WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.580 you know when you when you look at the pantheon 00:00:02.580 --> 00:00:08.060 of modern comedy there is this sort of uh neat 00:00:08.589 --> 00:00:12.210 organized hierarchy you've got the stadium fillers 00:00:12.210 --> 00:00:13.910 you know the kevin hartz of the world then you 00:00:13.910 --> 00:00:16.910 have the sitcom billionaires your seinfelds and 00:00:16.910 --> 00:00:19.170 then the cultural critics like a dave chappelle 00:00:19.170 --> 00:00:21.449 right they all yeah they all played the game 00:00:21.449 --> 00:00:24.190 they understood the rules and they won they won 00:00:24.190 --> 00:00:27.309 the game and they got the trophy but then standing 00:00:27.309 --> 00:00:29.670 just off to the side maybe smoking a cigarette 00:00:29.670 --> 00:00:32.810 and looking slightly i don't know confused by 00:00:32.810 --> 00:00:36.479 the whole affair is Norm Macdonald. He's in a 00:00:36.479 --> 00:00:40.039 completely different category. It's almost incorrect 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:43.280 to even judge him by the same metrics. How so? 00:00:43.759 --> 00:00:45.659 Well, if you just look at his rhythm on paper, 00:00:45.920 --> 00:00:48.299 fired from his biggest job, starred in movies 00:00:48.299 --> 00:00:50.899 that famously bombed at the box office, a sitcom 00:00:50.899 --> 00:00:52.899 that did okay but wasn't a cultural phenomenon, 00:00:53.119 --> 00:00:55.399 you might think, well, okay, this guy had a rocky 00:00:55.399 --> 00:00:57.979 career. But then you talk to the people who actually 00:00:57.979 --> 00:00:59.740 do this for a living, the comedians themselves, 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:02.020 and the whole conversation just shifts entirely. 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:04.560 That's the paradox, isn't it? That's what we're 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:07.219 really digging into today. You have David Letterman, 00:01:07.340 --> 00:01:11.420 and this is a man who is famously stingy with 00:01:11.420 --> 00:01:13.939 his compliments. Oh, notoriously so. He calls 00:01:13.939 --> 00:01:17.719 Norm the best stand -up comic, period. Not one 00:01:17.719 --> 00:01:19.579 of the best, the absolute best. And you have 00:01:19.579 --> 00:01:21.480 Conan O 'Brien, who has interviewed, I mean, 00:01:21.500 --> 00:01:23.939 literally everyone, saying Norm had the most 00:01:23.939 --> 00:01:26.879 unique comedic voice he ever encountered. He 00:01:26.879 --> 00:01:30.219 even called him the best worst talk show guest. 00:01:30.890 --> 00:01:33.549 Which is a compliment in its own way. A huge 00:01:33.549 --> 00:01:35.469 compliment coming from Conan. It means he was 00:01:35.469 --> 00:01:37.450 unpredictable, that he was dangerous on live 00:01:37.450 --> 00:01:40.950 TV. And Jon Stewart, you know, a man who arguably 00:01:40.950 --> 00:01:43.390 defined political comedy for an entire generation, 00:01:43.650 --> 00:01:46.709 called Norm the funniest person he knew. So you 00:01:46.709 --> 00:01:48.810 have this massive disconnect. The industry, the 00:01:48.810 --> 00:01:51.530 executives, the marketing people, they often 00:01:51.530 --> 00:01:53.370 didn't know what to do with him. They were constantly 00:01:53.370 --> 00:01:56.090 trying to fix him, to make him more palatable. 00:01:57.239 --> 00:01:59.319 The masters of the craft, the people who really 00:01:59.319 --> 00:02:02.000 understand joke structure and timing, they looked 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.719 at him and it was just total awe. I think the 00:02:04.719 --> 00:02:06.799 easy answer, the one you always hear, is to say 00:02:06.799 --> 00:02:10.800 he was a comics comic. But that feels a bit dismissive 00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:12.819 to me. It sort of implies he was inaccessible 00:02:12.819 --> 00:02:15.580 or that you had to be in on the joke to get him. 00:02:15.860 --> 00:02:18.949 And that wasn't true. No. But the more I looked 00:02:18.949 --> 00:02:21.789 into the sources for this deep dive, the more 00:02:21.789 --> 00:02:24.129 it seems like his entire life was a deliberate 00:02:24.129 --> 00:02:26.389 rejection of the way you're supposed to be famous. 00:02:26.870 --> 00:02:29.370 He refused to play by the rules of celebrity, 00:02:29.610 --> 00:02:31.969 the rules of television, and then eventually 00:02:31.969 --> 00:02:35.270 even the rules of medical transparency. Exactly. 00:02:35.270 --> 00:02:37.330 And that's our mission here. It isn't just to 00:02:37.330 --> 00:02:39.430 retell his famous jokes, though we'll get to 00:02:39.430 --> 00:02:41.949 those. It's to try and understand the psychology 00:02:41.949 --> 00:02:45.969 of a man who would willingly, almost gleefully, 00:02:46.069 --> 00:02:49.819 blow up his own career. For a gag. Yeah. Whether 00:02:49.819 --> 00:02:51.759 you're talking about the SNL firing, the gambling 00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:53.520 addiction where you almost seem to prefer losing, 00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:56.919 or hiding a terminal illness for nine years. 00:02:57.800 --> 00:02:59.819 There is this through line of commitment that 00:02:59.819 --> 00:03:02.539 honestly, it borders on pathology. It's the commitment 00:03:02.539 --> 00:03:04.919 to the bit, even when the bit ruins you. And 00:03:04.919 --> 00:03:06.360 I think we have to start with the style itself. 00:03:06.460 --> 00:03:08.560 Before we even get into the biography, you have 00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:10.199 to understand the instrument he was playing. 00:03:10.539 --> 00:03:12.599 Because if you just read a transcript of a Norm 00:03:12.599 --> 00:03:14.580 MacDonald joke, half the time it doesn't even 00:03:14.580 --> 00:03:16.259 look like a joke. It looked like a rambling statement 00:03:16.259 --> 00:03:18.819 from an old man on a porch. That was the architecture 00:03:18.819 --> 00:03:22.719 of it. It was masterful. He perfected the shaggy 00:03:22.719 --> 00:03:26.219 dog story. Now, in traditional comedy, economy 00:03:26.219 --> 00:03:29.000 is king, right? You get to the punchline as fast 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:32.849 as you possibly can. Set up, punch. As few words 00:03:32.849 --> 00:03:35.330 as possible. Exactly. Norm would do the absolute 00:03:35.330 --> 00:03:37.789 opposite. He would elongate the setup. He would 00:03:37.789 --> 00:03:40.909 stretch it out, filling it with these folksy, 00:03:40.909 --> 00:03:44.090 almost archaic turns of phrase, intentionally 00:03:44.090 --> 00:03:47.830 boring details and absolute non sequiturs. Right. 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:49.939 And what that does is it builds this incredible 00:03:49.939 --> 00:03:52.219 tension where the audience is thinking, where 00:03:52.219 --> 00:03:54.639 on earth is this going? There has to be a payoff. 00:03:54.840 --> 00:03:56.939 And the payoff, the punchline, when it finally 00:03:56.939 --> 00:03:59.979 arrived after this long, winding road, was often 00:03:59.979 --> 00:04:02.400 deliberately underwhelming. It was anti -humor. 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:05.680 The joke was that there was no joke. Or that 00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:08.620 the punchline was so obvious, so stupid, that 00:04:08.620 --> 00:04:10.580 the absurdity of the long journey was the real 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:12.680 punchline. Which is infinitely harder to pull 00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:15.199 off than a clever pun. Oh, it requires total 00:04:15.199 --> 00:04:18.129 command of the room. You are forcing hundreds, 00:04:18.269 --> 00:04:20.149 sometimes thousands of people to wait for you. 00:04:20.209 --> 00:04:22.230 It's a power move, really. And to understand 00:04:22.230 --> 00:04:24.389 where that confidence or maybe it's indifference 00:04:24.389 --> 00:04:27.170 to the audience's approval comes from, you have 00:04:27.170 --> 00:04:29.050 to look at where he came from. Because he wasn't 00:04:29.050 --> 00:04:31.029 a theater kid. He wasn't some guy who grew up 00:04:31.029 --> 00:04:33.750 dreaming of being on stage. No, far from it. 00:04:33.810 --> 00:04:36.829 He was born in Quebec City, October 17th, 1959. 