Tina Fey Declared Amy Schumer The “Biggest Deal In Comedy Right Now”; Officiated The Title With Her Tongue

Though the winners were announced more than a month ago, last night the Peabody Awards had their first ever formal awards gala in New York. Celebrating the success of the most compelling storytellers from the past year, the ceremony was hosted by Fred Armisen, attended by a bunch of your favourite people, and just generally looked like a very good place to be.

When presenting an award to John Oliver for his work on Last Week Tonight, longtime CBS anchor Charlie Rose praised the breakthrough host saying, “He really is a journalist, even though he’s a comedian”. Cecily Strong was also there to commend Sarah Koenig and the rest of the Serial team; the first podcast to ever be awarded a Peabody. But the standout moment of the night came from Tina Fey when talking about the incredible success of Inside Amy Schumer.

Because her whole speech was just very, very good, here’s the full transcript via Vulture:

Amy Schumer has been doing the impossible on a regular basis. She has a female-centric, overtly feminist comedy show on Comedy Central, a network that for years was the total equivalent of a 12-year-old boy’s sock drawer. Even its most enlightened programs are enlightened sausage factories.

She has successfully made rape jokes. Many people can tell you that you can never, ever tell a joke about rape, but of course, it’s all about context and point of view, and Amy and the Inside Amy Schumer show’s brilliant sketch about sexual abuse in the military as filtered through violent combat video games was inarguably funny and so, so rapey …

In a culture where young female entertainers are expected to be sexy without being too sexual, Amy’s honesty is making everyone furious.

Amy Schumer is killing it, as the agents like to say, but usually they are lying, but in this case, it is true! Amy is killing it, she’s the biggest deal in comedy right now, and that’s why I really wanted to come down here tonight in a Madonna kind of way try to like feed off of her youth and maybe suck her soul out in a very awkward, staged lesbian kiss, but when I pitched that idea to Amy’s camp, they came back with such an immediate yes that it kind of grossed me out.

And so, I’m feeling like we shouldn’t do it. I mean, I know we practiced it a lot and you were going to like come to me and not be into it, and then I was going to be like, “Bossypants!” and then Fred was going to pull my cape off. But it doesn’t feel right, right?

So, instead, I think we should give you like a really prestigious award. So, let’s take a look at some videotape of your nonsense.

Obviously, after being tempted with the life-changing opportunity to lock lips with Tina Fey, Schumer was quick to take up the offer.

As if that wasn’t enough greatness for one evening, Schumer also picked up a Critics Choice Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series last night.

Omg omg omg. Thank you so much #CriticsChoiceAwards I am crying at the #PeabodyAward I wrote this last night pic.twitter.com/eNOAQQVOgL

— Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) June 1, 2015

Living. The. Dream.

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Feature image Peabody Awards/Facebook.