Norm MacDonald: Nothing Special

Any good?

Watched it. You can tell which parts need an audience’s laughs, and which parts would bomb, but of course Norm wouldn’t cut those bits because he’s a true artist.

I wish somebody in the room at the end would have brought up anti-humor and acknowledged that Norm, Letterman, and Andy Kaufman are the kings of the trick.

ETA: I notice that Norm’s face looks a bit more back to normal compared to his usual look in recent years, when he suffered from “moon face” due to steroid treatment (I noticed he looked different back then and thought that maybe he had work done, which seems out of character). It’s good for this special because he gets to communicate more with his expression here than he might have three years earlier.

Funnier about his weight gain during that he’d frequently say ( sarcastically) he was gaining weight for a movie role LINK

I only got to see him once in Houston a long time I ago. Hardest I've ever laughed. In person, he was a little more spontaneous in the way he worked through old material and tried out new stuff, so even as a hardcore fan who knew all his TV material could still get taken off guard.

Most standups I've seen do a pretty standard set, but Norm would read the audience and pick the next jokes based the reaction. So there'd be a long pause while beady eyes darted around nervously and he'd get this nervous grin before pulling some bit from his memory files and launching into the next wave. By the end, the audience was just completely surrendered to him. I felt like I'd been worked over.

I checked his tour schedule for years hoping to catch him again.

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Afterwards, Chappelle sounds pretty high.

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Chapelle looked like he was trying really hard to fight off tears

I saw Norm once in Houston and in Denver. Was with an ex for the later where I let her come to San Francisco for a work trip and she almost missed the flight back to Denver since I was clear I was leaving the hotel without her and not missing the flight and thus missing Norm later that night. She made it, but was pissed at me. I'm very convinced we would have missed the flight since she was taking her sweet arse time in the hotel had I not done that.

I'd been late to several events thanks to her and she missed two flights within the past four months (one of which got her fired from her job and why I was taking her on the work trip) because she didn't know timing. Granted Norm was great and I broke up with the crazy inconsiderate bitch about two weeks after that. If she made me miss Norm, it would have been that day for sure.

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I don’t see why. The guy barely knew him. It was awkward as hell listening to him talk about a guy he hardly knew in a room of folks that knew him so so well. The self centeredness of his stories about the guy was also off putting. Further, he sounds like Flo in a 50s diner who smoked 12 packs a day. Yeeesh.

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Norm was kind of that way with everyone. Friendly to those who needed help and those who deserved it from him, but he also had a bit of a shield up from those around him. Norm put the art before everything including his own career. Anthony Jeselnik put it best after Norm’s death, and Jeselnik is known for insulting the immediately deceased to where Norm would have appreciated this:

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Battling cancer for 9 years without telling anyone is the most Norm Macdonald shite ever.

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That’s simply not true. They filmed Screwed together. Dave actually spoke about how Norm was one of the few comedians who could make him laugh and how Norm got him through some rough times after his father died.

Just watched it and I have no idea how you came to the conclusion Dave didn’t know norm