00:04:37.209 --> 00:04:39.750 And right out of the gate, we have a classic 00:04:39.750 --> 00:04:44.060 Norm obfuscation. Little lie. The age thing. 00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:46.459 The age thing. For years, if you checked his 00:04:46.459 --> 00:04:49.519 bio, it said he was born in 1963. He shaved four 00:04:49.519 --> 00:04:53.160 years off. Why? Who knows for sure, but it fits 00:04:53.160 --> 00:04:55.439 his philosophy that the truth is malleable if 00:04:55.439 --> 00:04:57.920 it serves the story or the persona. He wanted 00:04:57.920 --> 00:04:59.579 to seem younger, part of a different generation 00:04:59.579 --> 00:05:02.540 of comics maybe. But yeah, records confirm it 00:05:02.540 --> 00:05:05.040 was 59. And being born in Quebec City is key. 00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:07.500 It's the heart of French Canada. But his experience 00:05:07.500 --> 00:05:09.699 there was very, very specific. His parents were 00:05:09.699 --> 00:05:11.720 Anglophone teachers. They were English speakers 00:05:11.720 --> 00:05:14.279 working at a Canadian Forces military base. And 00:05:14.279 --> 00:05:16.319 this detail from the sources stood out to me. 00:05:16.620 --> 00:05:19.379 His father forbade him from learning French. 00:05:19.639 --> 00:05:22.000 Think about that. They're living in a thoroughly 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:24.579 French province, surrounded by French culture, 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:27.759 and the father insists on an English -only household. 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:29.759 It's like building a little cultural bubble. 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:33.290 It created an isolated environment. He was an 00:05:33.290 --> 00:05:36.709 outsider in his own hometown by design. You have 00:05:36.709 --> 00:05:39.490 this strict English -speaking household in a 00:05:39.490 --> 00:05:42.470 sea of French. It forces you to become an observer. 00:05:42.610 --> 00:05:44.910 You're constantly watching the world around you, 00:05:44.949 --> 00:05:47.430 but you're slightly fundamentally detached from 00:05:47.430 --> 00:05:50.430 it. And he wasn't a slouch. He was smart. The 00:05:50.430 --> 00:05:52.569 sources say he studied math and philosophy at 00:05:52.569 --> 00:05:54.930 Carleton University. So he had the brain for 00:05:54.930 --> 00:05:58.509 abstract logic, for deconstruction. But he didn't 00:05:58.509 --> 00:06:01.699 stay in academia. He dropped out. Drifted around 00:06:01.699 --> 00:06:04.339 for a bit and eventually landed in a job that 00:06:04.339 --> 00:06:06.139 I think is absolutely the key to understanding 00:06:06.139 --> 00:06:08.920 his physical presence on stage. The logging company. 00:06:09.100 --> 00:06:11.019 He's a choker man for a logging company. And 00:06:11.019 --> 00:06:12.759 we should explain what that is because it's not 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:15.180 a term most people know. No, and it often gets 00:06:15.180 --> 00:06:17.740 glossed over as just, you know, blue collar credibility. 00:06:18.100 --> 00:06:21.029 Yeah. But being a choker man is terrifying. Your 00:06:21.029 --> 00:06:23.550 job is to crawl over these massive piles of felled 00:06:23.550 --> 00:06:26.509 timber, often on steep, unstable mountainsides, 00:06:26.610 --> 00:06:29.810 and wrap steel cables, or chokers, around the 00:06:29.810 --> 00:06:32.610 logs. So a machine, a skidder, can then drag 00:06:32.610 --> 00:06:35.550 them out of the forest. Precisely. It is wildly 00:06:35.550 --> 00:06:38.490 dangerous. If a log shifts unexpectedly, you're 00:06:38.490 --> 00:06:41.009 crushed. If one of those steel cables under tension 00:06:41.009 --> 00:06:43.709 snaps, it can cut you in half. So that's your 00:06:43.709 --> 00:06:46.589 9 to 5. That's your workplace. So consider that 00:06:46.589 --> 00:06:49.189 experience for a moment. He spent his days in 00:06:49.189 --> 00:06:52.410 a situation where a single wrong step literally 00:06:52.410 --> 00:06:55.829 meant death. Now, compare that to the danger 00:06:55.829 --> 00:06:58.250 of a stand -up set not going well. It puts it 00:06:58.250 --> 00:07:00.149 in perspective. When you've worked as a choker 00:07:00.149 --> 00:07:03.009 man, the idea of an audience of strangers staring 00:07:03.009 --> 00:07:06.069 at you in silence because a joke failed, it just 00:07:06.069 --> 00:07:08.350 doesn't register as a threat. The stakes are 00:07:08.350 --> 00:07:10.670 completely different. That explains the fearlessness. 00:07:10.810 --> 00:07:12.410 That's why he was so comfortable with silence. 00:07:12.689 --> 00:07:14.930 Most comedians are terrified of bombing. It's 00:07:14.930 --> 00:07:17.310 their absolute nightmare. Norm seemed to almost 00:07:17.310 --> 00:07:20.029 thrive in it. He would stare down an audience 00:07:20.029 --> 00:07:21.730 that wasn't laughing until they started laughing 00:07:21.730 --> 00:07:24.029 at the fact that he didn't care. He won the war 00:07:24.029 --> 00:07:26.370 of attrition. He had inoculated himself against 00:07:26.370 --> 00:07:28.550 stage fright, against the fear of rejection, 00:07:28.829 --> 00:07:32.009 and he needed that resilience immediately. His 00:07:32.009 --> 00:07:34.670 first time on stage was at an amateur night at 00:07:34.670 --> 00:07:38.430 Yuk Yuk's in Ottawa. This was 1985. And by his 00:07:38.430 --> 00:07:41.009 own account, it was a total disaster. He fled 00:07:41.009 --> 00:07:43.810 the club. He literally ran away. He did. He thought 00:07:43.810 --> 00:07:45.870 he bombed so hard that he just walked out mid 00:07:45.870 --> 00:07:48.870 -set or right after and swore he'd never go back. 00:07:49.569 --> 00:07:52.009 The owner, a guy named Howard Wagman, had to 00:07:52.009 --> 00:07:53.670 basically chase him down and convince him to 00:07:53.670 --> 00:07:56.170 come back. He told him, no, you have something. 00:07:56.329 --> 00:07:58.389 It's weird, but you have something. Come back. 00:07:58.720 --> 00:08:01.000 It's just a reminder of how fragile these careers 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:03.420 are at the very beginning. One person's encouragement 00:08:03.420 --> 00:08:05.879 can change the entire trajectory. And speaking 00:08:05.879 --> 00:08:08.319 of fragile, things got very real for him very 00:08:08.319 --> 00:08:11.540 quickly. Shortly after that, in 1986, he's diagnosed 00:08:11.540 --> 00:08:14.259 with stomach cancer. In his 20s. Yeah, he's barely 00:08:14.259 --> 00:08:17.620 getting started, and he's facing his own mortality 00:08:17.620 --> 00:08:21.519 head on. It's tragic foreshadowing of the end 00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:24.459 of his life, obviously. But it also cemented 00:08:24.459 --> 00:08:27.060 that nihilistic streak in him early on. Oh, so? 00:08:27.220 --> 00:08:29.040 When you go through something like that so young, 00:08:29.180 --> 00:08:31.600 you tend to strip away a lot of the social niceties, 00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:34.360 the desire to please everyone. You realize life 00:08:34.360 --> 00:08:35.980 is short and you might as well say what you think. 