Name: The Best Of Norm Macdonald, Part 1 | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-01-16T16:00:06.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Best Of Norm Macdonald, Part 1 | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-01-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Best Of Norm Macdonald, Part 1 | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-01-16. Transcript available.

The Best Of Norm Macdonald, Part 1 | David Letterman

- Oh boy, here we go.
What do you think?
- One of the greatest.
- Canadian.
- Yes, indeed, and proud of it.
Proud to have him as a launchman.
- Norm MacDonald, ladies and gentlemen.
What a guy, and certainly his career
has not begun to flicker out at all,
even though he left us.
He's still--
- Really gotten stronger, his legend has it.
- People love him and you see him all over the internet,
and we're gonna show you his appearances,
or part of his appearances on this show.
And the kind of joke that he would tell,
and I'm only paraphrasing,
it's the moth who goes in to see a podiatrist.
- Yes.
- Do you remember that joke?
- Sure.
- Yeah, and it tells the podiatrist,
oh, I got so much trouble, my wife left me,
I got no money, the kids are on drugs,
what am I gonna do?
And the podiatrist says, well, yeah,
but that's great, I'm sorry to hear all of that,
but I'm a podiatrist, you oughta go see a psychiatrist,
what are you doing here?
And the moth says, well, your light was on.
- That's all, that's all there was to that.
- And the foundational reason that I loved Norm
from the beginning, my good, good friend
when I first moved to California was George Miller.
- Sure.
- And all George cared about, jokes.
He would write jokes, he didn't wanna be on a sitcom,
he just wanted to do his jokes and go home.
And I thought that George was an acquired,
maybe even a peculiar marginal taste in the world of comedy.
And once I found out that Norm MacDonald loved George Miller,
then I loved Norm MacDonald even more.
- I see the similarity between the two guys, yeah.
- That's right.
- Humor on another level.
Humor on another level.
And you got the sense sometimes
that Norm would tell jokes that he knew would not get laughs,
and that made him happy as though they had killed.
- So true.
- Yeah, anyway, here, please enjoy once again,
and he was on the final show and broke my heart, Norm MacDonald.
- Thanks, man.
- How did you get your start in,
I know you originally was a stand-up comedian,
but how did that begin?
- Well, I was in Canada, you know, and then, yeah.
And so a lot of, we don't do much show business in Canada.
And then they called me from the States to do the show,
you know, Star Search?
- Star Search, yeah, Ed McMahon, the Star Search.
- Ed McMahon.
- And so it was the International Star Search.
It was a special Star Search.
- Because you're Canadian.
- Yeah, right.
- So I was in that, and then I lost, it was horrible.
- Oh.
- I got the lowest score, like, ever.
- Really?
- Yeah.
And that's what they told me.
And so I was up against guys
that were much more international.
Like, there was one guy, he was from Africa,
and he had like a big robe,
and a hat, and then another guy from Australia,
and he had a hat, too.
And then, I just had like a jag and a little tie.
- Yeah, you needed the hat, sure.
- I didn't have a hat.
So, and plus all my stuff wasn't funny, that didn't help me.
- No, that's, no, all the hats in the world won't help that.
So, I went on, it was really humiliating, you know?
- Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
- And nobody laughed, even Ed didn't laugh.
That, I knew I was doing bad.
- Ed McMahon wasn't laughing.
- That's what he does for a living.
- Yeah, more or less, sure.
- So, he was taking some time off while I was out there.
He was just glaring at me there, and, but he was a good guy.
He always makes it dramatic, tries to make it dramatic.
- Yeah, it's a big moment.
- Yeah, sure.
- So, even if it's, you know, everybody knew I was gonna lose,
but you have to go out with the other guy,
and with the guys with the hats,
and I knew I was gonna lose.
And then, you know, he goes, like,
"Another tough decision for the judges."
And, that was the only time I heard laughter
when I was on stage.
He said, "Our Canadian champion, Norm Macdonald,
"receives three-quarters of a star."
- That's not good.
