Name: Norm Macdonald on HuffPost Live (2015) 'What would Seth Meyers do?' Full Interview with Josh Kepps
Uploaded: 2020-09-11T15:51:32.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald on HuffPost Live (2015) 'What would Seth Meyers do?' Full Interview with Josh Kepps' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-09-11. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald on HuffPost Live (2015) 'What would Seth Meyers do?' Full Interview with Josh Kepps' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-09-11. Transcript available.

Norm Macdonald on HuffPost Live (2015) 'What would Seth Meyers do?' Full Interview with Josh Kepps

From his time at Saturday Night Live to his years of stand-up and sitcom
appearances,
Norm Macdonald is one of America's most beloved comics, so who better to be
part of the judges
panel on NBC's newest season of Last Comic Standing?
Here's a look at what to expect.
I'm an Iranian homo!
I am!
Hey Ron Cagani, I think it's impossible not to love you.
Yeah.
I like when you see a Iranian homo a lot.
I think what you're saying, Norm, if he had just come out here and just said
homo over
and over again, he'd be your favorite comic of all time?
I'm saying if I had the guts to come out of the closet, he'd be the guy I'd go
to first.
Yeah!
Norm joins me now.
Thanks for being here.
Hey Josh!
Good to see you, buddy.
Actually, you haven't been on yet.
On what?
On Half Post Live yet.
Yeah, I've never been on.
I don't live in New York City.
No.
It's no excuse.
Just fly in for it.
That's true.
No, I love Half Post Live.
I see it all the time.
Just in clips.
When I found out it was a half hour, I was kind of shocked.
You thought I was just going to do 90 seconds with you and just nail exactly
what I need
to know.
Yeah, that's right.
That's what I thought your skill was.
What's it like to be a judge of other comics rather than performing yourself?
Well, I'm very judgmental, so it suits my skill sets perfectly.
You know that saying, judge not lest you be judged?
Uh-huh.
I think it may have been Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I'm not sure.
I think that's correct.
Yeah.
Of Nazareth, not the other one.
Yeah, not Jesus H. Christ.
No.
But I disagree.
I think, you know, judge.
Judge away.
Yeah, judge all you can.
And I always wanted to be a judge because, well, I mean, I wanted to be a
proper judge,
you know, where I have a man's life in my hands.
But in this thing, you just get to say, you're not funny.
Who told you you were funny?
Seriously, some of these people, I swear to God, I can't imagine them even
being the funniest
person in a room, let alone a professional comedian.
And I was thinking, like, who was it that told you you were funny because that
person owes
you a lot of money because you're following a dream that's impossible to catch?
Well, maybe after judging whether the comics are good, you could then have the
people who
told them to become comics on and you could deliver actual punishments.
Yeah.
I could judge them also.
Because I take it that there's no punishment for being a bad comic on Last
Comic Standing.
It's not like a judge in the sense that you can't actually lock them up in a
cage in prison
for 25 years if they do a bad job.
Yeah.
No, you can't put them on death row.
Were you actually interested in the law?
Was that ever a thing?
No, I was just interested in being a judge.
You know you have to learn the law to be a judge.
Well, no, I always...
Judges don't just act on whims, unless they're on the Supreme Court.
I always thought I would just say to a guy, like, okay, it's come time for your
penalty
phase.
You get life or death.
I always thought those were funny.
Those are the two things that you get.
So, as well as being...
Opposite things.
You know, the guys obviously stand there going, "Damn, I hope I get life."
You know, I'm getting kind of used to it.
That's all I've ever known.
Yeah.
And I don't want death.
Especially on that hot chair.
So, in addition to being a tragic indictment...
How about that hot chair?
The hot chair?
No, I'm just saying when you think of ways to kill someone, it wouldn't be the
first that
came to mind.
Let's get a hot chair we can.
A chair so hot...
It would boil a man's insides.
You know?
It seems like, in addition to being an indictment of America's criminal justice
system, the death
penalty is amusing to you.
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I am against the death penalty.
As one of your great poets said, "I shall have nothing to do with... I shall
die, but that's all I shall have to do with death."
I can't remember who it was, but...
Probably not Australian.
Ah, yeah.
Sounds a bit sophisticated for an Aussie.
Oh, Aussies, man.
They have poets.
Yeah.
We had a couple.
Yeah.
Maybe three.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Australian rules football poets.
Do you like it?
You're a big golf fan.
Do you watch any Australian rules?
Well, when I watch sports like Australian rules football, I go, "Man, they must
look at real
football and go, "What?"
We do.
Because, like, you know, in real football, you throw and you run, and then you
rest for, like, five minutes.
It's like, "Ha, hoo, ha."
And then, you know, you take five minutes off to rest up.
You guys, you never stop.
Aussie rules is a fast game.
Yeah.
We also don't understand the shoulder pads and the helmets and the pom-poms.
Yeah, who needs that?
The cheerleaders and the singers and the fireworks and the...
It's like a monster truck rally or something.
Yeah.
Am I watching football or is this a show?
Yeah.
What is going on here?
The hell is this?
Show me a game.
Yeah, I agree.
I'm going to live on Australia and watch Australian rules football.
We'll have you.
And, you know...
Come.
Huh?
We're not going to keep Norm MacDonald out.
You can come.
Do they have this show here?
Yeah, we're everywhere because we're online.
Do they have Skippy the Bush Kangaroo?
They do have Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, which, to viewers who don't know it, is
sort of a...
It's a rip-off of Lassie.
Yeah.
But instead of a dog, it's a kangaroo who can communicate with a little boy.
Kind of like when I grew up.
It's one of those things where when you're growing up watching it, it's just
the thing
that's on TV.
Yeah.
So why would you even spare it a second thought?
You wouldn't have a question.