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:38.799 So he recovers from that. He recovers. And by 00:08:38.799 --> 00:08:40.320 the time he hits the Just for Laughs Festival 00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:44.440 in Montreal, also in 1986, he's already fully 00:08:44.440 --> 00:08:46.759 formed. The Montreal Gazette calls him one of 00:08:46.759 --> 00:08:49.500 the country's hottest comics. The raw material 00:08:49.500 --> 00:08:52.000 was all there. And that gets him noticed south 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.080 of the border. He moves to the U .S., does the 00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:56.120 whole star search thing. Which is hilarious to 00:08:56.120 --> 00:08:58.600 even imagine Norm Macdonald being judged on a 00:08:58.600 --> 00:09:00.960 point system by Ed McMahon. It feels like a sketch 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:03.240 he would have written. It really does. But it 00:09:03.240 --> 00:09:05.779 worked. It got him in the door. He lands a job 00:09:05.779 --> 00:09:08.019 as a writer. First for the Dennis Miller Show 00:09:08.019 --> 00:09:10.820 in 92. Short -lived show, but Miller was a big 00:09:10.820 --> 00:09:13.639 deal. A very big deal. And then from there... 00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:16.179 He goes to write for Roseanne from 92 to 93. 00:09:16.519 --> 00:09:19.039 And at that moment, Roseanne was the biggest 00:09:19.039 --> 00:09:21.259 show on television. It's a monster hit. And a 00:09:21.259 --> 00:09:24.820 pressure cooker of a writer's room. But writing 00:09:24.820 --> 00:09:27.179 for Roseanne Barr taught him something crucial 00:09:27.179 --> 00:09:30.580 about voice. Roseanne had this very specific, 00:09:30.779 --> 00:09:34.500 uncompromising, working class voice. And Norm 00:09:34.500 --> 00:09:37.470 learned how to write jokes. that fit a persona 00:09:37.470 --> 00:09:39.950 perfectly, that sounded authentic coming out 00:09:39.950 --> 00:09:41.990 of someone's mouth. A skill set that would take 00:09:41.990 --> 00:09:45.129 him to his next job. The biggest job? 30 Rockefeller 00:09:45.129 --> 00:09:48.690 Plaza, 1993, Saturday Night Live. Okay, so let's 00:09:48.690 --> 00:09:52.029 set the scene at SNL in 93. The cast was crowded 00:09:52.029 --> 00:09:55.669 and loud. It was a frat house energy. You had 00:09:55.669 --> 00:09:57.970 Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, David Spade, Mike 00:09:57.970 --> 00:10:00.830 Myers, Chris Rock. It was a murderer's row of 00:10:00.830 --> 00:10:03.110 huge comedic personalities. And then you have 00:10:03.110 --> 00:10:04.769 Norm. And then you have Norm. He was older than 00:10:04.769 --> 00:10:06.269 most of them. He was certainly more well -read. 00:10:06.350 --> 00:10:08.509 And he was slower. And I mean that in terms of 00:10:08.509 --> 00:10:10.529 his comedic tempo. Right. While everyone else 00:10:10.529 --> 00:10:12.070 was screaming and falling through tables and 00:10:12.070 --> 00:10:14.330 creating these huge energetic characters, Norm 00:10:14.330 --> 00:10:17.450 was doing these very subtle, very weird impressions. 00:10:17.850 --> 00:10:20.470 Like his Burt Reynolds on Celebrity Jeopardy. 00:10:20.549 --> 00:10:23.399 The genius of the Burt Reynolds impression. was 00:10:23.399 --> 00:10:25.100 that it wasn't really an impression of Burt Reynolds 00:10:25.100 --> 00:10:28.320 at all. No, it wasn't. It was just Norm chewing 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:31.019 gum, wearing a cheap toupee, and acting like 00:10:31.019 --> 00:10:34.279 an entitled, confused jerk who insisted on being 00:10:34.279 --> 00:10:37.440 called Turd Ferguson. It was about the attitude, 00:10:37.639 --> 00:10:40.299 not the voice. And it destroyed. He also did 00:10:40.299 --> 00:10:43.220 Bob Dole, Larry King, Letterman himself. He was 00:10:43.220 --> 00:10:46.159 a solid utility player. But the real revolution 00:10:46.159 --> 00:10:49.360 happens in 1994 when Lorne Michaels makes a very 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:51.600 bold choice and gives him the anchor chair at 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:53.730 Weekend Update. This is the moment where Norm 00:10:53.730 --> 00:10:55.769 Macdonald becomes Norm Macdonald in the public 00:10:55.769 --> 00:10:58.470 consciousness. Before him, Update was usually 00:10:58.470 --> 00:11:01.690 a bit goofy with Dennis Miller's rants or it 00:11:01.690 --> 00:11:03.809 was political satire that leaned into getting 00:11:03.809 --> 00:11:07.360 applause lines like with Kevin Nealon. Norm took 00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:09.379 that desk and he turned all the lights down. 00:11:09.460 --> 00:11:11.500 He made it bleak. He made it bleak and he made 00:11:11.500 --> 00:11:13.799 it dangerous. He stripped away the performer 00:11:13.799 --> 00:11:16.320 aspect of it. He wasn't winking at the camera. 00:11:16.539 --> 00:11:19.360 He looked directly into the lens with his dead 00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:22.580 -eyed stare and delivered jokes that were, frankly, 00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:26.000 often horrifying. The running gags? The running 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:29.000 gags were key. He had recurring jokes about prison 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:36.740 rape, about crack whores. inexplicable music 00:11:36.740 --> 00:11:39.480 career in Germany. Germans love David Hasselhoff. 00:11:39.539 --> 00:11:41.860 It became a mantra. And the Frank Stallone bit. 00:11:42.019 --> 00:11:44.580 We have to explain this because on paper it makes 00:11:44.580 --> 00:11:46.980 absolutely zero sense. It's the ultimate non 00:11:46.980 --> 00:11:49.120 sequitur. He would set up a news story about 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:52.059 something genuinely terrible. Unemployment numbers 00:11:52.059 --> 00:11:54.600 are up. There's a nuclear waste leak. A tragic 00:11:54.600 --> 00:11:56.620 accident. A real downer of a setup. And then 00:11:56.620 --> 00:11:59.240 the punchline with absolutely no logical connector 00:11:59.240 --> 00:12:02.259 delivered with total sincerity would be you guessed 00:12:02.259 --> 00:12:05.090 it. Frank Stallone. Laughs Frank Stallone, of 00:12:05.090 --> 00:12:06.990 course, being Sylvester Stallone's less famous 00:12:06.990 --> 00:12:09.789 musician brother. The joke wasn't about Frank 00:12:09.789 --> 00:12:12.669 Stallone. The joke was that a national news anchor 00:12:12.669 --> 00:12:16.029 was blaming a B -list celebrity for global tragedies. 00:12:16.129 --> 00:12:19.049 It was daddiest art projected into millions of 00:12:19.049 --> 00:12:21.330 homes. And Sylvester Stallone apparently hated 00:12:21.330 --> 00:12:24.669 it. He did. When Sly hosted the show, he actually 00:12:24.669 --> 00:12:26.990 went to Norm and asked him to stop. Which is 00:12:26.990 --> 00:12:29.669 amazing. Frank Stallone himself, to his credit, 00:12:30.009 --> 00:12:31.769 eventually came around and realized it was funny 00:12:31.769 --> 00:12:34.899 because it was so random and arbitrary. But Norm 00:12:34.899 --> 00:12:36.820 was poking bears. He wasn't just doing comedy. 