Name: They Stole an Emmy from Norm. Norm Macdonald Talked About Writing for Roseanne
Uploaded: 2022-09-08T16:43:36.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'They Stole an Emmy from Norm. Norm Macdonald Talked About Writing for Roseanne' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-09-08. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'They Stole an Emmy from Norm. Norm Macdonald Talked About Writing for Roseanne' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-09-08. Transcript available.

I think you started out as a writer for Roseanne, which many people consider
probably the best sitcom pre-Seinfeld or of the 90s,
the best, like, traditional sitcom of the 90s, and you were a writer on that
show for a bunch of years, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, I started with stand-up, and then Roseanne signed me to stand-up
and hired me.
That's my first job in actual show business.
And what was that like? I mean, again, every stand-up comic hopes to get
discovered or, like, hopes to get his first job or whatever.
I mean, were you, like, literally, you had no other experience before writing
for Roseanne other than stand-up on, like, one of the hugest shows of the 90s?
No, I had none, and really, it was only because Roseanne liked stand-up that I
got the job.
Like, I don't think I ever would have got it traditionally.
And then when I was on the show, it was cool because it was just me and one
other stand-up, and Roseanne only liked us because she hated, like, Harvard
writers,
and she hated, like, you know, that snobby kind of what she perceived as snobby.
Right, right.
And she really loved stand-up, so, wow, she was very hard on the rights except
for me and this other guy.
And she was notorious for, like, basically saying, this is my show, ABC.
Do not come down here and, you know, you higher-ups and try to tell me how it's
going to be.
It's my show.
And she did control everything, and to her credit, she did because, I mean, the
whole first, I mean, it was great.
Oh, yeah, it was fascinating because the writers every week would complain
because Roseanne would want everything changed.
And then the show would be great, and then they'd complain again, like, they
never understood that she actually had to realize more what the show was than
they did.
Right.
And her big thing was, there's too many jokes.
That was all this sort of thing.
Like, what's with all these jokes?
And so she'd kill all the pad or all the one-liners, and the writers didn't
like that because it's sort of an easy way to write.
You know, you just write a, just pepper a bunch of little jokes in there.
Right, like night court.
She was more into character, and she called it, like, an anti-sign.
Yeah, and relationships, and that's why that show was so brilliant, because of
the relationships between her and her kids, and the relationship between her
and Dan.
I mean, are there any particular episodes that you can remember writing that
stand out that says, oh, that's Norm Macdonalds?
Like Conan O'Brien always says about The Simpsons, oh, the monorail episode is
the one I wrote.
Was there, Roseanne, one that stood out to you?
Yeah, there was one that kind of broke my heart, because a girl won an Emmy for
writing it, even though I wrote it.
But the way it works in show business and TV writing is they'll just, it's just
one person's, one person can write the episode.
So even though it was my complete notion, this other girl wrote it, but it was
based on my mother talking to my grandmother,
and the episode goes, and my mother dies, and she has to explain it, or her
father dies, rather,
and she has to explain it to her mother, and her mother can't hear her on the
phone, you know, because she's got bad hearing.
Right.
So that's, it actually happened with my mother, so she's trying to tell.
She starts off sad, but she ends up, like, screaming into the phone, you know,
so that her mother can hear it.
Oh, no. And that actually happened to you?
That actually happened to me, and then I had to watch this girl win an Emmy for
writing.
Oh, man. Go fair and accept it. Did she even thank you, or did she mention you
in the acceptance speech?
No, no, no. That would be giving it up.
Oh, no. Well, that sucks.
Uh...
I have some bad news. Dad is not with us anymore.
I said, Dad has passed away.
He's passed away.
Dad is gone.
Dad's dead.
He's dead.
No, Dad.
Dad.
He's fine. He sends his love.
Bye.