Name: Norm Macdonald Interviews Jim Downey - Dennis Miller Show (2008) Weekend Update Legends
Uploaded: 2019-03-27T19:03:31.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald Interviews Jim Downey - Dennis Miller Show (2008) Weekend Update Legends' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-03-27. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald Interviews Jim Downey - Dennis Miller Show (2008) Weekend Update Legends' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-03-27. Transcript available.

Norm Macdonald Interviews Jim Downey - Dennis Miller Show (2008) Weekend Update Legends

He's the smartest guy I've ever met.
But I mostly hang out with nightclub comics, so I don't know if that's saying
anything.
But anyways, Jim, how you doing, pal?
Norm, it's so good to hear your voice.
Why do you say that?
Because you're supposed to, right?
Something like this.
So what do you want?
I'm a big fan of Norm MacDonald America.
Jim and I worked together on Weekend Update and got fired together.
The best update ever in the history of television.
Absolutely.
And we got fired together.
That's right.
Which just only confirmed it in the minds of people like me.
But Norm, you said a few minutes ago when I was listening, you brought up Iran-Contra.
And I actually just wanted to underscore the point you made that you weren't
confident enough in.
Which was that, you know, when people talk about Iran-Contra,
they always talk about the rape of the Constitution and the shredding of the
Bill of Rights.
Our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.
And the issue at stake in Iran-Contra was this thing called the Boland
Amendment, which was passed, I think, like, in the 80s or late 70s.
And the administration at the administration at the time said this is, it was
basically a Congress saying that the president couldn't do certain things in
terms of his war powers and without their approval.
And the Reagan administration at the time said, this is ridiculous.
This is an unconstitutional bill.
You cannot, you cannot, the Constitution clearly, you know, give the president
these powers.
And it was disputed but never challenged in court.
So this was like a three- or four-year-old, five-year-old amendment that had,
that would never have been accepted by the other branch of government.
And it wasn't, we weren't talking about tearing up the Constitution.
In any case, what they did was they, they got money by selling arms to, like,
the ninth worst regime on earth to use against the seventh worst regime on
earth, made a profit, gave it to the Contras, got the hostages released.
And the Contras later won the election that Jimmy Carter supervised.
So they must have at least been a little more popular than the Sandinistas.
So I agree.
I think if most things that the Bush administration had done worked anywhere
near that, well, he'd be a very popular man right now.
Wow.
So Jim agrees with you.
You were right.
But not for the right reasons.
Hey, Jim, I couldn't get that answer from Ken, but why is Ahmadinejad more
powerful than Abulhassam Bani Sadr?
Well, I haven't kept it all straight, but you know that Bani Sadr was executed
by the regime like just a year or two after the hostages came out, or maybe
even before they were released.
And it was his wife, too.
There was a period there where, remember, there was Sadak Gotspadeh, who was
the more westernized spokesman.
But they were going through prime ministers and, you know, ministers of state
and so on pretty quickly there.
That was a crazy regime.
Still is.
But now, is this new, is this Khamenei guy also the spiritual leader?
Well, you know, I have to say, I thought myself that there was a new Ayatollah
since then, but a grand Ayatollah.
But I can't, I have to plead ignorance on this and a lot of things.
Where does that leave us, then?
S.O.L., my friend.
You know, Jim's an actor as well.
Yes, I know.
I've seen him in, oh, in There Will Be Blood.
There Will Be Blood.
That was fantastic.
Jim, I keep telling everybody that Daniel Day-Lewis is just doing an impression
of John Huston.
Well, I think he might have, you know, been inspired by that.
But he was great, though.
Oh, he's fantastic.
I mean, he won the Oscar.
I know.
So, that proves it, right?
He did nothing wrong.
Did he stay in character in between the, was he always in character?
Was he one of those?
In my experience, yeah.
We would ride back and forth, you know, to the scene because the set where we
shot it was on a ranch,
but a gigantic ranch of many thousand acres.
And it was so, they'd have like a 30-year drought there, and it was so dusty
that we couldn't drive more than like 10 miles an hour or something.
It was like creeping along.
Otherwise, anything else would kick up huge amounts of dust.
And so, we'd be in the car for these long rides, and he pretty much stayed in
character for, you know,
talking in conversations about like weekends and stuff.
He's an interesting guy.
I liked him a lot.
So, how did he talk?
How did he talk?
I'd say like, so, we have a three-day break, I guess.
So, are you going to try to do anything interesting?
Well, I was going to go to Carlsbad Caverns, but I think I might stay closer to
home.
It's the best burger I ever had.
You know, it's just funny to hear that voice come out of that face.
But, so, Norm, on Iran Contra, don't apologize.
Hey, Jim.
Yeah?
You know, I was mentioning how great you were and everything.
Yeah, thanks so much.
And how you save the show every four years.
Yeah, I bet they like hear that.
But that's what you feel, too, right?
I think I, you know, I certainly make my contribution.
And, because I saw a book, I was in a bookstore.
I know you're familiar with bookstores.
Oh, yeah.
You're not one of these fellows that go on Amazon.
I bet you probably aren't computer savvy like me.
Like, I am not.
I'm not really computer savvy, because I really believe they're Satan's
instrument.
You're serious, right?
Absolutely.
You know me and Satan.
No, I just haven't really gotten around to it.
Oh, so you don't see that?
I don't really go online and use computers and stuff.
But, anyways, I was going to say, I was in a bookstore, and I saw there's a
book actually called
Strategery.
Yeah, I saw that, yeah.
