Name: Thinking Back on the "Opie and Anthony" Days with Jim Norton
Uploaded: 2025-11-13T15:30:17.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Thinking Back on the "Opie and Anthony" Days with Jim Norton' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-11-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Thinking Back on the "Opie and Anthony" Days with Jim Norton' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-11-13. Transcript available.

Like, I'm not doing radio for the first time in 20 years, and it's so weird not
having a schedule.
It's so weird not going, okay, well, Labor Day, Memorial Day, like, this is
when we get off, this is when we don't get off.
To just be able to go on the road and do what I want to do is a very foreign
feeling.
I love it.
It's nice.
And having a kid, you could do that.
You could just book a place.
Not that, you know, having a kid and having a radio show are the same thing.
But, yeah, I don't know, you got to get up early.
Yeah, you're right.
It kind of sucks.
You kind of don't want to look at the people you're talking to.
Yeah, maybe it's exactly like having a kid.
It's like any other partnership.
Yeah, the food sucks.
The food sucks.
Yeah, the hours are kind of annoying.
You got to wake up when you don't want to wake up.
You're fucking cranky through most of it.
Yeah, your partner's there.
Fuck them, you know.
Yeah, because they made it in before I did.
You're like, ugh, you're happy to be here, aren't you?
Yeah.
But I do kind of miss it a little bit.
Like, I miss the structure of it, but I also like not having it.
Oh, it was so much fun when you guys had, I mean, I only got to go when it was
open.
Actually, I came when it was Jim and Sam, too.
Okay.
But I never got to go when Anthony was there.
Yeah.
But it was fun.
Like, I mean, that was like some of the first times I ever got to be in a place
where like
people got to hear my voice that were like paying attention.
Yeah.
Like, we talked to Bobby Kennedy on that show, which was on you guys' show,
which was crazy
because he and I became friends years later, which was wild.
Was he in studio?
Like, I think he was in studio with us, wasn't he?
Like, for some reason, did Robert Kennedy just call in?
He called in.
Oh, it was a phone call.
I thought I saw a picture of all of us together.
And I'd never heard of him.
And I thought he'd been like electrocuted or fucking, you know, or people were
fucking
him while he was talking or whatever.
Like, I didn't know what was going on.
Those are really bizarre reasons for the voice.
Yeah.
Wait, is that him right there?
Oh, never mind.
I thought I saw that.
That's myself.
I can't.
I don't have my glasses.
That's me.
And Florentine and Opie.
And yeah.
And that's Robert Kennedy.
I didn't remember that.
Look how skinny I was.
No, I know back then I look like a weird Photoshopped version of what I am now.
You look almost feminine there a little bit.
You look kind of like a white Charlemagne kind of.
That is funny.
And he would hate that.
He knows I think he's a handsome guy.
No, no, no.
But nobody wants to be Jim Norton to be like, yeah, you kind of resemble Jim Norton.
But that, you're right.
It is like a little, my wife hates me like that.
Like, she's like, you fucking look like a little twink.
You look sick.
I don't like it.
She's like, you're not a fucking small.
You're a medium.
She makes me, she never wants me to be like that again.
But that's how I want to be.
And it does look kind of sickly.
Like when I see that, like my neck, my head, like, and I was so depressed at
that point
in my life.
So I wasn't even happy.
You seemed like you were doing great.
And then Daryl Strawberry, that's the day I came in so coked up.
Were you coked up that day?
Oh, bro.
That's, that started my, that, that, that day I made a story for Ari Shaffir's
show.
And that story, like, that story, like, is when people started paying attention
to my comedy.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I ended up on, in a taxi cab, driving a taxi cab, high on cocaine.
The driver had picked me up.
There was a girl in the cab.
We're dropping her off.
She kind of rejected me.
I didn't like make, like, I was just like, she was laying in my lap.
I was trying to like give her a kiss, you know, because it felt like she was
flirting.
She laid in my lap and like, so I like, you know, whatever.
And I didn't get, be aggressive, but she like, was like, what are you doing?
