maybe already posted but don't care. I love how Norm worked Jon like a torturer. Jon didn't want to laugh so soon after Irwin died but Norm just kept going, with that mischievous smirk and look in his eye. He knew he had him.
I heard Norm’s voice emanating from my TV one late night. I walk over to see what interview/show he was on and discover he’s playing Pigeon on Mike Tyson’s Mysteries. The only reason I watched and the show would let him be him and it was phenomenal.
Regis: "And how did you come up with this concept, is this really your show? I mean did you come up with this?" Norm: "No there's this other guy uh Bruce Helford and we both came up with different ideas - like he uh came up with the idea of the uh social work stuff and I came up uh with the idea of uh calling my character Norm..."
That Letterman standup bit about Germany never fails to kill me. His timing is just perfect. "I don't know how many of you are history buffs..."
looking at the preview (cover) for the einstein norm clip it seems pretty clear to me that we need to make a smiley or two with Bob's faces
Initially it was nice to see the enormous reaction from the comedy world and more people discovering his work. But now it’s hitting me that there won’t be any more of it.
Man... one of the letterman clips begins with him asking Norm how he's doing and he talks about being worried about his health and specifically mentions visiting the mayo clinic, but he's not serious about anything and he's just zipping joke to joke about general "seeing every specialist" possible (the ass doctor is the most important doctor, etc) and you'd never know that there was probably something serious revealed in there
Started listening this morning. Really glad Conan did a whole separate pod on him. I’m sure it hit Conan harder than a lot in the business.
Can’t believe Arti out loved him. BTW, on the Conan pod they said the long moth joke was completely improvised on the spot other than the punch line. They asked him to stay on for an extra segment and he had nothing.
Probably because Fallon and Leno fucking suck and Conan and Dave are absolute legends who know real comedy.
norm macdonald live's first episode with super dave is where super dave tells him the moth joke and its like 20 seconds long.
Amazing anecdote. Stole a 20-second joke from Colin Quinn and extemporaneously expanded it into a hilarious 7-minute story. You should all listen to the pod, but you should be listening to Conan's pod anyway.
oh weird I wonder if Conan's producer was misremembering the original source edit - supposedly that ep of "live" was after the Conan ep... hmm
he gets shit on by Olmyer for telling too many OJ jokes, so Norm goes on Letterman and... tells an OJ joke.
I was listening to the the Paul Rudd episode about 2 years ago and it nearly had me crying in the gym from laughing so hard. Probably would have looked pretty weird if someone saw me. That pod is something I look forward to every Monday. Even the episodes where he just talks with fans is enjoyable.
this is just genius too with the double meaning. how can oj Simpson’s best friend not like me (I am not a bad guy I didn’t murder my wife) How can oj Simpson’s best friend not like me (sarcastically since he always shit on oj)
also Andy's commentary on the "Swedish German" bit is necessary listening. A not insignificant number of his jokes made me pretty uncomfortable.
I love Norm and Letterman’s constant shitting on Don Ohkmeyer. I never realized NBC didn’t play commercials for Dirty Work because of it or that they tried to ban him from Conan.
Norm says retarded about 15x in the Maron interview. Along with gay, I think it’s a relic of a different day and does not signal to a great degree who Norm was as a person.
Like posted here somewhere, he always had that clumsy, naive way of delivering and it made him look a little stupid and inoffensive. I never thought about that before but it seems accurate. I really don’t think he was a bigot, but i understand if some people didn’t like some of his jokes and style
Norm calling someone gay, to me, always felt like someone mocking the idea of using "gay" as an insult. That's the way his mind worked, comedy wise. He also relished in telling jokes that featured characters, types, races, topics, etc, that were considered too sensitive to use, even benignly, in comedy. His whole bit where he says "if my book was an autobiography I would include juicy stuff like how I'm a deeply closeted gay man" and then when Conan presses him on it he acts offended. Not because he hates gay people but because that's the two-layered joke: He's deeply closeted...if his book was an autobiography. No one else would make a joke like that for fear of offending someone who didn't get it. Norm made a living saying "fuck that, if it's funny I'm saying it" Can't defend the use of the word retard though other than to say it's just the sign of the times.
The man was making Crocodile Hunter jokes mere days after he died. "Forty-one years old: That's a ripe old age for a crocodile hunter!" He was far too sweet and kind to hate anyone that wasn't a murderer. He just believed everyone should be mocked equally in the name of comedy.
Yeah I gave up trying to explain/justify Norm to people who just didn't see the layers in everything he did. He's probably the best comic of his generation.
I also would never describe Norm as a bigot to anybody - but Andy is still on point with his take and if you haven't heard it I'd recommend it.