- No, no.
- That's not good at all.
- I figured it out later that you get three-quarters of a star.
Three guys had to give me one star,
and then one guy gave me none.
- And you're getting to be kind of a, like a celebrity,
like a big deal, aren't you?
- Yeah, kind of marginally.
I was, I did a celebrity golf tournament.
- Is it fun?
- It's all right, you know,
but it didn't work out very well.
- Why not?
- Well, the thing is, the idea is you go,
and there's three regular guys,
and then there's the celebrity, you know?
- So it'd be like a guy from the Rotary Club,
a guy from the bank, a guy from the Kiwanis Club,
and you, playing a foursome.
- And so I showed up there,
and there were the three guys there,
and my tee time was like 10, 15,
and so one of the guys, he says to me,
we're just standing there,
and the guy says to me, he says,
"Hey, I wonder who our celebrity is."
- That's no good.
- So, you don't want to, you know,
it's hard to identify yourself as a celebrity.
- Sure, yeah.
And so, I said it was me, and we golfed.
I spent the whole, like, first nine holes
trying to explain who I was, the guy.
- Yeah.
- And plus, there were other guy,
they were like celebrity spotting.
They were like envious of all the others.
So then I was like, "Hey, it's Skoy Mitchell.
Look at that over there," you know?
Or, "There's Chachi."
I was even doing it, you know?
- Yeah, it's kind of a thrill for you as well.
- Yeah, it was pretty cool to see these guys.
And plus, it doesn't help that I'm no good at golf.
I stink at golf, so.
- Not very good.
- You know, not only, you know,
I've been in the woods all the time
trying to find my ball on there on the fairway going,
"Hey, where the hell's that guy?
"We don't know who he is," you know?
- It sounded like a fun outing, though, all in all.
- Yeah, that was fun.
- Now, when you go out, generally,
I would guess, though, the people usually know who you are
when you're walking around New York City, especially.
You get recognized all the time?
- A little bit.
- Sometimes, like, a lot of times I get like,
"Hey, you're that guy from "Saturday Night Live."
And then I go, "Yeah, yeah."
And then they go, "That show sucks."
- No, see, that's not good.
- That's not good.
- That's no good.
- And then I go, "Yes, thank you very much."
Sometimes, a lot of guys, a lot of times, like,
'cause I'm not, you know, I'm not famous,
but one guy will recognize me and everybody else won't.
So it'll just make a big, like, "Hey, hey, hey."
And then everyone looks at me,
"What?"
And then I go, "I'm a guy from the TV."
But I want to get famous, you know?
That's my big goal.
- Really, to be famous?
- Not famous enough so that I can't walk down the street,
you know, like you, you know, where your life is,
your life is a hell.
But I want to...
I'd like to get famous enough so that if I had, you know,
if I ever had, like, you know, problems with my liver
or something, I could get another one quick.
You know, that kind of...
- You want to go to the top of the list?
- Yes.
- How is your liver?
Everything all right there?
- Everything's fine with my liver,
but if I get famous enough, I'm gonna hit the booze.
And it's nice to know that you have that
as kind of an insurance policy, yeah.
- And you're a Canadian, as is Paul.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Canada.
- Is that where you began as a comedian?
- Yeah, I did stand-up in Canada and, man, that stinks.
- Really?
- Oh my God.
You think, do you ever go on the road and do stand-up?
- Yeah, used to do that all the time, sure.
- That stinks, right?
- Yeah, it was not, I mean, the travel was grueling.
- Yeah, plus everyone hates you.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Oh, I didn't need to go on the road for that.
- But I remember this one gig I did.
It was like, I call them a gigs.
- Yeah, sure, 'cause you're in showbiz.
- Right, so I, it was in Red Deer, Alberta.
You know where that is?
- Oh, yes.
- Well, you know every other place in the map.
- Part of that Red Deer Metroplex up there
in Alberta.
- Yeah, it was just outside of Red Deer and-
- Oh, just outside of Red Deer.
- It was before, it was before I was hot.
