I'm gutted on hearing this. I’ve been on one of my regular Norm YouTube binges, and was watching a ton of them just last night. His dedication to comedy was legendary, and his complexity was intriguing.
Norm’s fake late gift to Conan for The Tonight Show, given after Conan was leaving, is a great example of his sort of expectation-bending humor.
His appearances on The View are legendary examples of his ability to be uncontrolled and play the dumbest guy in the room at the same time while actually being the sharpest. His intentional subversion played off as uninformed is a seemingly one of a kind talent. There are videos of interviews where he describes some of the background to things he did on the show.
“Not everything has a point” just gets me. It’s amazing how the hosts just want to jump from talking point to talking point and just refuse to let the guest actually talk, which Norm really plays off of.
And lastly, the moth joke remains a shining example of his anti-jokes.
This is a great summary of what made him stand so far apart from other comedians and entertainers. He was fundamentalist in his dedication to the art of comedy. He could easily tell a clean dirty-joke or a dirty clean one and he never pandered to the audience.
The other part about Norm that I'm not sure everyone knew was how compassionate and well read he was. This came out on his podcast frequently. Not only could he deliver a multi-layered joke on the fly but could casually pull references to art & literature.
I always appreciated his reverence toward his guests. Even during Jim Carrey's infamous and awkward flame-out on his show, he was never fazed or allowed it to affect his conduct towards his guests. Unless he had extra special reverence for them, in which case he might give them a harder time.
He's the only celebrity loss I can remember being brought to tears over. An absolute legend.
That was great! I hadn’t come across that one before. Really shows Norm’s irreverence but at the same time his practical approach to life, all while being hilarious.
Yea, Regis really flustered him on that question and made him second guess himself even though he had the right answer.
What's extra funny about that is that one of his The View appearances (linked above) was the day of or soon before his Millionaire appearance. One of the hosts said something along the lines of "you think he's dumb here, just wait until his appearance on Millionaire", and of course they all cackle at that. Then he goes and gives a great performance.
He said that one of his fav quotes was from Letterman, something along the lines of "People hate you if they think you're smarter than them". He always played the idiot which made him more likeable, but he was always the sharpest cat in the room. RIP to a true legend.
"If you die, the cancer also dies at exactly the same time. That to me isn't losing a battle, it is a draw."
He was one of the funniest people ever and there is probably no one who was a more entertaining talk show guest. I can spend hours just watching whatever comes up after plugging "Norm Macdonald talk show" into Youtube.
Yeah, at least from my quick glance it looked like the special came out in 2011, which would put it around there. There's fuzziness on either side -- on one hand there was presumably some editing time, on the other he seems to have kept it private, presumably whoever told TMZ found out a little bit after he did, and their memory might not have been perfect. It is just in the ballpark.
I literally gasped when I heard this. There is something uniquely sad when one's favorite comedian passes away.
There were many things that made him special, but one thing stands out right now:
I don't think I've ever seen a comedian pursue Truth so rigorously. So much of his comedy was him shining a light on a given topic and giving 100% unflinching attention toward it, even if everyone else wanted to ignore it or "move on". This often made the "joke" the audience, in that we found ourselves laughing when we thought we shouldn't be. But why shouldn't we be laughing? Why shouldn't we be discussing this? Wait, why is this uncomfortable in the first place? Have I thought about this enough?
Norm MacDonald and Patrice O'Neal's comedy should be studied by every comedian as they pursued comedy and nothing else. No social saintness or political hackery.
If there were a Michelin star, we just lost two three star Michelins in about a decade... There aren't many (perhaps even any) left to fill this void.
Thank you for mentioning Patrice O'Neal and Norm MacDonald in the same breath. We really lost comedy greats that cannot be filled by anyone anytime soon.
To me I was never a huge Norm Macdonald fan, but that clip just shows how great of a comedian he was. I mean, the joke itself isn't anything special, but his delivery is so good that he has you just waiting with anxious anticipation throughout the whole thing that when he got to the punchline I really lol'ed. Mad respect.
