Will Ferrell Makes His USC Commencement Speech Hilariously Weird by Ending It With a Whitney Houston Song

Heartfelt, moving.

Say what you will about Will Ferrell, the funnyman is not predictable. The latest example is in the video above, of Ferrell’s commencement speech to USC grads, given Friday. 

Ferrell gave a surprisingly conventional speech for the first 24 minutes,  dispensing many of the expected nuggets of wisdom and inspiration, but he couldn’t just close it down like a TED Talk to polite golf claps—it had to have a punchline. That punchline was the Dolly Parton and Whitney Houston mega-hit, “I Will Always Love You,” sung with total straight-faced sincerity. 

To anyone unfamiliar with Ferrell’s work—likely a very small number of people—this might have seemed like a moment of complete insanity. 

But it was actually classic, and likely fulfilled the wishes of every commencement speaker who has ever dreamed of leaving an indelible impression on the bored graduates in front of them.

One thing you can count on when you book Will Ferrell: it won’t be boring.