I guess as good a time as any. I don’t really know to put this, so I’ll be blunt. We broke it. |
| 7. BRADLEY WHITFORD Film and Television Actor (NBC’s West Wing) University of Wisconsin, 2004 |
| The sad truth is, I don’t even remember who the speaker was at my graduation. I remember squinting a lot and a vague sense that I would never again be around so many attractive, available young people in my life. It is my solemn duty to inform you that that fear is entirely well-founded. This is coming from a guy who works in Hollywood, by the way. |
| 8. MINDY KALING Comedian Harvard Law School Class Day, 2014 |
| From where I stand from an outsider’s perspective, here’s the truth: You are all nerds, all of you, except here’s the difference. You are the nerds who are going to make some serious bank, which is why I am here today … to marry the best-looking amongst you. |
| 9. ED HELMS Actor Cornell University, 2014 |
| I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good ol’ days before you’ve actually left them. |
| 10. JAY LENO Comedian Emerson College, 2014 |
| You need a soulmate, not a cellmate. |
| 11. JANE LYNCH Actress Smith College, 2012 |
| So I turned 40 years old one day. And you know what happened? I turned 41. THEN, I turned 42! And it just kept on going, just like that, the number kept going up! Wait! Wait! Somebody press the pause button! I just got used to being 40! |
| 12. IRA GLASS Radio Host of the Show “This American Life” Goucher College, 2012 |
| Commencement speakers give stock advice which is then promptly ignored. |
| 13. ANTHONY CORVINO Undergraduate Student, Bachelors Degree Candidate in Political Science Binghamton University, 2009 |
| You don’t receive respect, you earn it and you aren’t given the opportunity, you fight for it. |
| 14. LEWIS BLACK Comedian Thurgood Marshall College of UCSD, 2013 |
| Pursue whatever it is that you want to do with your life. It is the only secret to happiness that I know except for maybe true love, that and maybe having the amazing health insurance plan that our congressmen have. |
| 15. FRANK AZARIA Comedian Tufts University, 2016 |
| If you calm, if you calm down, you will know what your instincts are telling you and you’ll know which way, right or wrong, you must proceed. |