Yeah, it is tempting to think Norm is very dim-witted given his deliberate choice of slower tempo and buildup, but you see things like his Larry-King-interviews-Larry-King skit https://youtu.be/7A6ba43XuOg?t=122 and like he immediately cracks a situational joke without missing a beat and actual-Larry-King catches it immediately and falls over laughing, and only then do I process it and start laughing myself.
I never dove too deep but always liked him a lot, and I have to agree his delivery was exceptional. I knew about 10% of the way in this was a shaggy dog joke, but he kept me second guessing that the whole time. And he had such a dopey style of speaking, like he was just as surprised and amused by what he was saying as if he was out of body listening to himself. Which is totally disarming when done well.
I respected his comedy, but a lot of it was "comedy for comedians" which highlights the level of his craft. I think his fatal flaw was he never wanted to stoop to the general audiences too much.
Unfortunately his comedy is held up by way too many people as a gatekeeper to "true appreciation of comedy" which is ridiculous. That always seemed part of the self-destructive aspect of top comedy, which almost always is a public face of deep depression.
Norm was a tragic figure, much like many of the comedic greats.
His book has an even longer, more beautiful version of that joke. I highly recommend checking it out, he spends something like a chapter on the joke. It's executed like serious Russian literature, and makes how much he was butchering it on Conan even better when rewatching.
Someone posted a quote from his book on Reddit, I didn't know he had one so I went to go buy it, it sold out while it was in my cart. Now there's just a "collectible" version for $550. People are awful.
While I'm sure there are digital editions for sale and probably a few physical copies at your local library, if it's being gouged, the guy's already dead, and his book is not one of the few hundreds of books on the internet to have gone uncopied. It's truly wherever you can find books.
Love it. Reminds me of a great comedian that died in the early 90's, Lewis Grizzard. The punch lines didn't have to be funny because he was such a great storyteller.
Bit starting at :43 (Germany) will easily go down as one of the greatest stand-up bits ever written and performed. And he was the perfect guy to do it.
Figured something was wrong since he stopped tweeting in July.
I'll just drop this here, his last standup on Letterman - which (at the end) reveals that he was not "just" the wittiest, most fearless funnyman ever. RIP Norm.
Terrible news. One of my favorite Norm Macdonald moments was when he purposely bombed during the Bob Saget Comedy Central Roast purely to make Bob and the other comedians laugh.
There was a comedian on Last Comic Standing on which Norm was a judge who was making jokes at the expense of his Christian family. Something like "Your favorite book is the Bible, mine's Harry Potter. Big deal."
Norm had a scathing criticism, and it was the most serious I'd ever seen Norm. He said something like: "It's not funny to use Harry Potter to make fun of Christians. J.K. Rowling is a Christian, and she said if you understand the Gospels, you'll know how the Harry Potter series will end."
Now there was a bit on Seinfeld about how someone had converted to Judaism simply to gain the right to tell Jewish jokes. And Jerry was talking to his therapist about this and the therapist said, "So, this offends you as a Jewish person?" And Jerry replied, "No, it offends me as a comedian."
Despite his faith, one inferred from his LCS critique that the Harry Potter joke offended him not as a Christian, but as a comedian. That's how professional a comic he was.
All I can say is that hankering for moral bedrock by looking back to a surely contrived ideal of Christianity seems trite and somewhat vindictive to me. To use one of my favourite Norm-isms, I don't own a doghouse: am I lying to myself?
To what truth does he refer to? You don't get to pick and choose which bits you like and which you don't, when making this kind of argument.
Isn't your first line projecting onto him something that he's not evidencing? Then the second line... is he picking and choosing? He names Christianity, it's not an ambiguous term.
Unfortunately, if this is serious, it just makes me lose respect for him. The Enlightenment was the greatest period of human history ever with regards to philosophical and intellectual progress since ancient Greece.
I think it was serious. Norm was very well-read and his favourite literature was deeply religious and suspicious of modernity (Twain, Tolstoy, Proust).
Yes I know since I look askance at modernity too. But he was seldom serious (in a literal sense) about anything except sports. The seriousness was in the inferences, usually. This tweet (since deleted) if serious, was at least out of character.