And so then I felt some rejection.
She, she got dropped off where she was going.
It was just me and the driver.
And I was like, let's go get some coke.
You know, we can get some cocaine.
And then it was like next two hours later, I'm driving.
He has a hooker.
He's bought hookers for us.
He's in the back of the taxi.
We're up in like Washington, Washington Heights, Washington Heights.
Yep.
And I've, I have to be at the radio station the next morning at like 630.
I get dropped off at my hotel at 550, right?
It's a couple blocks away.
I shower and I walk over there, dude.
And it was the scariest walk ever because every moment of the walk was so scary.
And I just was like rattled and I got inside and I sat on the show.
I couldn't even talk.
I don't remember.
And Daryl Strawberry was the guest.
And I'd always thought he was like this drug addict.
And here he was pure as a driven snow.
Sober.
He's clean and sober.
I think he still is.
I hope he still is.
But yeah, he came.
Joe Torrey told us about him about the plane going in.
It was really bad turbulence.
And everyone was panicking.
But Daryl was reading his Bible in the back.
So like he turned around and like has this sober life.
And it's weird being fucked up around somebody that sober.
It's uncomfortable.
And I'd always thought he was this way.
And I'd always thought I was kind of like toe in the line and do, you know,
straight.
And then it was this moment where everything.
And that's when I got into recovery rooms after that.
Really?
Yeah.
Literally the two days after.
That show, like, you know, the Opie and Anthony show was a different thing.
Like it was, you know, and Opie and I did what we could.
It's hard to follow the Opie and Anthony show.
You know what I mean?
It's a hard act to follow.
Especially when it was uprooted without any one of us wanting it to be uprooted.
But man, I look back at that show and I'm really glad I was a part of that.
Like there was some really funny shit on that show.
Great comics coming through.
Everyone being vicious to each other.
Like, you know what I mean?
It was a really, there was a lot of fun times on that show.
God, that was so fun.
You got, it felt like the luckiest place in the world.
There was no better call you could get at the time in the country, I don't
think,
than to go on to that show.
And some people didn't even recognize it and that's fine.
Fuck them.
But to go in there and sit in there with guys, DeStefano, Sherrod Small, Pete
Davidson,
Mark Norman would be in there.
Just like, uh, Vic Henley, like Greg, um, Jim Florentine.
My bad, yeah.
Just all those guys, man.
That was magical.
It was fun and it was a good, you would see your friends.
I mean, the last time I saw Patrice, I remember he was on, uh, he was on, uh,
was on ONA and he was coming in one day and they're like, Hey, Patrice is
coming in either
Thursday or Friday.
And we were just having an after show meeting and they're like, do you have any
preference?
And I remember going, Hey, let's do Thursday because, uh, I'm traveling Friday.
I won't be here.
I wanted to see him.
And he came in and he did the show.
That was the last time I saw him.
Like, so it was like, you saw people that you would not have been likely to see
coming
through friends that were on the road.
Uh, you would always get to see them cause they'd come in the studio that I
miss a lot
being in the center of that.
Like, you know what I mean?
And you know, everyone headlines.
So you don't see your friends anymore.
You'd probably go years without seeing guys that you like.
But you know, there I would see guys come, come through.
And, uh, yeah, man, I, I, I really, I loved those days a lot.
It was special.
Yeah.
I felt like it was.
Did you guys ever get to, um, did you guys ever get to interview OJ Simp?
Did you guys ever interview a murderer?
Did we ever?
Um, I don't, I don't know if he ever, I've interviewed Frank Lucas, uh, who was
in, uh,
who was the, this American.
Martha Moxley, that wasn't that guy, was it?
No, it was American gangster that Denzel played him.
Uh, but there's a moment where he went up and shot somebody.
So he might qualify.
Uh, I'm dying to interview Sammy the bull.
I'm dying to talk to him.
Cause I, I, this podcast is fascinating.
Uh, you know who one of the best guys we ever talked to was?
