You’ve done pretty well to land Will Ferrell as your commencement speaker on graduation day, so props to whoever made this happen over at the University of Southern California.

I guess it helps that Ferrell is an alumni, having graduated back in 1990 with a degree in sports information.

Friday saw Will honoured with a USC doctorate, and I guess this made him want to stretch his vocal chords.

Hit it, big Willy:

Touched.

More from the Washington Post, including the others who were honoured:

…a humanitarian, an innovative spinal surgeon, a leading AIDS researcher and Dame Helen Mirren [were also honoured]. “And then there’s me,” he said. “Will Ferrell, whose achievements include running naked through the city of Montrose in ‘Old School.’ ”

“I think my fellow doctorates would agree, based on our achievements, we are all on equal footing,” he added. From now on, Ferrell said, he is requiring that his wife and children address him as “Dr. Ferrell.” “There will be no exceptions,” he joked.

Ferrell traced his success back to his days on the Los Angeles campus, where he was “always trying to make my friends laugh” and would frequently crash lectures in character, including that of a drill-wielding maintenance man. He said he never dreamed that he would someday become “one of the most famous alumni of this university — mentioned in the same breath as John Wayne, Neil Armstrong and Rob Kardashian.”

I’m not going to ruin all the fun, because you can go ahead and watch his full speech below:

[source:washingtonpost]