Norm Macdonald Returns to Television!

The way he says, "Watch it, buddy" at the end had me in stitches last night.

King's initial reaction when he thinks he's got a scoop!

the "Sully" prequel is probably my favorite of his Conan bits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zck9hlMl6w

Oh wow that version is what…a dress rehearsal? Weird. This is the clip I remember

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEuIP_ZHDAc

I think he did the Sully bit straight after the Hudson incident, on Conan's show Feb 2009 (second video)... and then reframed it as a prequel (with the same "clips") about a month after the Tom Hanks movie came out in another appearance in Oct 2016 (first video). Oh well, why not.

Sullying his memory

oh that's interesting, I didn't realize the movie came out 7 years later! first appearance was definitely funnier..."where'd I meet him...oh uh, airport!"

another great Norm bit was him trying to do ads for the "Mangrate" on his podcast. no surprise they wound up dropping him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2XawdY22Ek

sully sullenberg: airport pilot xp

Maron re-posted Norm's WTF appearance and it was nice to hear him being more vulnerable, but I had a really hard time getting around how often he dropped the R-word throughout the whole thing.

yeah i loved the interview but also flinched every time he said that

Which was probably what he was going for.

Eh, I guess it's a fool's errand to figure out what was a bit from this guy, but it really felt like just a guy way too comfortable with dropping that word, imo.

he does do that sometimes, I remember one interview where he was extremely profane in a way that was really out of character, I think he gathered it was making the interviewer uncomfortable so he kept doing it

it's still inexcusable of course but I give Norm a little more leeway because he's such a pure comedian - he says what he thinks will make the audience laugh, I don't think there's much more to it than that. I don't get the sense from him that I do from guys like Chappelle and Bill Burr where they want to be transgressive but also profound, where it's funny but also true, except if you get offended, in which case of course it's a joke you idiot. Norm always seems to present himself as the least informed guy in the room. again, not saying it's excusable but it doesn't bother me the way it does when say Chappelle does a 10 minute routine about pronouns

TW homophobia

Here's an example of an incredibly funny bit that's also super problematic/offensive/retrograde. I know its bad but his delivery is sooooo good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX_gUQeZcB8

I will say that personally, as a gay man, I don't find that too offensive, but that's just me.

I really hate that all the most watched Norm videos are complilations

Norm lost Mangrate as a podcast sponsor because of how he did the ad reads, but to this day he's still the only reason I know what the hell a Mangrate is. pic.twitter.com/C4o7DZJ1Dh

— Dan Ryckert (@DanRyckert) September 14, 2021

Absolutely classic. Andy Dick was so good

"Chicken! Steak! Has never tasted so good!"

Was thinking recently what a lost opportunity it was not having him play J. Jonah Jameson in one of the shitty Spider-Man movies.

Not angry enough

J K Simmons as JJJ possibly the most perfectly cast Marvel Universe character ever tbh

Is he still playing him? Doesn't really matter tbh I just want a What If JJJ who's kind of a sarcastic dick about the existence of Spider-Man

New special on Netflix (basically him on a webcam), followed by Letterman, O'Brien, Molly Shannon, David Spade and (of course) Dave Chapelle talking about how great he was.

the format wasnt as weird as i was expecting. it certainly didnt feel like standup, but as conan says in the aftershow thing it felt like one of his talkshow appearances where he just ignored the host & went off on extended riffs. with the obvious exception of one unfortunate bit, i liked it. ofc would have been 20 times funnier to get to see him do it in front of an audience, teasing them with it, pushing & pulling their reactions, etc.

thought the discussion afterwards was pretty expendable, chapelle-averse viewers wouldnt be missing anything by just hitting stop after the norm part

the biggest laugh during the panel was when i realized david spade was sitting in a non-panel chair and probably only there because of sandler.

chapelle-averse

Bombing like this in front of a crowd of this kind of person is probably one of the greatest achievements in art. Making a fool out of yourself in front of a crowd of 30 year old white women trying to desperately hold onto the nostalgia of their youth is the top of the mountain https://t.co/K4RS1G8B4J

— ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴘᴀʟ, ᴅᴀᴋᴏᴛᴀ (@DEEP_RED_BELLS) August 18, 2023

this was under a video of DJ Crazy Times performing to an unenthusiastic looking audience, I think this is almost right and that what made Norm Macdonald unusual was that he successfully gave the impression (accurate or not) that he really didn't care if the audience found him funny and was primarily entertaining himself. Most stand-ups have this palpable neediness which can be off-putting (or this confrontational fuck you stance towards the audience which feels like a disguised form of the same neediness), but Norm came across like he was actually indifferent to whether the crowd thought he was funny or not.

