Name: Norm Macdonald on WTF w/ Marc Maron (2011) Full in-depth interview
Uploaded: 2019-07-16T14:33:37.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald on WTF w/ Marc Maron (2011) Full in-depth interview' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-07-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald on WTF w/ Marc Maron (2011) Full in-depth interview' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-07-16. Transcript available.

Norm Macdonald on WTF w/ Marc Maron (2011) Full in-depth interview

so uh norm mcdonald's in the garage nervous how the hell could you be nervous i
mean do you always
get nervous uh i get somewhat nervous about uh things sometimes sure yeah like
everybody right
yeah but i mean you've done so much it doesn't go away uh it hasn't with me i i
mean i don't get
um god now i'm stumbling and it's all right man you know i'll open like this i
think i have a
weird memory of you that you probably wouldn't remember i think i was in i
think i was in your
hotel room the the when you were watching i showed up at your hotel room when
you were just on your
first letterman with caroline ray yeah yeah and i i think that i actually
watched you not watch your
first letterman on television is that possible i'm thinking well i would know i
would not watch it
that's for sure it's like 1989 is that about right yeah i think i'm not gonna
probably about
that yeah that's funny because i yeah i know caroline and i remember you uh and
i remember
caroline all my memories are so vague right well it was weird because i i
barely knew caroline and we
were sort of hanging around and you know with this group of comics and i had a
car and she goes let's
go to the hotel my friend norm it just did letterman tonight so we go over
there and i that was first
time i ever met you and i don't know how how much you even played the states
because it was i didn't
know any comedians from the states that was my problem yeah right and so i go
up to this room i
meet you and you're about to go on letterman and and i'm standing there with
caroline and you are on
your bed face down with your hands hiding your eyes for the entire time does
that sound like a real
thing no that would be me yeah i can't uh well you know how it is when you know
uh how bad you are and
uh you know what i mean did you know i mean well i i know that's how we
perceive ourselves i don't
know if it's really true you did well right well we have we can probably
probably know more than
another person no we don't about ourselves i don't know no but i mean how can
like are you not able
to watch yourself now i know it's pretty hard like you know because um um i i
really like comedy like
i love comedy like i guess all comedians do or whatever but uh um it's always
uh you always think
you're uh better than when you see yourself yeah yeah yeah in the moment it
feels like you've uh you've
won and then you watch it and you're like oh why am i doing that with my
eyebrow no it's like when you
hear your fucking voice on especially me yeah because i don't think i sound
weird but then people
come up to me go hey i can do an impression of you and i fucking guys fucking
sounds like a retard
he's like yeah i'm yeah i go fuck man is that what i sound like so um it's
funny when you have a weird
voice because uh a lot of times i don't give a fuck why people laugh i don't
get you know but i've always
been very like uh material dependent in my stand-up i gotta work like a
motherfucker to get last
but uh people go like oh you can just talk with your weird voice i'm like no i
can't you just maybe
you think that shit but i remember when i do like because when i first came to
l.a and i do auditions
and then i would have the best material of the 10 guys yeah i would get the
most laughs yeah but i
would never get hired yeah and then i realized why it's because they want the
fuckers that can uh
uh get laughs without material i can't do that that's what you need for a
sitcom right if you're if
you're right you know have a sitcom going and a guy has some good jokes well
you can hire him as the
writer yeah you want the big fucking guy charismatic guy yeah no material at
all that seems to have an
emotional range exactly exactly when i did my first uh uh comedy festival thing
that montreal thing
what year was that fuck i don't know like 87 yeah i don't know dates yeah it
was around there and uh how
long had you been doing comedy at that point six months really yeah but it was
canada so we got a
so that was like in in american years that's four years no no i'm saying
because the montreal
comedy festival was in canada right a quota yeah phil you know i would never
have gotten on it if i was
in the states but uh so i got my five minutes just that wrote though that's the
way i used to do
comedy i'd memorize every fucking word and so i had it all figured out and shit
right and so then i go
there i meet sinbad right so i i don't know who sinbad was and he goes uh and
he's completely
relaxed i'm all thinking about some sort of one piece outfit
he did his hair matched his uh shirt yeah and uh they were both orange yeah
yeah so then he said uh
he was just so relaxed and he said uh hey let's go i gotta get some socks so we
go to this fucking
store right when we first go into the store there's no one there it's a small
store so there's no one
there the lady's in the back yeah so lady takes a minute to come out yeah and
he's like where's that
lady you know and nobody here you know and i'm like yeah and so she comes out
he gets his fucking
socks nothing happens right so then that night at the gala i do my carefully
constructed material yeah
sinbad comes out he goes what the fuck is going on he doesn't swear he goes
what's going on with
these stores with socks i'm like holy shit and then he's like you go in the
store and uh they don't
there's no one there and then people are agreeing with him i'm like what it
doesn't make any none of
it made any sense except that he destroyed and i didn't uh that's when i
realized that uh that i was
missing a whole bunch of stuff because i guess at first you think you're good
and stuff like that
no you are good but and i think that the fact is really if you were to look at
it in another way
