Name: Norm Macdonald on Mark Twain
Uploaded: 2023-04-04T19:51:58.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald on Mark Twain' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-04-04. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald on Mark Twain' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-04-04. Transcript available.

norm let me ask you something seriously what do you do for fun like anyone name
one thing you do for fun for fun for fun like I'm gonna have some fun tonight
I've got nothing to do today here's what I'm gonna do is it spend money it's
not
go shopping you don't get you don't decorate the place what do you do um I
guess the only thing I do is I like to read sometimes you're lying I do that's
right I mean that makes me do you play video games do you play cards do you
I was on the terror I read a lot of Mark Twain there's only so much Mark Twain
and
you're not actually yeah I'm reading letters from Hawaii and that's something
I've never read before but I read like stuff that I read a lot of literature
do you go to movies I reread it a lot no great uh now that you are a author um
can you tell us a
little bit about your favorite books oh my favorite books of all time favorite
books in
general all the time my favorite book is uh search for last time my favorite
American book is the
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I love Russian literature that's what I read
mostly um so uh
yeah you know just the standard stuff you know I don't like Dostoevsky but I
like the actual good writers
so yeah my brother still has it if you see turkey coops going down the road if
you see birds uh going down the
road most likely came from Tipton Missouri those those crates that's where you're
from Missouri yeah
Mark Twain country two fathoms here say again now is that a Mark Twain quote
that's what Mark Twain
Mark two Mark Twain that's where the word Mark Twain came from got it on the
riverboat two fathoms
here yes sir you know his real name Ellen Claygorn or something like that he
had it yeah Sam Clemens
Samuel Clemens do you like you ever read any of his work Mark Twain yeah yeah
it's in the United States
it's required reading in grade school well sir my son went to a school here in
uh Los Angeles California
and um I don't like when they teach uh great writers uh uh minor work you know
to teach him the best work
yeah so I went to the teacher I said why are you teaching my son uh uh Tom Sawyer
when uh
uh um Huckleberry Finn Life on the Mississippi Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
drawing dust on the
shelf behind you oh oh it's because it's racist it's racist it's the it's the
least racist book ever
it's right it's it's anti-racist exactly goodness gracious the ignorance of
people well what happened
with the rest of the story that was it she said we can't do that that's it she
said the next thing
we're going to do is tour Tony we're going to study Tony Morrison and she's rad
wow this is a private
school that I'm paying a lot of money yeah I get you now listen Dennis uh have
you heard about this uh
huckleberry Finn thing uh I heard something about they wanted to take the uh uh
the n-word out right
yeah anyways I wanted to bring it up before I forgot and then we'll get on to
my uh my project
all right do you have any observation on it any tweaked on or just the the cognizance
of the fact
that they want to say well I feel it's a thorny issue no no no that was that
wasn't the whole thing
no I thought you were going to go like how so tell us more norm I feel it's a
thorny issue
yeah why norm well you got mark twain and you know you're talking about I mean
uh for those of you
don't know you know what I'm talking about they've they've taken out us the n-word
you know out of
many of the books of huckleberry Finn norm they've taken and uh so you got a
thorny issue that I think I
have a solution to do do I hear it oh man never never anything more well the
thorny issue is this
yeah you know you don't want to take you know mark twain you know one of the
greatest writer ever the
uh brush paper with ink you know and and and changes words for god's sake on
the other side
of the of the coin you don't want to have a young african-american boy in
school you know
hearing that word out loud and uh and causing him pain so it's a thorny issue
but i figure it this way you've read huckleberry finn you are so splendidly demented
yeah i've read it
i've read it you you know it's written in the first person by huckleberry by
yes i do and you know it
includes the n-word yes therefore you just change huckleberry finn to a black
kid
and everything's it's like a rap song at that point right exactly everything's
cool
some days we get closer things that we never really needed promises we never
thought of keeping safe
i guess it's never over if we never got a chance to check
david uh on one time there's a true story and dave you'll you'll attest to this
bought me a beautiful
leather jacket that's right well out of my price range now i'm no one to take
charity
you're doing like a mark twain one man show
you're all alone in the back he's constantly screwing with you on every level
right but his word
choice is um he was like mark twain he's he had this folksy completely out of
time i don't know if he
was born 300 years too late or 300 years too early but he's talking in a way no
one speaks like that
and you really appreciate the way he says things and his timing