00:12:36.940 --> 00:12:39.220 He was testing the limits of what NBC would let 00:12:39.220 --> 00:12:41.259 him say on their airwaves. Which brings us to 00:12:41.259 --> 00:12:43.179 the controversies, because he wasn't just being 00:12:43.179 --> 00:12:45.600 weird. He was being offensive in a way that got 00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:49.159 real serious pushback. Oh, yeah. The John Lauder 00:12:49.159 --> 00:12:51.740 joke from 1996 really stands out to me as a moment 00:12:51.740 --> 00:12:53.799 where you can just hear the air go out of the 00:12:53.799 --> 00:12:56.399 room. So for context, John Lauder was one of 00:12:56.399 --> 00:12:59.019 the murderers in the Brandon Pina case. This 00:12:59.019 --> 00:13:02.220 was the... Horrific hate crime in Nebraska that 00:13:02.220 --> 00:13:05.360 later became the movie Boys Don't Cry, a truly 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:08.320 awful story involving the rape and murder of 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:11.139 a trans man. Just a gut -wrenching story. So 00:13:11.139 --> 00:13:13.440 Norm is reporting on the sentencing, and he says, 00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:15.559 now this might strike some viewers as harsh, 00:13:15.700 --> 00:13:18.120 but I believe everyone involved in this story 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:20.419 should die. Silence in the studio, I imagine. 00:13:20.679 --> 00:13:24.570 You hear gasps, some nervous laughter. But activist 00:13:24.570 --> 00:13:27.850 groups, particularly LGBTQ groups, were furious, 00:13:27.889 --> 00:13:30.730 and rightly so from their perspective. It sounded 00:13:30.730 --> 00:13:32.590 like he was condemning the victim along with 00:13:32.590 --> 00:13:36.070 the murderers. NBC had to issue apologies. Did 00:13:36.070 --> 00:13:38.970 Norm ever explain it? He sort of did, later. 00:13:39.350 --> 00:13:41.529 He said his point was that the entire situation 00:13:41.529 --> 00:13:44.049 was so filled with human misery and depravity 00:13:44.049 --> 00:13:46.990 that it was just a black hole. But it was a clumsy 00:13:46.990 --> 00:13:49.129 way to say it, and it was deliberately provocative. 00:13:49.789 --> 00:13:52.029 It was a refusal to be sensitive in a moment 00:13:52.029 --> 00:13:54.330 that called for sensitivity. That was his brand. 00:13:54.769 --> 00:13:57.029 And then there was Michael Jackson. He was relentless. 00:13:57.169 --> 00:13:59.590 Just absolutely savage. This was the mid -90s. 00:13:59.590 --> 00:14:02.070 Jackson was still a pop deity to millions. The 00:14:02.070 --> 00:14:04.809 first wave of allegations was out there. But 00:14:04.809 --> 00:14:06.950 most of the media was very, very polite about 00:14:06.950 --> 00:14:09.789 it. They used phrases like inappropriate conduct. 00:14:10.289 --> 00:14:12.509 Norm was not polite. Norm was the opposite of 00:14:12.509 --> 00:14:15.509 polite. He would just state flatly, Michael Jackson 00:14:15.509 --> 00:14:18.129 is a homosexual pedophile. He wouldn't say alleged. 00:14:18.450 --> 00:14:20.610 He wouldn't make a vague allusion to Neverland. 00:14:20.669 --> 00:14:23.450 He used the specific brutal terms. Even when 00:14:23.450 --> 00:14:26.450 Jackson was hospitalized for exhaustion. Especially 00:14:26.450 --> 00:14:29.870 then. Jackson collapsed on stage. And Norm's 00:14:29.870 --> 00:14:32.429 joke that Saturday was something like, sources 00:14:32.429 --> 00:14:34.889 say he's doing better, but don't get any ideas. 00:14:34.990 --> 00:14:38.429 He is still a homosexual pedophile. He repeated 00:14:38.429 --> 00:14:40.250 it like a mantra. What was the goal there? Just 00:14:40.250 --> 00:14:42.490 shock value. I think he was trying to force the 00:14:42.490 --> 00:14:44.690 audience to confront the reality of the situation 00:14:44.690 --> 00:14:47.559 rather than the celebrity of it. He was cutting 00:14:47.559 --> 00:14:49.340 through the hero worship and saying, look at 00:14:49.340 --> 00:14:51.700 what this person is accused of. And that absolute 00:14:51.700 --> 00:14:55.419 refusal to bow to celebrity to protect a powerful 00:14:55.419 --> 00:14:57.759 person is what set up the single biggest conflict 00:14:57.759 --> 00:14:59.899 of his entire career. The O .J. Simpson saga. 00:15:00.100 --> 00:15:02.120 This isn't just a comedian telling jokes anymore. 00:15:02.200 --> 00:15:04.899 This becomes a cultural war fought from inside 00:15:04.899 --> 00:15:07.279 a major television network. You have to set the 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:10.779 scene. It's 1995. The O .J. trial is the only 00:15:10.779 --> 00:15:13.580 thing happening in America. It's on TV 24 -7. 00:15:13.620 --> 00:15:16.139 The country is completely divided, often along 00:15:16.139 --> 00:15:19.500 racial lines. But inside NBC, there's a very 00:15:19.500 --> 00:15:22.379 specific and, for Norm, a very dangerous power 00:15:22.379 --> 00:15:26.120 dynamic. The president of NBC West Coast is a 00:15:26.120 --> 00:15:28.720 man named Don Ulmeier. The big boss. The guy 00:15:28.720 --> 00:15:31.639 in charge. The man who built NBC's must -see 00:15:31.639 --> 00:15:35.759 TV dominance. And, critically, one of O .J. Simpson's 00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:38.460 best and oldest friends. It's not just a casual 00:15:38.460 --> 00:15:40.850 acquaintance. No. They golfed together constantly. 00:15:41.269 --> 00:15:44.269 Ohlmeyer was part of OJ's inner circle. To give 00:15:44.269 --> 00:15:47.009 you an idea of the loyalty, after the acquittal, 00:15:47.070 --> 00:15:49.450 Ohlmeyer threw a party for the jurors who voted 00:15:49.450 --> 00:15:52.210 not guilty. Wow. That is the level of personal 00:15:52.210 --> 00:15:54.370 investment we are talking about. So the head 00:15:54.370 --> 00:15:56.690 of the entire network on the West Coast is firmly 00:15:56.690 --> 00:16:00.129 publicly Team OJ, and the anchor of that network's 00:16:00.129 --> 00:16:03.149 flagship comedy news segment is not. Not even 00:16:03.149 --> 00:16:06.289 close. Norm, along with his head writer Jim Downey, 00:16:06.370 --> 00:16:09.830 decided from day one that OJ was guilty. Period. 00:16:09.990 --> 00:16:12.429 And they treated it as an incontrovertible fact. 00:16:12.549 --> 00:16:14.490 And the jokes were brutal. They were relentless 00:16:14.490 --> 00:16:17.370 every single week. A new book about the OJ trial 00:16:17.370 --> 00:16:19.570 alleges that OJ's lawyers knew he was guilty. 00:16:19.730 --> 00:16:23.009 In a related story, the sky is blue. Yeah, just 00:16:23.009 --> 00:16:25.909 completely matter of fact. And when the verdict 00:16:25.909 --> 00:16:28.539 came in, not guilty. The entire country held 00:16:28.539 --> 00:16:31.639 its breath to see what SNL would do. Norm opened 00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:33.860 Update that night with a very simple, devastating 00:16:33.860 --> 00:16:36.220 line. He just looked at the camera and said, 00:16:36.379 --> 00:16:40.000 well, it is finally official. Murder is legal 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:42.220 in the state of California. It's just such a 00:16:42.220 --> 00:16:44.559 perfect line. And he knew who was watching. He 00:16:44.559 --> 00:16:47.000 knew Ohlmeyer was watching. Ohlmeyer was furious. 00:16:47.279 --> 00:16:49.559 The sources say he was sending notes constantly. 00:16:49.779 --> 00:16:53.419 Lay off OJ. It's not funny anymore. You're alienating 00:16:53.419 --> 00:16:56.610 half the audience. What was Norm's response? 