Name: The Story Behind the Greatest Joke Ever Told
Uploaded: 2021-07-20T17:53:25.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Story Behind the Greatest Joke Ever Told' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-07-20. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Story Behind the Greatest Joke Ever Told' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-07-20. Transcript available.

Now, I've done stuff on television before where I've experimented with joke
structures,
and I did that on Weekend Update, and I did that other places on television.
But that was for my own consideration, because oftentimes, you know,
I would be getting like $500 for the appearance, you know, let's say on a talk
show or something.
So I go, well, let me try something here, because I know I'll be just as good
as the girl talking about her third swimming pool.
Yeah, or the Melrose Place.
The moth joke is a good example of that, Norm, because if, like, you go into,
you tell a really beautiful version of the moth joke, and so you do tell the moth
joke in the book.
You told it on The Tonight Show with Conan back when he was doing The Tonight
Show.
It was, it's a long kind of joke, and just a few months ago, maybe about a year
ago,
it kind of got revived online, and people were putting it up online,
calling it the best telling of a joke ever on television.
But, Norm, that seemed to me like you were trying, you were experimenting there.
You were trying to experiment with, you knew the punchline, and you knew the
beginning of it,
and you knew it was a pretty straightforward street joke,
but you wanted to experiment with how to get from one point to another.
Yeah, it was both an experiment, and I had, it was an experiment born of
necessity,
because Conan told me I had to do a second spot, which he'll sometimes do.
But I said, I don't have anything else to say. I have nothing left to tell you.
And so then I thought of this joke that Colin Quinn had told me, this street
joke.
A moth goes into a podiatrist's office, and the podiatrist's office says, what's
the problem?
And the moth says, what's the problem? Where do I begin, man?
He goes, I go to work for a...
It was just a two-line joke. It was just a, you know, a one-liner times two.
So then I thought, well, how can I do a...
I started thinking during the commercial, is it possible to do a one-liner for
an entire six-minute segment?
So I thought if I can put in between this very little boy's joke,
just a set of horrifying facts laid end to end,
then it could make the sweetness way, way funnier at the end,
because they'd have completely forgotten where I was.
And so it ended up working by fluke, like often things will when you're
experimenting.
He says, Doc.
Sometimes I feel like a spider, even though I'm a moth.
Just barely hanging onto my web with an everlasting fire underneath me.
I'm not feeling good.
And so the moth, the doctor says, moth, man, you're troubled.
But you should be seeing a psychiatrist.
Why on earth did you come here?
And then the moth said, because the light was on.
And then, yeah, and then what happens with the computer is that people put
things on the computer
and they live forever.
And you were talking about the Melrose Place thing,
which I did with Courtney Thorne-Smith, where I was just in, you know.
Yeah, just for context, if you're listening to this,
this is kind of a legendary late-night moment
where Courtney Thorne-Smith is the second guest on Conan after Norm.
She's in a new movie with Caratop called Chairman of the Board.
I hope you don't mind me delaying that.
So she's in a new show and Norm calls it box office poison.
And then she...
I just want to...
And Conan says, no, she's in the show.
And then Courtney Thorne-Smith says, yeah, I'm in the show.
And Norm says, well, no, I'm sure you're a very good talk show guest.
And then she says, no, the movie's called Chairman of the Board.
And Conan says, let's see you do something with that.
And you say...
I bet the board is spelled B-O-R-E-D.
And what was funny about that was, that was before computers.
So then you would just say something and they would just go out into the ether
and people would go, remember that thing?
And the other guy would go, no.
And they'd go, well, I don't either.
But nowadays, it exists forever.
And I don't even know if I would do that joke.
But anyways, now I'll go on talk shows and I'll go on first.
And then they'll always go, like, the next guy, just say anything you want.
And then they'll warn the second guest.
They'll go, Norm might attack you at any moment.
But that's not what I do.
So sometimes you'll see a guest that'll come out
and then like peremptorily attack me for no reason at all.
So I just don't say anything.
It's not necessarily hostile to you.
Yeah, I don't, if that ever happens, I never say anything.
So it just seems sort of odd to the audience that
Thomas Hayden Church is like attacking me out of the blue.
*laughs*
*music*