It was this giant cop from Milwaukee.
His name was something Kennedy.
He was six foot seven and he was the cop who debriefed Jeffrey Dahmer when they
arrested
Dahmer and they brought Dahmer to the station house.
He's the cop, the detective that Dahmer first talked to.
And he said at first he didn't believe him cause he was like, yeah, I killed
all these
people.
And then he said, he got a call from the scene and they're like, yeah, with the
refrigerator,
we found heads.
And then he had to go back over it.
Yeah.
Um, Patrick Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy.
Yeah.
He died.
Unfortunately, he looks young.
He was a giant six foot seven beast of a man.
Very nice guy.
But he, uh, he, and he admitted that when Dahmer died, he got emotional because
he had gotten
to know him and he goes, he kind of got a little bit, he cried.
He said when, when Jeffrey Dahmer was killed because he was a bad guy, but he's
still,
you know, whatever.
When you know someone, you know him, but a murderer, I, that's a good, I don't
know.
Um, but never OJ, huh?
Never talked to OJ.
I corresponded with him once.
Uh, I sent him a DM trying to get him on the radio show and he did respond to
me, but,
um, he, we never got him on.
This was after he got out of jail, uh, for, for, you know, in the Vegas thing.
My buddy has a story where they were, uh, in New York one night and they were
doing some
cocaine and this was after the murders and somebody was like, Oh, I don't have
a key
on me.
And OJ pulled a knife out of his jacket and they did it off of the knife.
He Jimmy, the lock.
No, he, they just, Oh, the Coke, the Coke.
They were doing the cocaine and he, and they pulled the knife out and they did
the, they,
and they were all looking at him like it was fucking crazy that he would do
that.
Why would you carry that?
And the only thing crazier than that is me acting like someone's aunt.
What?
They couldn't get in the house.
What an asshole.
How did I miss the point of that?
I apologize.
I'm stupid.
I'm a stupid man.
You're talking about doing coke.
And I'm like, what did they, Jimmy the lock?
Oh, fucking blithering old idiots.
I'm an old man.
Um, yeah, that's a, that's a very bizarre.
Maybe OJ had to at that point though, because he, you know, people had such
strong feelings
about that.
Maybe he was afraid somebody was going to jump out and take a shot at him or,
or, or, or
attack him.
I never met him.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Uh, I, I feel like we had a chance to meet him when he was doing podcasts and
he was getting
paid for them for a while.
Yeah.
And we didn't buy it.
We didn't go into that.
I would love to, I met Kevorkian once, but, uh, Ron Bennington, I think
interviewed him
and he was there.
So I took a picture with Dr. Kevorkian, but I would love to have gotten to talk
to him,
but I never got to talk to him.
Unfortunately, some of them, he's just like, fuck.
We had so many celebrities coming through your world too.
At one point there were a lot.
Yeah.
I mean, that show was crazy to be in that lobby in that big building in New
York.
Like, especially for young comics, you go there and there's like, it looks like
outer
space when you get there downstairs the first time, if you haven't been in
there and it's
those glass, like something turns green and it opens it up.
But first you have to go talk to somebody who's usually a diversity hire.
I'm going to say it in a suit over there downstairs.
And they would call up to somebody magically somewhere.
You would get the thumbs up, they'd give you a little barcode.
And now you're like, the doors open and then bing.
And it just, the elevator like almost is like, come in here.
And then you go so high to your ears pop and you get out and like fucking Evander
Holyfield
is in the lobby or like Doja Cat or fucking Katy Perry.
Everybody's waiting to go into some little enclave to get their voice out to
the world.
It was crazy.
It was crazy.
And Stern was right down the hall too.
So he would always have huge guests.
Oh yeah.
I nailed McCartney coming out of his studio one time.
I got a picture with McCartney.
That was a big one.
Pele I got.
Like I've got, they weren't there for my show.
But I still would, if they're in the lobby, I'm like, it's fair game.
And usually they would take it, you know, cause you're in that, it's kind of a
closed
environment.