I saw an interview with Chris Elliot where he talked about how the first time he appeared on screen on Late Night with Letterman he said something that made Dave laugh, and that the fact he made Dave laugh made the audience laugh, and that his technique over the next few years, given that he was starting out and didn't really know at that point how to play to an audience directly, was to try and make Letterman laugh because he knew that would get the audience to laugh as well, and that disconnection from the audience is part of what makes those Late Night bits so funny, like a comedy version of 'we just make music for ourselves and if anyone else likes it that's a bonus'. I guess it's maybe just a version of deadpan, where the comedian if funnier if they look like they're not trying to get you to laugh?

sorry, that was the wrong tweet, supposed to be this one:

Oh dude that's it, thats why I think this dude has popped off so hard, he understands that Norm school of comedy where completely losing some of the crowd makes you so much better for the rest of them

— ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴘᴀʟ, ᴅᴀᴋᴏᴛᴀ (@DEEP_RED_BELLS) August 18, 2023

what is that even a response to?

I don’t think the TikTok dork doing hacky “lost in translation” jokes is Neil Hamburger.

Trying to put some meta spin on a guy coasting off ‘90s nostalgia is not it

I don’t think it’s quite right that Norm didn’t care if people laughed, it’s more that he had the confidence to persevere with a bit even when the audience might be struggling to catch up.

Norm has really been a victim of posthumous projection and revisionism from all ends of the internet. I worried he’s going to end up a Bill Hicks figure if he hasn’t already

people doing that with comedians generally is so weird

Norm seems very unlike Hicks, Carlin and others like that. A comedy for comedy’s sake guy rather than a cultural critic.

Which is why his stuff holds up better imo

I'll take Carlin over Norm any day

I don't understand, is the Jonas Bros supposed to be there or not supposed to be there.

Because it completely fits in with the rest of the discussion.

Dance like no one gives a shit.

Norm himself has drawn parallels between his compulsions as a gambling addict who doubles-down when possibly losing their bankroll, and his compulsions to double-down on a bad/awkward bit if he's losing the audience.

Norm is nothing like Hicks, idk if he's ever said anything about him directly but I know he really hated that particular style of comedy. the big difference between him and other lionized comedians is that instead of wanting to be the smartest guy in the room Norm wanted to come off as the dumbest, which is why he can land jokes like "You know who Germany wanted to go to war with?? The WORLD"

but yeah I think Neil Hamburger is a much better analogue to what the thread bump is about; when Norm "bombs" you can still see and hear parts of the audience laughing, when Neil does it the audience is actively hostile, and he antagonizes them right back, which makes the whole experience really funny if you're in the know

Norm is exactly like Hicks in that that a certain subset of the internet sees him as a libertarian/right wing free-speech hero and gravitate towards his edgiest material

well by that measure the next Bill Hicks is clearly Dave Chappelle, a dude whose entire act now is just "let me tell it like it is" and then complaining that people get upset by his comedy

whenever Norm gets asked a question about politics he generally responsed with amusment that anyone would care what he thinks, because he openly admitted he doesn't really follow it. he probably has said some things about free speech and I know he defended Shane Gillis when he got fired from SNL but if you watch his stuff it's seriously like 0% of his act

I'm not saying anything about his comedy, I'm just saying what his legacy is becoming among reddit people

Norm is exactly like Hicks in that that a certain subset of the internet sees him as a libertarian/right wing free-speech hero and gravitate towards his edgiest material

― sean paul akerman (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, 21 August 2023 15:33 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this isn't really what being like someone is

what is that even a response to?

― budo jeru, Saturday, August 19, 2023 9:21 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink