Norm Macdonald Returns to Television!

ive a hicks collection of routines i picked up somewhere way back when

Anyone like the norm show? It’s funny

Comedians can comment on literally any aspect of human existence. Why are they obligated to comment on the news, is the question, and "they just are" is not really a helpful answer.

I'm talking about late night talk show hosts here - for example I don't think Jimmy Kimmel's show was all that political until recently

stand-ups, yeah, you can talk about whatever

reading an entire book of standup routines sounds insanely boring

lenny bruce did write an actual book which is pretty funny, iirc

now that I think about it, Stewart Lee's annotated book of his routines is actually pretty good (but it's the additional commentary that makes it interesting)

the hicks book had early and evolving versions of the routines which was interesting

'squilgee your third eye'

Jane Fonda was so dope

omg the bit where he pretends to read from david spade's memoir had me rolling

hicks has said some truth bombs but as comedian hardly anyone beats delirious/raw era murphy

Raw is trash.

youre trash

^he says, borrowing Trump's favorite playground retort. Subtle irony?

i mean i dont mean it literally

sic is a homie but u kno its just tastes

Eighties Eddie Murphy specials are phenomenally funny

Raw has Umfufu and the McDonald’s bit, fuck outta here

thas wassup

ha but newayz

i just finished watching the first episode of the norm show and it is p entertaining

learned abt hybrid hookerz and skeet

Jane Fonda episode really is magical

was referring to the norm macdonald has a show show

had no idea he had a show called "the norm show" in 1999

that had exactly one funny thing in it, but I remember that thing after 19 years: Norm tying a carpet swiffer to a sausage dog in order to avoid cleaning under coffee tables.

I remember the joke from the Norm Show where he couldn’t do something because of his old war injury, and Laurie Metcalf was like “I didn’t know you were in Vietnam” and Norm is like “No, the card game, War”

Anyway the whole Norm feature wave is kind of built on him being this comedy nerd secret but there was a time that I lived through but barely remember when he was famous enough to host SNL and carry a sitcom for three seasons

And even then it felt like a little joke we were in on

Or some kind of hip secret we were in on, it’s crazy!

The Rolling Stone profile of like the 1995 cast really has them focusing on Norm as this breakout star and not, like, Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon

I don't think Jimmy Kimmel's show was all that political until recently

Kimmel always on the cutting edge of progressive politics iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obz-O3CcP2I

I like the casualness of the new chat show but it takes some getting used to - I don’t listen to much radio, is this a talk radio aesthetic?

At one point, Norm rests his hand over his whole face while he’s turning to the right to look at Jane Fonda, and it looks so clumsy and strange, but there’s power in its unfussiness. He’s a lousy interviewer but it’s almost like a deliberate tactic to make the interviewee take over. The Fonda one’s fun.

Almost all TV interviewers have this neediness to be the voice of authority in an interview, and it’s interesting to watch an interviewer happy to cede his power.

Anyway the whole Norm feature wave is kind of built on him being this comedy nerd secret but there was a time that I lived through but barely remember when he was famous enough to host SNL and carry a sitcom for three seasons

― 5th Ward Weeaboo (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 07:27 (six hours ago) Permalink

Yeah but he was never a Chris Farley or even a David Spade level of popularity. I mean, Kevin Nealon hosted Weekend Update. nb I think Kevin Nealon is v funny and underrated.

Watched the first episode of this last night and loved it.

A few minutes in he mentioned Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show, and that absolutely makes sense: the kind of weird after-hours talk show that is halfway between public access (no studio audience) and something more legit.

Funny that in the Vulture interview he knocks Eric Andre, because this feels like Eric Andre but using only words and conversation to knock the guest out of their comfort zone.

I mean, I love the part where David Spade tells a long story and then he says "And we're back" and makes Spade tell the story over again.

I swear for all these people who talk about how they're breaking boundaries with talk shows, it's like Craig Ferguson never existed. That dude was a goddamn genius.

cheeky monkeys

ppl enjoying the netflix show (me included, streamed it all in a few days) he's basically done this exact same thing on youtube for a while i assume those are all still up

Yeah this is a take on those web episodes on youtube

these web episodes, these casts for pods

& maybe i shdve paid more attn, remind me the poem he references in an ep that describes viewing a sunset from a train & an older man telling a child 'it is not beautiful' ?

isn't that bukowski? i think i saw someone quote that in a movie

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/9394/i-met-a-genius/

ah thx

that bukowski poem has nothing in it except that it's a purely contrary opinion that works against expectations.

how could expressing one isolated opinion make this kid a genius? if Bukowski thought it was pretty before, why does this bald, simple, and unfounded denial by an anonymous kid instantly change his perception? and why should we trust this whimsical and apparently baseless new perception any more than his old one? and why would this sudden 'realization' matter to anyone but him?

Fuck me the second episode/drew barrymore episode had me laughing so hard

Luv drew

Yeah she’s great

All the guests on this were interesting to watch, Keaton seemed to find his footing well (he’s a total oddball but it worked perfectly here)

how could expressing one isolated opinion make this kid a genius?

People are declared geniuses based on a single idea all the time. Someone has a problem / someone provides a solution / “OMG you’re a genius!”

if Bukowski thought it was pretty before, why does this bald, simple, and unfounded denial by an anonymous kid instantly change his perception?

We don’t know that he thought it was pretty. He likely knows that the conventional wisdom is that it’s pretty, but maybe has never taken the time to really look at it and examine his own reaction to it.

and why should we trust this whimsical and apparently baseless new perception any more than his old one?

Because this new perception is based on his actually looking closely at the scene before him for the first time and making his own judgement. His previous perception wasn’t really a perception at all, just an idea of what people say his perception should be.

and why would this sudden 'realization' matter to anyone but him?

Maybe he’s making a larger observation re: the tendency towards uncritical acceptance of the popular opinion?


nb This is the first time I’ve read this poem and am mostly posting to be contrary.

if had never taken the time to really look at it and examine his own reaction to it, he seems to me to be a fairly unobservant observer and unthinking thinker. if he’s making a larger observation re: the tendency towards uncritical acceptance of the popular opinion, it is equally true that his observation is jejune and hackneyed.

aimless DESTROYS charles bukowski with LOGIC and REASON! (1,355,348 views)

hahahaha

i know zip abt bukowski except that barfly is funnier if you pretend it's an adverb, but this seems quite a slight poem making a nice little point really -- which isn't especially contrary to popular opinion, it's a p standard romantic trope -- that sometimes even the writerly need a spur to think abt how a particular word works and gets casually thrown around, and sometimes that spur comes from the unencumbered of mind still feeling their way round language. the idea that a six-year-old boy is a "genius" for this is obviously a (again slight) joke about the idea of genius in poetry, and how we chuck it around quite almost as easily and carelessly as the word "pretty". poets are greatly feted for this -- capturing a moment or an idea or a realisation or a compacted set of all these as you hadn't understood it before -- but having someone wake you up to some small realisation is actually a fairly routine occurrence, and not given only to poets, or to those people we are routinely and unthinkingly socialised to consider are poets.

bards say the darndest things

this still doesnt explain to me why we can treat norm reasonably after a clumsy gaffe which under 2014-onwards rules should see him afaict an ilx pariah

taste's strange

aimless DESTROYS charles bukowski with LOGIC and REASON!

Not bukowski. just that poem. He wrote much better poems than that one, but it's often one of a poet's least interesting poems that are embraced by the public, because they most approach the standard of a Hallmark greeting card and the public likes that.