00:16:57.070 --> 00:16:59.909 Norm and Giuliani's response was to double down. 00:17:00.169 --> 00:17:02.850 They wrote more O .J. jokes. They viewed it as 00:17:02.850 --> 00:17:05.089 a matter of journalistic or at least comedic 00:17:05.089 --> 00:17:07.970 integrity. Passo. Their argument was, if the 00:17:07.970 --> 00:17:10.109 single biggest news story in the world is a famous 00:17:10.109 --> 00:17:12.589 person getting away with a double murder, a satirical 00:17:12.589 --> 00:17:15.450 news show must say that he did it. Anything else 00:17:15.450 --> 00:17:18.349 is cowardice. It's bending to power. But Allmire 00:17:18.349 --> 00:17:21.809 held the power, and in early 1998, he played 00:17:21.809 --> 00:17:24.109 his hand. He fired Norm from the Weekend Update 00:17:24.109 --> 00:17:26.680 desk. Jim Downey was fired as well. What was 00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:28.539 the official reason they gave? It wasn't the 00:17:28.539 --> 00:17:31.440 OJ stuff, right? Oh, no, of course not. The official 00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:33.980 reason was declining ratings and a drop -off 00:17:33.980 --> 00:17:37.200 in quality. Ohmeyer claimed that his focus group 00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:39.460 research showed that people tuned out when Norm 00:17:39.460 --> 00:17:42.519 came on. And did Norm buy that? Not at the time. 00:17:42.559 --> 00:17:45.660 At the time, he saw it as pure censorship. But, 00:17:45.700 --> 00:17:48.339 you know, years later in interviews, Norm actually 00:17:48.339 --> 00:17:50.660 admitted that Allmire might have been technically 00:17:50.660 --> 00:17:53.200 right about the ratings part. Really? He conceded 00:17:53.200 --> 00:17:55.940 the point. He did in his own way. He said something 00:17:55.940 --> 00:17:58.339 like, look, I was doing jokes about prison rape 00:17:58.339 --> 00:18:01.180 and crack whores and long rambling stories. I 00:18:01.180 --> 00:18:03.500 knew they weren't crowd pleasers. He understood 00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:06.259 that from a purely corporate ratings driven standpoint, 00:18:06.539 --> 00:18:09.160 he wasn't servicing the audience. He was servicing 00:18:09.160 --> 00:18:11.700 the comedy. He was servicing the comedy and his 00:18:11.700 --> 00:18:15.200 own conscience. But at the time, in 1998. He 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:17.119 did not go quietly into the night. He went to 00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:19.660 war. A media war. Oh, it was a scorched earth 00:18:19.660 --> 00:18:22.339 campaign. It was incredible. He immediately went 00:18:22.339 --> 00:18:25.200 on his friend David Letterman's show on CBS, 00:18:25.500 --> 00:18:28.619 NBC's biggest rival, and just unloaded. He flat 00:18:28.619 --> 00:18:31.140 out accused Omeyer of firing him to protect his 00:18:31.140 --> 00:18:32.819 murderer friend. He didn't pull any punches. 00:18:33.140 --> 00:18:36.319 None. He went on Howard Stern's radio show and 00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:39.190 did the same thing. calling Ohlmeier a liar and 00:18:39.190 --> 00:18:41.849 a thug in the New York Daily News. He made it 00:18:41.849 --> 00:18:44.630 a huge public fight. And Ohlmeier retaliated. 00:18:44.630 --> 00:18:47.309 He was petty about it, too. Extremely petty for 00:18:47.309 --> 00:18:50.109 a powerful network executive. Norm had a movie 00:18:50.109 --> 00:18:52.829 coming out called Dirty Work. Ohlmeier blocked 00:18:52.829 --> 00:18:55.690 NBC from running any advertisements for it. Just 00:18:55.690 --> 00:18:58.720 a vindictive move. It was. But Norm's response 00:18:58.720 --> 00:19:01.319 was perfect. He went to the press and said, the 00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:04.039 best revenge against Don Ulmeier is for everyone 00:19:04.039 --> 00:19:06.299 to go see the movie, specifically because he 00:19:06.299 --> 00:19:08.740 won't show the ads. He turned the censorship 00:19:08.740 --> 00:19:11.599 into a marketing tool. Exactly. There's this 00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:14.779 incredible, awkward coda to his SNL tenure, though. 00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:17.660 He's fired from the anchor desk, but he still 00:19:17.660 --> 00:19:20.170 has a contract as a performer. So he has to stay 00:19:20.170 --> 00:19:22.750 on to do sketches. Can you imagine the awkwardness, 00:19:22.829 --> 00:19:24.950 walking those halls, seeing the executives who 00:19:24.950 --> 00:19:26.930 just publicly humiliated you? It must have been 00:19:26.930 --> 00:19:29.390 miserable. He said he hated it. But he does one 00:19:29.390 --> 00:19:32.289 final sketch that I think is his true defiant 00:19:32.289 --> 00:19:34.670 farewell to the show. It was a sketch called 00:19:34.670 --> 00:19:37.109 Who's More Grizzled? With the musical guest, 00:19:37.349 --> 00:19:39.849 Garth Brooks. Right. They're playing these two 00:19:39.849 --> 00:19:43.009 old grizzled prospectors trying to one -up each 00:19:43.009 --> 00:19:45.930 other. And at one point, Garth Brooks looks at 00:19:45.930 --> 00:19:49.460 Norm's character and says, Completely in character. 00:19:49.920 --> 00:19:52.539 You know, I don't much care for you. And Norm's 00:19:52.539 --> 00:19:55.819 reply. And Norm, looking almost directly at the 00:19:55.819 --> 00:19:59.319 camera, just says flatly, a lot of people don't. 00:19:59.460 --> 00:20:01.940 It's the meta commentary. He's acknowledging 00:20:01.940 --> 00:20:05.279 the firing, Allmire's hatred, all of it right 00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:07.400 there in the middle of a silly sketch about cowboys. 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:10.059 It was his way of getting the last word, his 00:20:10.059 --> 00:20:12.339 way of saying, I know what's happening. I know 00:20:12.339 --> 00:20:14.039 you all know what's happening and I'm still standing. 00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:16.339 He was dismissed from the show shortly after 00:20:16.339 --> 00:20:19.880 that. So he leaves SNL, this huge platform, under 00:20:19.880 --> 00:20:22.779 this massive cloud of controversy. And this kicks 00:20:22.779 --> 00:20:25.680 off what some people called his wilderness years. 00:20:25.920 --> 00:20:28.200 Right. He's out on his own. He makes that movie 00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:29.960 Dirty Work, which was directed by his friend 00:20:29.960 --> 00:20:32.940 Bob Saget. It's a cult classic now, but at the 00:20:32.940 --> 00:20:35.779 time. At the time, critics hated it. And it didn't 00:20:35.779 --> 00:20:37.980 do well at the box office. No, but it's a very 00:20:37.980 --> 00:20:41.099 funny, very norm movie. It's literally a revenge 00:20:41.099 --> 00:20:43.660 comedy, which fits his mood at the time perfectly. 00:20:43.880 --> 00:20:46.460 Then he gets his own sitcom. The Norm Show, which 00:20:46.460 --> 00:20:48.660 was later just called Norm. And it ran for three 00:20:48.660 --> 00:20:51.339 seasons on ABC. You know, that's not a failure 00:20:51.339 --> 00:20:53.619 by any means. Three -season run is respectable. 00:20:53.900 --> 00:20:56.039 He played an ex -hockey player who gets busted 00:20:56.039 --> 00:20:58.220 for tax evasion and has to become a social worker. 00:20:58.539 --> 00:21:01.480 It was a pretty standard sitcom setup, but it 00:21:01.480 --> 00:21:04.180 was a vehicle for his persona. It let him be 00:21:04.180 --> 00:21:06.670 Norm. But what's really interesting about this 00:21:06.670 --> 00:21:09.450 era is how he starts popping up in the weirdest 00:21:09.450 --> 00:21:12.490 places. He becomes this prolific voice actor. 00:21:12.630 --> 00:21:15.529 Lucky the dog. In the Eddie Murphy, Dr. Dolittle 00:21:15.529 --> 00:21:18.950 movies. He's the voice of a wisecracking dog 00:21:18.950 --> 00:21:22.549 in a huge family film franchise. And death on 00:21:22.549 --> 00:21:25.329 Family Guy. The voice of death itself. He's Frank 00:21:25.329 --> 00:21:27.650 the Beaver in commercials for Bell Mobility in 00:21:27.650 --> 00:21:30.289 Canada. For a short time, he was even the voice 00:21:30.289 --> 00:21:32.809 of Colonel Sanders for KFC. They replaced him 00:21:32.809 --> 00:21:34.589 pretty quickly, didn't they? They did. Apparently 00:21:34.589 --> 00:21:38.069 his version was a little too norm. But it's so 00:21:38.069 --> 00:21:40.369 jarring, isn't it? You have this subversive, 00:21:40.369 --> 00:21:43.210 dark, intellectual comic, this guy who just fought 00:21:43.210 --> 00:21:45.390 a war with a network president, doing voices 00:21:45.390 --> 00:21:47.210 for children's movies and fast food commercials. 