that if people are able to do an impersonation of you that means you have a
defined style whereas
like i guarantee you there's not a lot of people that can do sinbad though you
did just do a pretty
good one i was trying to do it as unracist as possible but uh but no i think
like uh i don't know
that much stuff but i know i think that with stand-ups a lot of people um uh it's
hard for
a person that creates material yeah is usually a kind of a sensitive shy kind
of person at least
in my experience yeah with you that i've known yeah with your experience with
yourself oh yeah i'm
yeah i was always crazy shy yeah um so um and also very self-conscious yeah
looking like an idiot yeah
so i couldn't go on stage and run around and dance so when i see guys that can
do it like when i see
john cleese yeah like this brilliant mind yeah and then he can do acting like
an idiot yeah that's
amazing and also of course prior you know yeah i'm gonna say it's so weird
because i'm the exact same
way and i have not i don't think i've talked to anybody on this show that has
that same thing where
i am envious of a lot of comics that people would dismiss you know only because
it's sort of like
well how do they not feel like they're be afraid they're going to look like a
dick like as soon as i've
ever done anything physical if i even think about it for a second i'm like i'm
an asshole
yeah and and they don't laugh i know yeah like just recently i was on fallon
and somehow did an
impulsive i saw you doing the dan cook was very funny never done that yeah it
just came out of
nowhere i didn't second guess it and it worked but if i would have said like
for the five minutes
i was sitting there like i'm gonna do this dan cook thing maybe it's because
you were embodying
dane cook right yeah yeah that i actually had the confidence of dame yeah right
maybe that's why
right yeah but yeah i was always uh uh astonished but and i'm also like you i'm
envious of uh people
that because i'm you know i used to be frozen on stage right i still don't take
the mic out of the
stand when you did so you did comedy six months and you were at the montreal
what is it the canadian
scene is so different because i talked to russell peters recently and there's
this weird work ethic
that if you're one of the guys up there you're going to work and you're going
to work for one guy
yeah you're going to work yeah it was a great place to start because uh first
of all there's no
industry in canada there's no movies or television isn't there a little and
doesn't if you say there
might be now but when i was doing it there was none because it's horrible if
you stay there long
enough and you don't leave that you will be given a television show of some
kind right for a
certain amount of time they're awful you know canadian everything about canada
sucks really well in
terms of entertainment yeah like all the entertainers leave and most of them
don't want to go most of
them are mad because the because they weren't recognized in canada you know
yeah they had to
come to the states but uh um but so we didn't anyways we didn't have a movies
or tv to do yeah and
so we just did stand-up and we thought that's all there was was just going
which was fun like just
being stand-ups and going around the country doing stand-up and then uh when i
got to l.a i suddenly i was
like holy fuck the way is everybody's handsome like i didn't because we weren't
handsome we're just
well comics weren't supposed to be handsome louis ck once said that to me like
furious at some point
when i think when jay moore first started doing comedy like right when jay moore
showed up on the
scene and this is not meant to piss off jay moore in any way you know louis was
aggravated because
he's like it wasn't for them he's good looking you know i just want to do
letterman before i'm fat and
bald no it is very true handsome i used to really have problems with handsome
people uh like uh friends
you know yeah it would bother me so much i watched friends and i saw i said
fuck these are the funniest
super handsome people ever i i'll give that to them you know what i mean who
are your guys it's
probably harder if you're so fucking handsome well yeah because people expect
you to have your shit
together so i think that's the hardest sell for handsome people's like my life
is fucked up it's
like look at you how is that possible you fuck really is your life bad you've
got all your hair
asshole hard to be a sympathetic character when you're really attractive yes it
is yeah when you
started out though who are your guys like who are the guys you hung out with
are they still around
you still keep in touch with them uh in canada they're like uh um the guys that
were big you
know most people canada's like it's the same with every fucking goddamn city i
go to everybody's like
this is the fucking best comedy city and all that horseshit and i remember i'd
be on the road
wherever the fuck you were you know you'd be in dallas or something go oh man
these are the funniest
guys ever wait till you and there's over there's always the one mythic guy yeah
yeah go fucking kenny
that guy the funniest guy ever but he's a heroin addict if he wakes up he's
hilarious and then he
would shamble in on saturday night say something about aids or something go
what the fuck he doesn't
seem that funny i guess he's funny if you know him oh that's hilarious the
local hero that could
never get out and then like you know whenever they're past that prime of
whatever made them
popular in that small scene then they finally go i think i'm going to do it i'm
going to go to la
and these broken men he's like no he used to be the guy he wasn't really the
guy i met rodney
dangerfield because i had do you remember the book i think it was the last
laugh or something about
lenny yeah there was a secondary i wish i remember his name joe something there
was a there was a
character yeah yeah yeah oh wait wait s uh fuck uh ansys joe joe ansys yeah so
i'm i know i read
that book it was like the bible the lenny the lenny bruce biography by albert
goldman goldman yeah and
so ansys was the funny guy right that never went on stage that's right the
brilliant funny guy right
and they all you know i but and i met him you did with