But yeah, that would, that was one, that was one, that's a good shot with us
too.
I've always hated how my dumb neck looks, but yeah, cause I was doing it for a
selfie and
then McCartney goes, let my guy do it.
So I handed it to his security guy.
He was actually very nice.
And yeah, that's a great, a great shot.
That's a pretty good picture, man.
It's very risky handing it to someone else too.
Cause you have no control over what they're going to do.
No control.
But because Paul suggested it, I knew the guy would do like do as he was at.
Like, it wasn't like I just handed it to some guy and I'm like quickly, you
know, um, he
asked the guy and he probably knew like, let me just get this fucking weird eggheaded
kid
out of here and go about my day.
Yeah.
This is a special needs adult.
It really, yeah, it is.
I don't look particularly mentally healthy there or handsome.
I don't know.

Thinking Back on the "Opie and Anthony" Days with Jim Norton

Like, I'm not doing radio for the first time in 20 years, and it's so weird not
having a schedule.
It's so weird not going, okay, well, Labor Day, Memorial Day, like, this is
when we get off, this is when we don't get off.
To just be able to go on the road and do what I want to do is a very foreign
feeling.
I love it.
It's nice.
And having a kid, you could do that.
You could just book a place.
Not that, you know, having a kid and having a radio show are the same thing.
But, yeah, I don't know, you got to get up early.
Yeah, you're right.
It kind of sucks.
You kind of don't want to look at the people you're talking to.
Yeah, maybe it's exactly like having a kid.
It's like any other partnership.
Yeah, the food sucks.
The food sucks.
Yeah, the hours are kind of annoying.
You got to wake up when you don't want to wake up.
You're fucking cranky through most of it.
Yeah, your partner's there.
Fuck them, you know.
Yeah, because they made it in before I did.
You're like, ugh, you're happy to be here, aren't you?
Yeah.
But I do kind of miss it a little bit.
Like, I miss the structure of it, but I also like not having it.
Oh, it was so much fun when you guys had, I mean, I only got to go when it was
open.
Actually, I came when it was Jim and Sam, too.
Okay.
But I never got to go when Anthony was there.
Yeah.
But it was fun.
Like, I mean, that was like some of the first times I ever got to be in a place
where like
people got to hear my voice that were like paying attention.
Yeah.
Like, we talked to Bobby Kennedy on that show, which was on you guys' show,
which was crazy
because he and I became friends years later, which was wild.
Was he in studio?
Like, I think he was in studio with us, wasn't he?
Like, for some reason, did Robert Kennedy just call in?
He called in.
Oh, it was a phone call.
I thought I saw a picture of all of us together.
And I'd never heard of him.
And I thought he'd been like electrocuted or fucking, you know, or people were
fucking
him while he was talking or whatever.
Like, I didn't know what was going on.
Those are really bizarre reasons for the voice.
Yeah.
Wait, is that him right there?
Oh, never mind.
I thought I saw that.
That's myself.
I can't.
I don't have my glasses.
That's me.
And Florentine and Opie.
And yeah.
And that's Robert Kennedy.
I didn't remember that.
Look how skinny I was.
No, I know back then I look like a weird Photoshopped version of what I am now.
You look almost feminine there a little bit.
You look kind of like a white Charlemagne kind of.
That is funny.
And he would hate that.
He knows I think he's a handsome guy.
No, no, no.
But nobody wants to be Jim Norton to be like, yeah, you kind of resemble Jim Norton.
But that, you're right.
It is like a little, my wife hates me like that.
Like, she's like, you fucking look like a little twink.
You look sick.
I don't like it.
She's like, you're not a fucking small.
You're a medium.
She makes me, she never wants me to be like that again.
But that's how I want to be.
And it does look kind of sickly.
Like when I see that, like my neck, my head, like, and I was so depressed at
that point
in my life.
So I wasn't even happy.
You seemed like you were doing great.
And then Daryl Strawberry, that's the day I came in so coked up.
Were you coked up that day?
Oh, bro.