So, so, I couldn't get Red Deer.
- Uh-huh.
- So, for those of them that didn't understand the first part.
So, I was, I was at this gig and it was tough, you know.
Like the guy told me before I went on, he said,
you know, you gotta do the whole hour.
I had to do an hour.
- Gee, that's grueling.
- That's a long time.
- That really is tough.
- When you do the hour, you don't get the check.
- Yeah.
- Because a lot of people have been, you know,
leaving before the hour was over.
And so, I started doing my comedy, you know.
And everyone hated my guts.
And so, like 10 minutes into it.
If everyone hates your guts for the first 10 minutes,
you know, you're not gonna win 'em over.
- It's discouraging.
- Yeah, you know, you're not gonna have
a good other 50 minutes.
- No.
- So, so everyone hates me.
So then after a whole hour of that,
I have to host a joke contest, you know,
where I bring people from the audience up.
- Oh, a little talent show kind of thing.
- Yeah, and they tell their jokes.
- Yeah.
- So they go up and they're hostile towards me.
You know, they, oh my God.
So every guy, it would be like,
he would use me as like the butt of the joke.
- Yeah.
- You know what I mean?
You know, the guy would be going,
"Okay, uh..."
You know, they have a mic there in their hands.
- Oh, that's what you're doing.
Thank you, Norm.
Thank you.
- And what, what would this be?
Would this be a phone?
Hello?
- Sometimes this isn't a mic.
It was some of my jokes, but...
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
So, uh, the guy's...
- They should have loved that in Canada for everything.
- I should have, I should have used that.
I wasn't that savvy at that point.
But, uh, so the guy's up there, he's got the mic,
you know, and he goes like, he's using me, everybody,
you know, it would be going like,
"Okay, folks, here's the joke.
Okay, what's your name again?
Norm."
"There's this fruit, Norm!"
You know, and they get a big laugh.
And, uh, so...
So, everybody would be abusing me more.
Finally, this guy comes up, you know, drunk, you know,
and he goes, "Hey, Norm!"
You know, and I go, "Yeah?"
He goes, "Uh, uh, well, you want to see
my impression of a whale?"
You know, and I go, "Yeah, yeah, that'd be good."
You know, and, uh, so he has his beer,
so he takes a big swig of beer,
and then he, like, spits it up all over my face
and my shirt and everything.
He says, "I didn't even get it, either,
'til much later."
That's too bad.
It's the blow-off of the whale.
Yeah, of course, yeah.
And the beer is the seawater.
Yeah, exactly.
So, so now I got, I got stuff dripping over me.
I have to give this guy the gift certificate,
you know, he won.
Yeah, people went crazy.
So then, I'm depressed, I go in the corner,
I'm playing Frogger, you know, I got water.
I got beer, the beer was playing in the water.
Yeah.
What a story, huh?
I want to become real famous, you know?
Yeah.
Real, like, famous, famous.
Yeah.
I want to be like, like you, you know, famous.
No, no, I'm not, like John Goodman.
John Goodman, that's a famous guy.
Yeah, John Goodman.
But I'd say you're more famous than John Goodman.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, all right.
So I want to get that kind of fame where,
just, you know, people bug you all the time,
and, you know, I'd like maybe a woman show up,
figure me for her husband.
You know, that kind of thing.
That's what I'm looking for.
All right, well, sure.
But I get kind of like--
I think I can make that happen.
I kind of got half-fame, you know?
Like, sometimes people, like, I was taking the airplane there,
flying on the airplane, and I get on the airplane,
so I got this character beside me, you know,
sitting there with me, and he says to me, he says--
he says to me, he says-- he says, uh--
He says, "I really like you on the show there, Fred."
He calls me Fred.
Fred.
Yeah.
So he recognized me, but he thought my name was Fred.
So I figured, what the hell, it's a name, Fred, right?
And so I go, "Yeah, thanks a lot."
I don't want to go, "Hey, I'm not Fred," you know?
Yeah.
So I go, "Yeah, yea