Name: Norm on WTF w Marc Maron
Uploaded: 2022-02-04T18:58:07.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm on WTF w Marc Maron' from TickleMeNorm on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-04. Transcript available. Be Sad Now #normmacdonald #norm.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm on WTF w Marc Maron' from TickleMeNorm on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-04. Transcript available. Be Sad Now #normmacdonald #norm.

Norm on WTF w Marc Maron

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 good at
dates but 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 the 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 were
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 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 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 that fucking guy's
fucking sounds like a retard
he's like yeah i'm like fuck man is that what i sound like so um it's funny
when you have a weird
voice yeah 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 standup i got 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 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 right 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 don't know who sinbad was and he goes uh and he's
completely relaxed i'm all
just thinking about some sort of one piece outfit yeah 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 the lady takes
a minute to come out yeah and he's like where's that lady you know nobody here
you know and i'm like
yeah and so he gets 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
and 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 have no one there and then
people are agreeing with
him i'm like what it didn'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 yeah 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
act 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 impulse i saw you i mean jane cook was very funny
never done that
yeah it just came out of nowhere i didn't second guess it and it fucking worked
but if i would
have said like for the five minutes i was sitting there like i'm going to do
this dang cook thing
maybe it's because you're embodying dame cook right yeah yeah that i actually
had the confidence
of dame yeah right 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 yeah 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 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 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 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 it 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 that
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 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 it'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
always there's always i remember 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 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 gonna do it i'm gonna 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 could remember his name joe something there was a there was a
character yeah yeah oh wait
wait s uh fuck uh ansys joe ansys yeah so i'm ready i know i read that book it
was like the bible
the lenny bruce biography by albert goldman yeah and so ansys was the funny guy
right that never
went on stage that's right the brilliant funny guy right now you know i but and
i met him
you did dangerfield you d