Name: Conan Perfectly Describes Norm Macdonald's Comedy
Uploaded: 2022-06-17T17:56:10.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Conan Perfectly Describes Norm Macdonald's Comedy' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-06-17. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Conan Perfectly Describes Norm Macdonald's Comedy' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-06-17. Transcript available.

-He had the, I think, best word choice
of maybe any community I've ever seen.
He intentionally mispronounces words.
-'Cause the biggest show right now in the planet
is "Kate and Ashley plus --"
What?
"Kate --" "John and Kate --"
-Spit all over me. That's all right.
-"John and Kate plus eight." -You did it!
You did it, yeah.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -When he knows --
he knows how to say "TV,"
he says, "It's the TV."
-Ah! What are you doing now?
-I just saw on the TV my hair.
-Okay.
All right.
-He came on our show, I think it was his first appearance,
and he was talking about a Doberman,
and he said, "It's a Doberman."
And he knows.
-When I was a kid, the toughest dog was a Doberman dog.
You ever see them? They're a tough --
Oh, man, it'll rip your throat out, them dogs.
Just like it -- -But he's constantly screwing
with you on every level.
-Right.
-But his word choice is, he was like Mark Twain.
He was -- He had this folksy completely out of time.
And 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.
-He talks like a 1930s Canadian dock worker.
-Yeah.
-But he says, "Listen, now."
He says, "Man, I'm a tough old hombre, you know,
and I got friends now."
He says, "I don't want anybody to know about this."
You know, this is the back of the old days.
-Sure, yeah.
He says, "Uh, I can -- I can tell by the accent, yeah."
-You know, it's funny because when --
The way I experienced him, as -- as you did, Dave,
was, you know, really on the talk show format.
And later on, when I would look at the clips of him on my show,
that I would think, "I don't even know that I needed to --
I was there just laughing."
But I was in no way --
He's totally self-fueled.
Yes, it's nice when you hear the audience there,
but he's also --
You know, when I look at his appearances that he did with me,
I think, "I didn't need to be there.
I mean, I'm glad I was there.
I'm selfishly glad I was there."
But he's talking a lot about --
I mean, he's talking a lot about mortality.
He's talking a lot about death.
And obviously now that people, you know,
comics talk about that all the time.
His -- his face, his eyes, and his eyebrows --
I always said there's something almost like a jack-o-lantern.
He's got such a great --
His expressions when he's talking about
after someone's completed the act,
when he becomes, you know,
"What am I going to do now?
I'm going to go down and have a cheese sandwich."
He's -- he's such a terrific performer.
I mean, he's really just got this.
-I got a wife. -You got a wife.
-I just got married because I thought,
"Go through that charade to keep appearances up."
-Oh, yeah.
That's the kind of thing you'd tell if this were a memo.
-And he's -- he's -- he's telling the whole story like a --
I don't know, a great 1920s silent film comic.
He also had an infinite collection of old stories,
I think probably from, you know, rural Canada
or traveling salesman stories.
And I would be delighted 'cause, you know,
he'd come out, and I'd be laughing --
The only person I could say this about --
I'd be laughing before he did anything.
He'd come out from behind the curtain.
-Yeah.
-And he's got those cheeks and those eyes.
And I'm -- I looked at the tape.
I'm just laughing.
He hasn't done anything yet.
-No, I'm from a little town.
It's called Monkland, and it's only 108 people.
-108, that's -- that's small.
-Yeah, it's country, you know, it's really rural.
And -- but, man, I'll tell you,
there's lots of funny stories from there.
Well, I'm sorry we don't have time.
Thank you very much for coming, Norm.
It was good having you here.
It was Norm Macdonald.
Good night, everybody.
-'Cause farm people, you know.
-Really, there are funny stories from this town.
-Yeah, 'cause farm people, they all seem to be,
you know, they all seem to be a funny story.
I remember one time --
-There better be, Norm.
And I, you know, "Norm, how are you?"
And he's like, "Hi, hi, hi."
About a farm.
And I know immediately this is complete bullshit.
And I'd say, "Well, you know,
it's the whole thing is a complete waste
of everyone's time, and it's joyous."
-Right.
-Because -- -He's reveling in it.
-He's reveling in every second of it.
My experience was so chaotic.
You know, I thought, "This guy is Evel Knievel.
He's gonna jump Snake River Canyon.
He doesn't care."
But he put a ton of work into what he was doing
and worked it out a lot of the time.
So I don't know what that process was.
But, I mean, this really impressed me
with how self-contained it is.
"Some days we get closer
things that we never really needed
promises that we never thought of keeping safe.
I guess it's never over
If we never got it, you can win."
-All I've ever heard about Norma
is that I think he was the most widely read comedian.
-Mm, mm-hmm. -Very widely read.
Highly intelligent.
I think a great, you know, great mathematician.
I mean, things that you would never think.
He was talented in all these areas
and choosing, you know, "What's my diction?
What's my word gonna be?
What's the right word here?
-Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. -What's it exactly going to be?"
So it's -- you get this --
'Cause he seems reckless,
but he's also ruthlessly planned everything out
and fought it through.
And they don't seem to go together.
But with him, they do.