00:21:47.430 --> 00:21:50.430 But he took the work seriously. He had a distinct, 00:21:50.569 --> 00:21:52.829 memorable voice, and he used it. The money was 00:21:52.829 --> 00:21:56.549 good. But the defining moment, the artistic high 00:21:56.549 --> 00:21:59.670 point of this whole post -SNL era, has to be 00:21:59.670 --> 00:22:02.190 the Comedy Central roast of Bob Saget in 2008. 00:22:02.680 --> 00:22:05.119 This is legendary. For people who are into comedy, 00:22:05.240 --> 00:22:08.259 this performance is like the Zapruder film or 00:22:08.259 --> 00:22:10.500 something. It gets analyzed frame by frame. And 00:22:10.500 --> 00:22:13.019 context is absolutely key here. A Comedy Central 00:22:13.019 --> 00:22:15.359 roast, especially at that time, was a bloodbath. 00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:18.720 It's a competition to be as offensive, as raunchy, 00:22:18.740 --> 00:22:22.019 as shocking as humanly possible. People say unspeakable 00:22:22.019 --> 00:22:24.039 things about each other. It's a contest of cruelty, 00:22:24.240 --> 00:22:27.009 basically. That's the whole point. Exactly. So 00:22:27.009 --> 00:22:29.750 Norm is on the dais and everyone expects him, 00:22:29.769 --> 00:22:33.990 as Saget's friend, to just destroy him with these 00:22:33.990 --> 00:22:37.369 dark inside jokes. Instead, he walks up to the 00:22:37.369 --> 00:22:39.750 podium, pulls out a stack of index cards and 00:22:39.750 --> 00:22:42.210 starts reading these jokes. That sound like they 00:22:42.210 --> 00:22:44.910 were written in 1955 for a Friars Club roast 00:22:44.910 --> 00:22:47.589 of Milton Berle. Bob has a beautiful face, like 00:22:47.589 --> 00:22:50.789 a flower, a cauliflower. There's a rumor going 00:22:50.789 --> 00:22:53.410 around that Bob Saget had an oral fixation. Of 00:22:53.410 --> 00:22:54.750 course, I don't believe it. He's a great guy. 00:22:54.950 --> 00:22:58.470 Yeah. It was pure. unadulterated anti -comedy. 00:22:58.490 --> 00:23:01.170 It was G -rated. It was intentionally beautifully 00:23:01.170 --> 00:23:03.509 bad. And watching the audience reaction is the 00:23:03.509 --> 00:23:05.549 best part. The civilians in the crowd, the celebrities 00:23:05.549 --> 00:23:07.789 who aren't comedians, they are just baffled. 00:23:07.809 --> 00:23:09.990 They're thinking, is he bombing? Is this the 00:23:09.990 --> 00:23:11.730 end of his career? But then you look at the deus. 00:23:11.869 --> 00:23:13.710 You look at the other comedians. Gilbert Gottfried, 00:23:13.829 --> 00:23:16.150 Cloris Leachman, Jeff Ross, Saget himself. They 00:23:16.150 --> 00:23:18.369 are crying with laughter. They're beside themselves. 00:23:18.710 --> 00:23:20.750 They get it. They realize what he's doing. He 00:23:20.750 --> 00:23:23.430 is subverting. the entire premise of the roast. 00:23:23.750 --> 00:23:26.650 He is proving that he can get the biggest laughs 00:23:26.650 --> 00:23:29.710 of the night by not being mean in a room that 00:23:29.710 --> 00:23:32.289 is entirely dedicated to meanness. It was a protest. 00:23:32.549 --> 00:23:35.089 It was a total act of defiance. He refused to 00:23:35.089 --> 00:23:36.750 be shocking just because the format demanded 00:23:36.750 --> 00:23:39.049 it of him. It was the most punk rock thing you 00:23:39.049 --> 00:23:41.509 could possibly do at a roast. And he ended his 00:23:41.509 --> 00:23:44.569 set with this incredibly sincere, heartfelt tribute, 00:23:44.789 --> 00:23:48.089 calling Sagit a gentleman and a scholar and a 00:23:48.089 --> 00:23:50.839 true friend. It was sweet. It was confounding. 00:23:50.940 --> 00:23:53.559 He was brilliant. Now, we have to pivot here 00:23:53.559 --> 00:23:56.099 a little bit because while he's doing these masterful 00:23:56.099 --> 00:23:58.359 sort of high concept deconstructions of comedy 00:23:58.359 --> 00:24:01.460 on stage, his personal life is being deconstructed 00:24:01.460 --> 00:24:04.500 by a very serious addiction. Norm was a massive 00:24:04.500 --> 00:24:06.970 gambler. And addiction is the right word, but 00:24:06.970 --> 00:24:09.769 Norm analyzed it like a philosopher. He didn't 00:24:09.769 --> 00:24:12.210 just gamble. He went to the absolute edge where 00:24:12.210 --> 00:24:15.269 he went broke, totally bankrupt, twice. He admitted 00:24:15.269 --> 00:24:18.910 in his book and in interviews to losing everything 00:24:18.910 --> 00:24:21.950 he owned three separate times. Three times. Imagine 00:24:21.950 --> 00:24:23.710 making millions of dollars and losing it all, 00:24:23.750 --> 00:24:26.170 not once, but three times. The numbers are staggering. 00:24:26.430 --> 00:24:28.789 He talked about winning six figures at a craps 00:24:28.789 --> 00:24:31.390 table in Atlantic City early on, and that's what 00:24:31.390 --> 00:24:34.920 hooked him. But the losses were way bigger. He 00:24:34.920 --> 00:24:38.140 said his largest single loss was $400 ,000. Gone 00:24:38.140 --> 00:24:42.079 in one night. Vaporized. I can't even process 00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:44.440 the anxiety that would come with that. But Norm 00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:46.900 said something about the losing that I find completely 00:24:46.900 --> 00:24:49.059 fascinating. He said he almost preferred it to 00:24:49.059 --> 00:24:52.039 winning. This is the key to his psyche, I think. 00:24:52.220 --> 00:24:55.039 He said that winning was just more money. It 00:24:55.039 --> 00:24:57.579 didn't fundamentally change anything, but losing. 00:24:58.259 --> 00:25:01.160 Losing everything. He described it as a feeling 00:25:01.160 --> 00:25:04.680 of profound relief. He said it cleared the mechanism. 00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:06.180 Because you don't have to worry about protecting 00:25:06.180 --> 00:25:07.859 your pile of chips anymore. Is that the idea? 00:25:08.259 --> 00:25:10.740 Exactly. It stripped him down to zero. It forced 00:25:10.740 --> 00:25:13.119 him to rely only on his wits and his talent again. 00:25:13.259 --> 00:25:15.940 It was a reset button. For him, it seems he was 00:25:15.940 --> 00:25:18.140 addicted to the risk, to the feeling of being 00:25:18.140 --> 00:25:20.240 on the precipice, not necessarily to the reward. 00:25:20.539 --> 00:25:22.859 He wasn't just a casino gambler either. He was 00:25:22.859 --> 00:25:26.519 a serious poker player. A grinder. A real grinder. 00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:29.509 He competed in the World Series of Poker. He 00:25:29.509 --> 00:25:33.890 cashed in 2007 for over $13 ,000. But he was 00:25:33.890 --> 00:25:35.890 also obsessed with online poker. Right. This 00:25:35.890 --> 00:25:38.069 was in the boon years of online poker. And he 00:25:38.069 --> 00:25:40.289 would play up to 20 tables at once on the Internet. 00:25:40.450 --> 00:25:42.509 Just sitting there, click, click, click, click 00:25:42.509 --> 00:25:44.710 for hours and hours. He said it was the only 00:25:44.710 --> 00:25:47.109 thing that could shut his brain off. And he made 00:25:47.109 --> 00:25:49.210 this incredible claim that when the U .S. government 00:25:49.210 --> 00:25:53.190 shut down online poker, it saved his life. He 00:25:53.190 --> 00:25:56.089 was serious. He said the constant grind was keeping 00:25:56.089 --> 00:25:58.869 him awake for days at a time. He was just fueling 00:25:58.869 --> 00:26:01.089 himself with caffeine and adrenaline. He was 00:26:01.089 --> 00:26:03.069 replacing sleep with the dopamine hit of the 00:26:03.069 --> 00:26:06.509 next hand. It was about occupying his mind. Occupying 00:26:06.509 --> 00:26:08.309 the mind so the darker thoughts, the philosophical 00:26:08.309 --> 00:26:11.730 anxieties couldn't get in. And speaking of deeper 00:26:11.730 --> 00:26:13.930 thoughts, this is another one of the great contradictions 00:26:13.930 --> 00:26:16.589 of Norm Macdonald. You have this guy who tells 00:26:16.589 --> 00:26:19.910 jokes about crack whores who loses millions of 00:26:19.910 --> 00:26:22.549 dollars at the craps table. And he was a devout 00:26:22.549 --> 00:26:25.109 Christian. And not in a casual, I believe in 00:26:25.109 --> 00:26:27.730 a higher power sort of way. He was serious about 00:26:27.730 --> 00:26:30.269 it. He was deeply read in theology and religious 00:26:30.269 --> 00:26:32.769 literature. In the comedy world, that's not the 00:26:32.769 --> 00:26:36.349 norm, so to speak. Religion is usually the punchline. 