That sucks. Loved him on SNL... don't remember anyone else who's resulting laughs seemed so inadvertent or by chance, like he was ill-prepared or crazy, or both. :-D
I really enjoyed his Netflix talk show a few years ago as well, especially because it was (seemed to be?) such a mess. Also introduced me to a great country artist in the last show, and I don't even like country:
> don't remember anyone else who's resulting laughs seemed so inadvertent or by chance, like he was ill-prepared or crazy, or both
None of it was by accident: He was really good at comedy and was getting exactly the laughs when/where he expected them. Coming off as ill-prepared was a shtick.
Bill Burr and Bert Kreischer have a podcast. Once, Norm came up[1]. What they said is something I've heard from pretty much any interview about him: Norm is the quintessential comedian's comedian. He's up there trying to do what he thinks is funny, audience be damned.
I am an avid lover of comedy, and Norm Macdonald was by far my favorite comedian. I am younger, and the first live show of his I was going to attend at the San Jose Improv was cancelled because of COVID last year. I am gutted.
Norm really embodied what comedy is truly about. No one likes the smartest guy in the room. Nothing is off limits. Always speak Truth to Power. His style and ability to write jokes, as opposed to the popular story telling methods of today, is still one of a kind. I loved hearing his "meta musings" about comedy and joke writing, where he said the "perfect joke" is one where the set up and punchline are the same. (https://youtu.be/9GKKnlsZvQA?t=231)
My all time favorite performance of any comedian will always be Norm's white house correspondence dinner performance during the Clinton administration. His ability to understand his audience, and write and perform real jokes (unlike the pandering we see in the decades since) is truly the mark of a master. The truest of comedians play the role of the philosopher and jester: through their performances we ought to recognize the things we refuse to see in ourselves and our societies. Norm has a library of noteworthy clips, but this will always be my top. This is art. I implore you to watch.
Yes! The unusual relentlessness and Conan's breakdown is why that's my top Norm memory. Just mean from most people, but that impish grin lets him get away a perfect stream of ad-libbed insults.
Saw him twice in standup. Second time he was completely committed to a theme of being a born-again Christian and it was hilariously puzzling.
The first chunk off his 2011 special is all about his own mortality. Given that the article says he'd been living with cancer for about 9 years, you now have to wonder whether this was just before, or just after he was diagnosed. I know it takes time to work on material, so likely the former. Still, kind of spooky listening to it right now.
>There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
Wow. Norm Macdonald is my favorite comedian of all time and stand up comedy is one of my favorite things about humanity. I was just watching some clips of his on the "I'm not Norm" YouTube channel while eating lunch right before I read this. I had no idea he had cancer, although in retrospect I can see the signs...
Damn, what a massive shock. He was an absolute legend and will never be forgotten. RIP.
A more recent appearance where he was great, just talking, was on David Spade's show. His quick comeback on the Paul Newman line is a great example of why he was so amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbanVqLk1lQ
So he nearly died on 9/11, I think he would've liked it if he did.
He is probably the only North American comedian I really, really like, I am genuinely sad.
Edit: I initially said American, but obviously norm is from Canada, but the statement is still true of North America so I'll go with that as Canada doesn't have the same gravitas...
I am British, so mostly British comedians. This isn't a given, but American comedy relative to our palette can seem very fake - although some quintessential "British" acts don't do it for me whatsoever, e.g. I don't find the IT Crowd funny, I don't find Mitchell and Webb particularly funny either.
My absolute all-time most bestest favourite comedian is Chris Morris (Brass Eye, Jam, Four Lions) - who is a genius whose work is still blisteringly modern today even though most of it was recorded 25 years ago now. The way he uses neologisms is pure trip-fuel too if you enjoy banned substances.
He's not really a standup though. I think Norm was probably my favourite long-form standup all things considered, and it feels slightly weird comparing him to a British one because although he definitely reminded me of the subversiveness of comedy this side of the pond, he was still very much an American comic. Comedians over here are typically much more personal if they do "bits" (i.e. expertly performed but often true stories), or just pure one-liner merchants. Similarly, "improv" has always seemed very alien to me.
If I had to pick one pure standup it would have to be Frankie Boyle just by the volume of laughs I've got out of him.