That's, that started my, that, that, that day I made a story for Ari Shaffir's
show.
And that story, like, that story, like, is when people started paying attention
to my comedy.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I ended up on, in a taxi cab, driving a taxi cab, high on cocaine.
The driver had picked me up.
There was a girl in the cab.
We're dropping her off.
She kind of rejected me.
I didn't like make, like, I was just like, she was laying in my lap.
I was trying to like give her a kiss, you know, because it felt like she was
flirting.
She laid in my lap and like, so I like, you know, whatever.
And I didn't get, be aggressive, but she like, was like, what are you doing?
And so then I felt some rejection.
She, she got dropped off where she was going.
It was just me and the driver.
And I was like, let's go get some coke.
You know, we can get some cocaine.
And then it was like next two hours later, I'm driving.
He has a hooker.
He's bought hookers for us.
He's in the back of the taxi.
We're up in like Washington, Washington Heights, Washington Heights.
Yep.
And I've, I have to be at the radio station the next morning at like 630.
I get dropped off at my hotel at 550, right?
It's a couple blocks away.
I shower and I walk over there, dude.
And it was the scariest walk ever because every moment of the walk was so scary.
And I just was like rattled and I got inside and I sat on the show.
I couldn't even talk.
I don't remember.
And Daryl Strawberry was the guest.
And I'd always thought he was like this drug addict.
And here he was pure as a driven snow.
Sober.
He's clean and sober.
I think he still is.
I hope he still is.
But yeah, he came.
Joe Torrey told us about him about the plane going in.
It was really bad turbulence.
And everyone was panicking.
But Daryl was reading his Bible in the back.
So like he turned around and like has this sober life.
And it's weird being fucked up around somebody that sober.
It's uncomfortable.
And I'd always thought he was this way.
And I'd always thought I was kind of like toe in the line and do, you know,
straight.
And then it was this moment where everything.
And that's when I got into recovery rooms after that.
Really?
Yeah.
Literally the two days after.
That show, like, you know, the Opie and Anthony show was a different thing.
Like it was, you know, and Opie and I did what we could.
It's hard to follow the Opie and Anthony show.
You know what I mean?
It's a hard act to follow.
Especially when it was uprooted without any one of us wanting it to be uprooted.
But man, I look back at that show and I'm really glad I was a part of that.
Like there was some really funny shit on that show.
Great comics coming through.
Everyone being vicious to each other.
Like, you know what I mean?
It was a really, there was a lot of fun times on that show.
God, that was so fun.
You got, it felt like the luckiest place in the world.
There was no better call you could get at the time in the country, I don't
think,
than to go on to that show.
And some people didn't even recognize it and that's fine.
Fuck them.
But to go in there and sit in there with guys, DeStefano, Sherrod Small, Pete
Davidson,
Mark Norman would be in there.
Just like, uh, Vic Henley, like Greg, um, Jim Florentine.
My bad, yeah.
Just all those guys, man.
That was magical.
It was fun and it was a good, you would see your friends.
I mean, the last time I saw Patrice, I remember he was on, uh, he was on, uh,
was on ONA and he was coming in one day and they're like, Hey, Patrice is
coming in either
Thursday or Friday.
And we were just having an after show meeting and they're like, do you have any
preference?
And I remember going, Hey, let's do Thursday because, uh, I'm traveling Friday.
I won't be here.
I wanted to see him.
And he came in and he did the show.
That was the last time I saw him.
Like, so it was like, you saw people that you would not have been likely to see
coming
through friends that were on the road.
Uh, you would always get to see them cause they'd come in the studio that I
miss a lot
being in the center of that.
Like, you know what I mean?
And you know, everyone headlines.
So you don't see your friends anymore.
You'd probably go years without seeing guys that you like.
But you know, there I would see guys come, come through.
And, uh, yeah, man, I, I, I really, I loved those days a lot.
It was special.
Yeah.
I felt like it was.
Did you guys ever get to, um, did you guys ever get to interview OJ Simp?