00:26:36.569 --> 00:26:38.710 You're supposed to be a cynical atheist. And 00:26:38.710 --> 00:26:40.990 Norm just refused that. Yeah. He read Tolstoy. 00:26:41.009 --> 00:26:44.509 He read Dostoevsky, Chekhov. In interviews, he 00:26:44.509 --> 00:26:47.670 would compare his views on faith to Søren Kierkegaard 00:26:47.670 --> 00:26:50.410 and Cardinal Newman. These are not lightweights. 00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:52.880 I remember seeing him on the reality show Last 00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:55.759 Comic Standing. He was a judge. That was such 00:26:55.759 --> 00:26:57.579 a telling moment. There was a young contestant 00:26:57.579 --> 00:27:00.559 who did this very lazy, very predictable set, 00:27:00.759 --> 00:27:03.720 mocking the Bible and comparing it to Harry Potter, 00:27:03.759 --> 00:27:07.460 just standard religionist fairy tale stuff. And 00:27:07.460 --> 00:27:10.599 Norm stopped the show. He wasn't angry, but he 00:27:10.599 --> 00:27:12.650 was serious. He said, I don't think the Bible 00:27:12.650 --> 00:27:15.069 and Harry Potter are comparable. He then quoted 00:27:15.069 --> 00:27:17.069 a J .K. Rowling interview to the guy to make 00:27:17.069 --> 00:27:19.210 his point. He wasn't offended as a Christian, 00:27:19.289 --> 00:27:20.990 it seemed. He was offended as an intellectual. 00:27:21.190 --> 00:27:23.269 That's it, exactly. He hated lazy thinking. His 00:27:23.269 --> 00:27:25.210 point was, if you're going to attack something 00:27:25.210 --> 00:27:27.289 as foundational to Western civilization as the 00:27:27.289 --> 00:27:29.210 Bible, you better know what you're talking about. 00:27:29.250 --> 00:27:31.069 You better have done the reading. He respected 00:27:31.069 --> 00:27:33.589 the text. It goes back to that same integrity, 00:27:33.789 --> 00:27:36.230 that refusal to just go along with the crowd. 00:27:36.509 --> 00:27:39.170 The comedy crowd says religion is dumb, so Norm 00:27:39.170 --> 00:27:41.890 says, actually, let's talk about Kierkegaardian 00:27:41.890 --> 00:27:44.069 leaps of faith. And he played with that idea 00:27:44.069 --> 00:27:46.990 of truth versus fiction in his book. Right, based 00:27:46.990 --> 00:27:50.289 on a true story, a memoir. Which he subtitled, 00:27:50.289 --> 00:27:53.410 Not a Memoir. It's a semi -fictional memoir. 00:27:53.809 --> 00:27:56.640 He wrote a book about his own life. that is filled 00:27:56.640 --> 00:27:59.700 with the most obvious fantastical lies. He has 00:27:59.700 --> 00:28:02.359 a ghostwriter character who is a real person 00:28:02.359 --> 00:28:04.259 in the book following him around. He tells these 00:28:04.259 --> 00:28:06.640 elaborate stories that clearly never happen. 00:28:06.759 --> 00:28:09.240 He does. Why do that? Why not just write a straightforward 00:28:09.240 --> 00:28:11.740 confessional autobiography? It probably would 00:28:11.740 --> 00:28:13.779 have sold better. Because Norm believed that 00:28:13.779 --> 00:28:16.480 the truth of a person isn't a list of facts and 00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:19.799 dates. It's the vibe, the voice, the spirit of 00:28:19.799 --> 00:28:22.299 that person. He felt he could tell you more about 00:28:22.299 --> 00:28:24.720 who he really was by making up a crazy funny 00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:27.279 story than by telling you what he had for breakfast 00:28:27.279 --> 00:28:31.579 on June 5th, 1994. The fiction was truer than 00:28:31.579 --> 00:28:33.920 the facts. Which brings us, in a very heavy way, 00:28:34.099 --> 00:28:36.500 to the ultimate truth that he hid from absolutely 00:28:36.500 --> 00:28:39.529 everyone. The final chapter of his life. The 00:28:39.529 --> 00:28:41.390 secret. This is the part of his story that when 00:28:41.390 --> 00:28:43.549 you learn it, it recontextualizes everything 00:28:43.549 --> 00:28:45.369 we've just talked about. Okay, so it's 2013. 00:28:46.210 --> 00:28:48.349 Norm is enjoying a bit of a career renaissance. 00:28:48.450 --> 00:28:50.930 He has his brilliant podcast, Norm MacDonald 00:28:50.930 --> 00:28:54.210 Live. He's about to get a show on Netflix. He's 00:28:54.210 --> 00:28:57.170 revered by this new generation of online comedy 00:28:57.170 --> 00:29:01.329 fans, but privately. Privately, he is diagnosed 00:29:01.329 --> 00:29:04.549 with multiple myeloma. It's a cancer of the plasma 00:29:04.549 --> 00:29:07.349 cells in the bone marrow. It's a serious, often 00:29:07.349 --> 00:29:11.009 terminal, blood cancer. And he tells. Who? Almost 00:29:11.009 --> 00:29:14.450 nobody. His immediate family, his agent, and 00:29:14.450 --> 00:29:16.970 his producing partner, Laurie Jo Hootstra. That's 00:29:16.970 --> 00:29:19.329 it. Lorne Michaels didn't know. David Letterman 00:29:19.329 --> 00:29:21.710 didn't know. His best friends in comedy, like 00:29:21.710 --> 00:29:24.450 Adam Sandler and David Spade, had no idea. The 00:29:24.450 --> 00:29:26.170 public certainly didn't know. For nine years. 00:29:26.349 --> 00:29:29.430 Nine years. He underwent chemotherapy. He took 00:29:29.430 --> 00:29:31.730 heavy medications. He was in and out of hospitals. 00:29:31.910 --> 00:29:34.410 He faced the prospect of his own death. And he 00:29:34.410 --> 00:29:37.730 did it all in total, absolute silence. Why? I 00:29:37.730 --> 00:29:40.190 mean, in this day and age, a public figure battling 00:29:40.190 --> 00:29:42.609 cancer. It's a PR opportunity. You get the magazine 00:29:42.609 --> 00:29:44.250 cover. You get the Oprah interview. You get the 00:29:44.250 --> 00:29:47.250 bravery award at some gala. That is exactly what 00:29:47.250 --> 00:29:49.230 he despised. That is what he was running from. 00:29:49.509 --> 00:29:52.690 He said explicitly to the very few people who 00:29:52.690 --> 00:29:55.910 knew that he did not want the diagnosis to affect 00:29:55.910 --> 00:29:58.750 how he was perceived by the audience. You don't 00:29:58.750 --> 00:30:00.829 want pity. He said, I don't want the audience 00:30:00.829 --> 00:30:02.490 to look at me and think, oh, they're poor man. 00:30:02.869 --> 00:30:05.950 He wanted the last to be clean, untainted. Because 00:30:05.950 --> 00:30:09.470 if you know a comedian is dying, you laugh differently. 00:30:10.230 --> 00:30:13.059 You laugh because you want to be nice. You laugh 00:30:13.059 --> 00:30:16.799 out of sympathy. And Norm viewed that as a fundamental 00:30:16.799 --> 00:30:19.599 corruption of the art form. A fake laugh. A fake 00:30:19.599 --> 00:30:21.920 laugh. For him, the transaction had to be pure. 00:30:22.039 --> 00:30:24.359 You laugh because the joke is funny or you don't 00:30:24.359 --> 00:30:26.460 laugh because it isn't. There could be no other 00:30:26.460 --> 00:30:28.799 variables. And you have to think about the physical 00:30:28.799 --> 00:30:31.900 toll this took on him and how he let people misinterpret 00:30:31.900 --> 00:30:34.680 it. He gained a lot of weight in his later years. 00:30:35.259 --> 00:30:38.240 Dexamethasone. It's a powerful steroid that's 00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:40.299 a common part of myeloma treatment. It makes 00:30:40.299 --> 00:30:42.339 you bloat. It gives you that moon face look. 00:30:42.750 --> 00:30:45.569 And people online and even some critics were 00:30:45.569 --> 00:30:48.089 cruel about it. They made jokes. They said he 00:30:48.089 --> 00:30:49.589 was getting fat, that he was letting himself 00:30:49.589 --> 00:30:52.609 go, that he looked like an old lesbian, a joke 00:30:52.609 --> 00:30:54.630 he would sometimes lean into and make about himself. 