If you want endless hours of fun British comedy (mostly improvised, I'm a hypocrite), listen to a little of the old Gervais, Pilkington, and Merchant radio shows from back in the day.
For those who haven't seen it, I recommend checking out Mike Tyson Mysteries.
It's an animated show by Adult Swim where Mike Tyson (voiced by himself), his adopted Korean daughter, the ghost of the inventor of the rules of modern boxing, and a talking pigeon who is a complete asshole solve mysteries in the style of Scooby Doo. Norm Macdonald plays Pigeon.
it's always sad to hear that somebody died of cancer. seriously.
but what I always found odd was that a lot of comdedians who I consider very funny - openly consider him to be the most funny guy every while to me he didn't seem funny at all. he had something striking and charismatic about him - I give him that. but I can't remember having seen any sketch or interview with him where I found him funny. often watchworthy and interesting - but never funny.
Agree with this and the following FTA:
'Norm was a pure comic. He once wrote that ‘a joke should catch someone by surprise, it should never pander.’ He certainly never pandered. Norm will be missed terribly.”'
Meh. I disagree. He frequently made below the belt jokes about the appearance or attributes of others, particularly women and gays. He was pretty funny otherwise though.
Fully realizing this will be downvoted, but RIP anyway.
I was merely referencing the bit from podcast episode with Bobby Lee -- where Adam Eget mentioned Robin Williams stealing acts/jokes in a conversation and he replies as I did.
Sad news indeed. In case somebody missed it, and is in the mood for some Norm, why not check out S09E02 of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, where he's interviewed by Jerry Seinfeld.
He was one of those comedians that wasn't affected by the whole "wokeism" movement, because he existed outside this PC vs. non-PC humour hierarchy. The reason he could do that is that he was genuinely funny, wasn't trying to "sell" an ideology, and didn't particularly care about other people's opinion of him. Oh and he wasn't someone who would "punch down" as an alternative for being funny.
He definitely changed his more outrageous jokes to switch away from punching down so much, and to making fun of this out of touch dummy character that he was playing. Keeping up with the times made him better.
Norm was actually somewhat conservative, though he played his politics close to the vest -- except for when he weaponized his conservatism to shock people and get laughs, for example, when he appeared on The View and the ladies were praising Bill Clinton, he cut in with "Didn't he kill a guy?" in reference to the Vince Foster conspiracy theory.
Norm MacDonald was pretty much the gold standard for comedy for me. Unlike my other comedic hero, Dana Carvey, he wasn't good at impressions -- his Bob Dole was pretty much just Norm speaking as if his pronouns were Bob Dole/Bob Dole -- but he could take literally anything and make it funny. Even if a joke failed to land, he would just "do the Norm thing" for a couple seconds and everybody would laugh. The Norm thing is like the Christopher Walken thing -- it's a person's ineffable talent of being that person.
To this day I still speak of my "inner Norm MacDonald voice", which kicks in when I observe something hilariously absurd. Like when Jeff Bezos launched his evocatively-shaped rocket, what Dennis Miller called the "Pynchonesque cock rants" practically write themselves -- in Norm's voice in my head.
His Burt Reynolds impression, one of his most famous, was a good example of a good impression: close enough to show a resemblance but with a weird caricature twist. Most of Norm's impression were like this. His Johnny Carson was also not half bad.
Norm’s fake late gift to Conan for The Tonight Show, given after Conan was leaving, is a great example of his sort of expectation-bending humor.
https://youtu.be/uarJj-K4XH4
His appearances on The View are legendary examples of his ability to be uncontrolled and play the dumbest guy in the room at the same time while actually being the sharpest. His intentional subversion played off as uninformed is a seemingly one of a kind talent. There are videos of interviews where he describes some of the background to things he did on the show.
https://youtu.be/a4ageUPHgno
https://youtu.be/Z3PP_SWHUQQ
“Not everything has a point” just gets me. It’s amazing how the hosts just want to jump from talking point to talking point and just refuse to let the guest actually talk, which Norm really plays off of.
And lastly, the moth joke remains a shining example of his anti-jokes.
https://youtu.be/jJN9mBRX3uo
His monologues at roasts, awards shows, and the correspondents dinner were examples of not being afraid of anything.