Did you guys ever interview a murderer?
Did we ever?
Um, I don't, I don't know if he ever, I've interviewed Frank Lucas, uh, who was
in, uh,
who was the, this American.
Martha Moxley, that wasn't that guy, was it?
No, it was American gangster that Denzel played him.
Uh, but there's a moment where he went up and shot somebody.
So he might qualify.
Uh, I'm dying to interview Sammy the bull.
I'm dying to talk to him.
Cause I, I, this podcast is fascinating.
Uh, you know who one of the best guys we ever talked to was?
It was this giant cop from Milwaukee.
His name was something Kennedy.
He was six foot seven and he was the cop who debriefed Jeffrey Dahmer when they
arrested
Dahmer and they brought Dahmer to the station house.
He's the cop, the detective that Dahmer first talked to.
And he said at first he didn't believe him cause he was like, yeah, I killed
all these
people.
And then he said, he got a call from the scene and they're like, yeah, with the
refrigerator,
we found heads.
And then he had to go back over it.
Yeah.
Um, Patrick Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy.
Yeah.
He died.
Unfortunately, he looks young.
He was a giant six foot seven beast of a man.
Very nice guy.
But he, uh, he, and he admitted that when Dahmer died, he got emotional because
he had gotten
to know him and he goes, he kind of got a little bit, he cried.
He said when, when Jeffrey Dahmer was killed because he was a bad guy, but he's
still,
you know, whatever.
When you know someone, you know him, but a murderer, I, that's a good, I don't
know.
Um, but never OJ, huh?
Never talked to OJ.
I corresponded with him once.
Uh, I sent him a DM trying to get him on the radio show and he did respond to
me, but,
um, he, we never got him on.
This was after he got out of jail, uh, for, for, you know, in the Vegas thing.
My buddy has a story where they were, uh, in New York one night and they were
doing some
cocaine and this was after the murders and somebody was like, Oh, I don't have
a key
on me.
And OJ pulled a knife out of his jacket and they did it off of the knife.
He Jimmy, the lock.
No, he, they just, Oh, the Coke, the Coke.
They were doing the cocaine and he, and they pulled the knife out and they did
the, they,
and they were all looking at him like it was fucking crazy that he would do
that.
Why would you carry that?
And the only thing crazier than that is me acting like someone's aunt.
What?
They couldn't get in the house.
What an asshole.
How did I miss the point of that?
I apologize.
I'm stupid.
I'm a stupid man.
You're talking about doing coke.
And I'm like, what did they, Jimmy the lock?
Oh, fucking blithering old idiots.
I'm an old man.
Um, yeah, that's a, that's a very bizarre.
Maybe OJ had to at that point though, because he, you know, people had such
strong feelings
about that.
Maybe he was afraid somebody was going to jump out and take a shot at him or,
or, or, or
attack him.
I never met him.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Uh, I, I feel like we had a chance to meet him when he was doing podcasts and
he was getting
paid for them for a while.
Yeah.
And we didn't buy it.
We didn't go into that.
I would love to, I met Kevorkian once, but, uh, Ron Bennington, I think
interviewed him
and he was there.
So I took a picture with Dr. Kevorkian, but I would love to have gotten to talk
to him,
but I never got to talk to him.
Unfortunately, some of them, he's just like, fuck.
We had so many celebrities coming through your world too.
At one point there were a lot.
Yeah.
I mean, that show was crazy to be in that lobby in that big building in New
York.
Like, especially for young comics, you go there and there's like, it looks like
outer
space when you get there downstairs the first time, if you haven't been in
there and it's
those glass, like something turns green and it opens it up.
But first you have to go talk to somebody who's usually a diversity hire.
I'm going to say it in a suit over there downstairs.
And they would call up to somebody magically somewhere.
You would get the thumbs up, they'd give you a little barcode.
And now you're like, the doors open and then bing.
And it just, the elevator like almost is like, come in here.
And then you go so high to your ears pop and you get out and like fucking Evander
Holyfield
is in 