But now that I'm sitting here with you and you point out the absurdity of the
show,
I suddenly realize it.
Well, also, I feel like, you know, Lassie is a dog, but I feel like a bush kangaroo
would be a very dangerous pet.
They're not that dangerous.
A bush kangaroo?
Well, a bush just, I mean, that just means the outback.
I mean, bush makes it sound villainous.
Yeah, yeah.
It's just takeaway.
What if you just changed its name to Skippy the Cute Kangaroo?
No, but as far as I know, a bush kangaroo is a carnivore.
No.
No?
They eat leaves and things.
Oh.
I don't think there's such a thing as a bush kangaroo.
I think you're getting caught up on this adjective.
Oh.
It's just a kangaroo.
It's just a kangaroo.
It's not going to be an urban kangaroo.
Well, you're right, yeah.
So you're saying they don't even need the bush.
It's redundant.
It's a tautology.
It's a complete redundancy.
It is tautology.
Can we get the producers of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo on the phone and ask them
exactly
why it was called that?
I thought of a great show, because I love Skippy the Bush Kangaroo so much, and
I was
thinking of a sequel, you know, for the younger children.
Joey the Bush Kangaroo.
Baby.
No, Skippy the Bush Joey.
Skippy the Bush Juppie.
Baby Kangaroo.
It doesn't have the same run.
It doesn't.
Maybe like Puffy the Baby Deer.
Yeah.
I'm trying to think what the equivalent here in North America would be where
you don't
have kangaroos.
Deer with venison.
I just think children would be very, but you think, I'll tell you who children,
even
worse than being around a bush kangaroo for an Australian child, being around Rolf
Harris.
You're just coming out with the obscure Australian references.
Don't we get America knows who Rolf Harris is, do they?
They don't?
Oh.
I don't think so.
Rolf Harris is an old, I guess he's a folk musician and comedian who now lives
in the
UK, who it turns out may or may not have been a pedophile.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But he was a good man compared to Jimmy Saville.
None of this will play very well in America.
You're just going to be huge in the UK and Australia.
They're going to love you, Norm.
I want to take a look at the moment when after you'd gotten, you lost your job
at Saturday
Night Live.
They then invited you back on to host like 18 months later, right?
That was odd.
Yeah.
And you were, you were kind of musing on stage in your introduction about what
had happened
since you obviously weren't funny enough to be on the show, but now you're
suddenly funny
enough to host the show.
And this was your explanation.
I was ruminating.
You were ruminating.
Let's take a look at your explanation.
Then it occurred to me, I haven't gotten funnier.
The show has gotten really bad.
So yeah, I'm funny compared to, you know, well, you'll see later.
Okay.
So let's recap.
The bad news is I'm still not funny.
The good news is the show blows.
I remember when I was doing that and you're going to hear it if you listen to
it, but the
writers booed during that, you know, after not writing anything for the entire
show.
Hey, they booed.
It's ballsy.
It's a ballsy thing to do.
I assume you wrote that.
Did you run it by, I mean, you must run it by, you must do the dress rehearsal
and run
it by the producers and the writers.
What did they say?
I was going to do a thing that I thought would be really cool and I was talked
out of it.
But I was going to do the monologue and then leave and let them do the rest of
the show by themselves.
Which I thought would be good for the show because it would be, you know, they'd
have to get band together and, you know, work around the fact that the host
wasn't there and stuff like that.
This was, this was, of course, in a period when Letterman had also, he still
hadn't gotten over the fact that he'd been fired by NBC and hadn't gotten the
Tonight Show right.
And you went on Letterman and I still remember seeing this.
He was just fired up with anger and fury on your behalf at the pinheads at NBC.
I want to take a look at Letterman.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And talking about this after you got fired, look at this.
I'll tell you something, Norm.
I'm very happy for you because one or two times ago when you were on the show,
you'd been fired.
You'd lost your job.
Yeah.
Saturday Night Live on the Weekend Update.
Yeah.
Because those people didn't have the guts to stand by you.
Because those people wouldn't know funny if it bit them in the ass.
Yeah.
And they, of course, were hoping that they'd never hear from you again.
They were hoping, of course, that they'd squashed out another career.
Right.
They thought, okay, that's it for him.
What did that mean to have Letterman at your back?
Oh, Letterman was so kind to me.
Yeah, one thing about being fired was a lot of cool guys I really loved.
Mostly Letterman, you know.
He was my favorite guy ever.
But Letterman and Stern and Gary Shannon and all these guys jumped to my
defense, which was really nice.
But especially David Letterman because he was the reason I got into stand-up.
And he's the reason that I love comedy so much.
Why?
Can you elaborate on that?
Because I feel David Letterman is the best comedian that I ever lived.
Like he was, you know, he just turned everything on its ear.
And I think, you know, people talk the way they do now because of David Letterman.
And he had a great deal to do with, you know, this irony-soaked way people converse
nowadays.
Even if they don't understand what they're doing.
Yeah.
And there was a certain eloquence to the way that he'd deliver a gag.
Especially, I mean, not so much in his stand-up, but when he's interviewing
someone.
I mean, he was a huge inspiration to me as well.
To be able to find the exactly perfect articulate, almost overly formal words
that he would use.
Like, you know, he'd never say, you know, enjoy a drink.
He'd say, enjoy a delicious beverage or something.
Yeah, he'd use over-articulate words and mix them with, you know, super old-timey
phrases that he enjoyed and stuff like that.
Do you remember your first set on Letterman?
Yeah, I didn't remember that.
A long, long time ago.
And I remember because you get real afraid because, like, he had these other
two guests on, wherever they were.
And then he had me, you know.
So it was like, I can't remember who it was, but it was a big guest.
Was it on Late Night, by the way?
Or had he moved to CBS?
Yeah, on Late Night.
It was back on NBC.