Norm Macdonald Returns to Television!

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.

xp "Norm's a gentle sweetheart" was the given explanation. Every time he walks in a guest, he is so damn excited that "Ted" gave him a refrigerator full of drinks. I imagine Norm interrupting a pay negotiation between Netflix and his agent to ask for it and promptly accepting their low offer after "Ted" agrees to a refrigerator full of drinks on set.

the formal introduction of Ted's refrigerator to the guest and Norm's goofy dance at the end are great bookends for this show

quite a slight poem making a nice little point really

That's Bukowski much of the time. I liked reading one of his books where the poems felt chronological, almost like tweets: this one he wrote over breakfast, this one he wrote on the way to the track, this one he wrote leaving the track...

the outro song n dance is v charming

maybe the child was double-checking the footnotes for his doctoral thesis in astrophysics before he looked up and made a throwaway remark about the view

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
Good morning everyone and welcome to "Science and Society". I'm Dr. Sheldon Cooper, BS, MS, MA, PhD and ScD. OMG, right?

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

a few minutes into the judge judy episode and it's not funny -- skip?

Nah don’t skip man

Judge judy episode js the worst one

Drew bmore epi the best out of the first 3

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

― Dmac TT (darraghmac), Wednesday, 19 September 2018 15:20 (eight hours ago) Permalink

Do you actually want us to make him a pariah or is this about someone else who got paraiah’d you’d rather defend?

I love how terrible his trusty sidekick Adam is

They made more of a joke out of this on the YouTube show

Also the difference between this and Eric Andre is Eric Andre seems like the kind of guy who is funny but norm is funny

its curiosity about it tbh

dont want him to be a pariah at all but without going back over case files im still p sure that ilx has been happy to hang others for no worse slipups?

Yre first mistake is thinking theres any type of framework ilx operates under

also don't like the way the netflix series conveniently erases adam egets holocaust denial.

Haha. Felt like the Adam stuff on his YouTube show could occasionally veer into cruel, but it’s a little lighter here. I’m glad he’s part of the show, it’s an endearing dynamic.

U can argue it was a bad joke but not that hes an irl holo den

norm's bafflement and wonder when he's telling the sinbad story to fred stoller on his youtube show is the hardest i've laughed at anything in about 10 years. really enjoyed the netflix series, but would have liked a few more dumb sketches to open the show. it was a good mix of guests though.

Drew Barrymore's little girl really does look like ET, that's weird.

Jane Fonda's sweater kinda reminds me of what the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL wore in the 1980s. Just with some pink added.

Adam Eget still makes me uncomfortable. I don't like the icky Dom/sub relationship between Norm and him.