00:30:54.789 --> 00:30:57.289 And he let them. He let them mock him for being 00:30:57.289 --> 00:30:59.710 out of shape rather than admit that he was sick. 00:30:59.890 --> 00:31:02.529 That is a level of commitment to the bit. The 00:31:02.529 --> 00:31:04.910 bit being, I'm just a regular guy that I can't 00:31:04.910 --> 00:31:07.210 even wrap my head around. He would rather be 00:31:07.210 --> 00:31:09.509 ridiculed for his appearance than pitied for 00:31:09.509 --> 00:31:12.069 his tragedy. It's unbelievable. He also suffered 00:31:12.069 --> 00:31:14.470 from peripheral neuropathy, another side effect, 00:31:14.549 --> 00:31:16.730 which caused pain in his hands and feet. He had 00:31:16.730 --> 00:31:19.569 to quit golf and tennis, things he loved, but 00:31:19.569 --> 00:31:22.289 he never explained why. And he kept working right 00:31:22.289 --> 00:31:24.930 up until the very end. He was recording voiceovers 00:31:24.930 --> 00:31:27.569 for a Seth MacFarlane show, The Orville, from 00:31:27.569 --> 00:31:29.730 his hospital bed. He was planning and writing 00:31:29.730 --> 00:31:31.990 a new hour of stand -up. And then he died on 00:31:31.990 --> 00:31:35.569 September 14th, 2021. He was 61 years old. And 00:31:35.569 --> 00:31:37.869 for the entire world, it was a complete shock. 00:31:37.950 --> 00:31:40.430 It was a shockwave because nobody saw it coming. 00:31:40.549 --> 00:31:42.210 It was like a magician's final trick. He was 00:31:42.210 --> 00:31:44.730 there, vibrant and funny, and then he was just 00:31:44.730 --> 00:31:47.750 gone. But he left one last thing behind for the 00:31:47.750 --> 00:31:50.250 audience. Nothing special. His final stand -up 00:31:50.250 --> 00:31:52.569 special. He had this whole new hour of material 00:31:52.569 --> 00:31:54.690 ready to go, but he couldn't film it with an 00:31:54.690 --> 00:31:57.029 audience because of the pandemic and his declining 00:31:57.029 --> 00:32:00.380 health. So in the summer of 2020, before he was 00:32:00.380 --> 00:32:02.299 going to go into the hospital for a major procedure, 00:32:02.660 --> 00:32:05.400 he thought he might not wake up from. What did 00:32:05.400 --> 00:32:08.920 he do? He sat down in his living room, put on 00:32:08.920 --> 00:32:11.400 a shirt and a sports coat, put on a pair of headphones, 00:32:11.700 --> 00:32:14.640 turned on a single camera, and he did the entire 00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:17.720 hour -long set. With no audience, no laughter, 00:32:17.799 --> 00:32:21.140 no feedback. Just a dying man talking to a lens. 00:32:21.460 --> 00:32:24.150 And Netflix released it posthumously. And it's 00:32:24.150 --> 00:32:27.069 brilliant. It's maybe the most essential Norm 00:32:27.069 --> 00:32:29.430 Macdonald performance there is. It was nominated 00:32:29.430 --> 00:32:32.130 for three Emmy Awards. Because it proved that 00:32:32.130 --> 00:32:34.329 his timing, his sense of rhythm, was so internal, 00:32:34.450 --> 00:32:37.109 so perfect, that he didn't even need the audience's 00:32:37.109 --> 00:32:39.250 feedback to know where the pauses and the beats 00:32:39.250 --> 00:32:41.690 were. He was performing for an imaginary audience 00:32:41.690 --> 00:32:44.710 in his head, and he nailed it. It's the purest 00:32:44.710 --> 00:32:47.049 distillation of his comedy, just the man and 00:32:47.049 --> 00:32:50.210 the words. It is. And the tributes that followed 00:32:50.210 --> 00:32:52.660 his death. From Chappelle, from Letterman, from 00:32:52.660 --> 00:32:55.059 Lorne Michaels, from everyone. They weren't just 00:32:55.059 --> 00:32:57.819 mourning a friend. They were mourning a standard, 00:32:57.960 --> 00:33:00.480 a standard of artistic integrity that doesn't 00:33:00.480 --> 00:33:02.920 really exist anymore. And there is one final 00:33:02.920 --> 00:33:05.940 perfect irony to all this. In April of 2024, 00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:09.920 O .J. Simpson died. And what happened? Instantly, 00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:12.640 all over social media, what went viral? Norm's 00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:15.750 weekend update jokes. 25 years later. It was 00:33:15.750 --> 00:33:17.869 like a final victory lap from beyond the grave. 00:33:17.990 --> 00:33:20.349 All his old clips, murder is legal in the state 00:33:20.349 --> 00:33:23.430 of California. All of it was everywhere. Conan 00:33:23.430 --> 00:33:25.450 O 'Brien pointed this out on his show. He said 00:33:25.450 --> 00:33:28.309 that because Norm refused to move on or be polite 00:33:28.309 --> 00:33:30.710 or forget about it, he ended up creating the 00:33:30.710 --> 00:33:33.769 definitive, lasting, historical record of how 00:33:33.769 --> 00:33:36.490 a huge portion of the world actually felt about 00:33:36.490 --> 00:33:38.349 that trial. He was the only one honest enough 00:33:38.349 --> 00:33:40.450 to keep saying it. So his version became the 00:33:40.450 --> 00:33:42.609 one that history remembered. So we've looked 00:33:42.609 --> 00:33:45.170 at the logger, the anchor, the gambler, the believer 00:33:45.170 --> 00:33:47.569 and the secret warrior. When you put it all together, 00:33:47.730 --> 00:33:49.769 what's the final takeaway? What did Norm Macdonald 00:33:49.769 --> 00:33:51.769 represent? I think it comes down to what we talked 00:33:51.769 --> 00:33:54.950 about at the very beginning. Risk. Norm Macdonald 00:33:54.950 --> 00:33:56.890 lived his entire life with all his chips on the 00:33:56.890 --> 00:33:59.210 table. He risked his physical safety in the woods. 00:33:59.410 --> 00:34:02.450 He risked his entire career for a joke about 00:34:02.450 --> 00:34:04.750 a murderer. He risked his financial stability 00:34:04.750 --> 00:34:08.230 over and over for the thrill of the dice. And 00:34:08.230 --> 00:34:10.449 in the end, he risked his own legacy by refusing 00:34:10.449 --> 00:34:13.409 to explain himself or his suffering. He never 00:34:13.409 --> 00:34:15.969 asked for our sympathy. He only asked for our 00:34:15.969 --> 00:34:18.449 attention. And even then, it felt like he only 00:34:18.449 --> 00:34:20.889 wanted it on his own terms. Which is why he remains 00:34:20.889 --> 00:34:24.730 so compelling. In a world of constant brand management 00:34:24.730 --> 00:34:27.570 and therapeutic oversharing, he was the last 00:34:27.570 --> 00:34:30.010 great mystery. And that brings us to the final 00:34:30.010 --> 00:34:32.469 thought I want to leave with you. Go ahead. Norm 00:34:32.469 --> 00:34:34.769 Macdonald went broke gambling, he destroyed his 00:34:34.769 --> 00:34:36.869 own biggest career opportunity for the sake of 00:34:36.869 --> 00:34:39.349 a joke, and he refused to monetize his own tragedy 00:34:39.349 --> 00:34:41.829 for sympathy points, which is something our culture 00:34:41.829 --> 00:34:44.699 almost demands now. So the question is, in an 00:34:44.699 --> 00:34:46.780 era where a career is a brand to be managed, 00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:49.260 was his refusal to compromise his greatest act 00:34:49.260 --> 00:34:51.760 of self -sabotage, or was it the very thing that 00:34:51.760 --> 00:34:54.239 made him a genius? Was destroying the career 00:34:54.239 --> 00:34:56.579 the only way to perfect the art? Something to 00:34:56.579 --> 00:34:59.480 think about. Thank you for listening to this 00:34:59.480 --> 00:35:02.380 Dimp Dive. It's a reminder that sometimes the 00:35:02.380 --> 00:35:04.260 funniest thing you can do is simply tell the 00:35:04.260 --> 00:35:06.880 truth no matter who gets mad. Or who gets fired.