You made that up.
I did make that up.
I should have copyrighted it in, like, three-peat, you know?
Then I could have made, I don't know, a couple hundred bucks, maybe.
Didn't they actually start using that term?
I think they started using that term as part of their...
I heard that they sort of, they liked it and adopted it, and they would call
their meetings
Strategery Sessions.
I know Rush Limbaugh used it a lot.
You know what term they used, I mean, Jim, a lot?
Hmm?
Remember when I would start the Weekend Update, I'd go, this is the fake news,
because it
was such a retarded thing to say?
Now they say, instead of mock news, they actually say fake news.
Like, they'll say, like, Stephen Colbert does a fake news program, or you know
what I mean?
Well, again, then you and me are in the same boat.
We've got to get a lawyer.
But in this case, in the fake news case, it's just idiotic that they use it,
because it
was meant to be sort of silly.
Well, you know, obviously, I didn't think that, I was sort of surprised that
the Bush people
liked Strategery, too.
But, you know, people have...
What do you mean the Bush people?
Well, that it wasn't, I mean, it was sort of making fun of him, of course, when
I put
that word in his mouth in that sketch.
But they, like, loved it.
They thought it was the greatest thing ever.
So, that's why they themselves started calling their morning meeting Strategery
sessions,
I guess.
Huh.
Now, do you think that's because George Bush is just contemptuous of...
I don't think so.
I think they just have embraced sort of self-deprecation, you know?
I think that that's always been his response to being made fun of, right?
Who are you supporting?
Barack?
Well, you know, actually, this year, I kind of like both candidates for very
different
reasons.
I mean, you know, Barack Obama, it's hard to argue, is, like, the first really
cool guy
who's run for president in our, like, sentient lifetimes.
I mean, you know, you weren't probably alive, and I was a tiny kid when JFK...
Well, but I was a young man when...
Pierre Trudeau, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, who was very cool.
Yeah, and it is...
It's an actual value.
I mean, it would certainly be more fun to travel in Europe, I would think, when
Obama is president.
But, you know, on the other hand, McCain has a lot to admire about him,
although we're not seeing as much of it as we saw eight years ago when he ran
for the nomination.
But I did see him, like, on C-SPAN the other night doing one of these town hall
meetings, and the guy's exceptional at one-on-one speaking with him.
Well, yeah.
Well, yeah, I mean, that's where you can most impress people by straight talk,
you know, because you're face-to-face with someone.
Now, if Obama was doing that face-to-face, would he come off as dogmatic?
No, I think Obama is great in every single form of communication.
He's great at the big speech, you know, the rock and roll kind of thing in the
arena, and he's great in, you know, the smaller town hall things.
They said in debates he wasn't as good, but I think that he just wasn't as
aggressive in debates, which is another thing.
And I'm not sure that people necessarily want people to be that aggressive.
You don't want to come down, you know, you're afraid he's going to look like
Jim Brown or something if he...
Well, no.
Is that what you're saying?
I don't mean that at all.
I just mean that, you know, in the debates, like with Hillary, where she was
going after him more, and people said, well, he seemed on the defensive.
That's just because he was sort of trying to deflect and not land any punches.
And I think he was sort of aware that if he just stayed cool, he had a lead and
he was going to end up winning, you know.
I mean, it was a brilliant strategy he ran for the nomination.
I mean, if you think about it, he was such a long shot.
He just figured that he will clean up in all these little places where Hillary
Clinton won't bother to invest any resources.
And then, you know, I read somewhere the other day that he, like Idaho, should
probably have no Democratic delegates,
since they're not going to be able to deliver anything for the Democrats.
But they had, like, 14 delegates or something, and Obama won, I think, 13 of
them, you know.
And then he would lose a state like New Jersey to Hillary, but lose by, like,
12 delegates.
So, you know, it was a brilliant, I mean, Hillary probably could have blown him
away had she just, you know,
taken the thing much more seriously in the beginning and just made sure that
she was going to crush the opposition in every single arena.
Hey, Jim, can you stay for another section?
If you'll have me.
I call them sections.
Okay.
All right, we'll be back with our next section.
Hi, Normie Donald for Dennis Miller and the Dennis Miller Show.
The number to call is 866-509-RANT, 866-509-7268.
If you have any questions for Jim Downey, who is a fascinating guy and was
there since the,
I don't know if it was quite since the beginning of Saturday Night Live, but it's
close to.
Shared an office with Bill Murray, didn't you, Jim?
Yes.
Oh, yes.
The second season.
I came the second season, same time Bill did.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
But listen, man, Steve has a question for you.
It's all right if America has no questions.
I'm not on that.
No, America.
America's going to be, our things might crash.
Don't things crash?
But Steve has a question, a political question.
Okay.
Just, you're so well informed.
I'm just curious what your opinion is.
With Obama, he's such a great speaker.
But how do we know he's more than a great speaker?
And maybe it doesn't matter.
I mean, maybe being a great speaker is enough to just motivate the country.
What do you think about that?
Well, you know, the thing is, in a way, as president, being a great speaker is
more of a qualification
than having a great issue agenda, because an issue agenda can be supplied by
really smart, unattractive, behind-the-scenes people, right?
But to sell something, like I thought one of Bush's, one of the crazy things,
truly crazy things that Bush did was,
when you do, when you have like an unpopular agenda, like a war in Iraq that we
started, right?
You damn well better have like a kick-ass persona to sell it, you know?
And to pair like an unpopular initiative with an awkward and inarticulate
defender of that initiative is like the worst of everyth