I just binge watched Norm MacDonald Has a Show on Netflix. My whole life is Netflix. If I don’t watch the recommended feature at the top of my screen when I get to the opening page Ron Howard turns off my computer which then takes five minutes to reboot, so I inevitably watch it. Usually whatever’s up is pretty good and I get to meet some of the people from the show. Made the mistake of watching some show about abortions during dinner and yakked all over the place.
I watched Norm’s show which was pretty good, perhaps a little rough around the edges but entertaining. David Spade was the first guest and the guy is pretty funny, so is Norm. The sidekick grew on me but he looks like he’s sitting at the kids table off to the right. There’s a sketch with andy kaufman I think from SNL, maybe the Andy Kaufman Show where he’s the host of a talk show but is sitting way way higher than the guest. this reminded me of it.
Drew Barrymore was real good then Judge Judy. After watching half of Drew I had to sample the rest so I could get a taste of each show. When Jane Fonda came on if I were Norm I would have asked her why she looks so much like Judge Judy, and maybe Laura Bush. I loved the singer Billy Joe Shaver and skipped ahead to the songs, super stuff. Looked like he had a touch of emphysema and could have dropped dead any second.
Chevy had me laughing out loud, very funny. M. Night Shyamalan very interesting. Michael Keaton and Lorne Michaels only spent a bit with them. Overall Norm’s show holds up. I’ll come to Dave in a minute. I could do with less of all the nervous twitches of the comics where they do their little shticks in between the jokes and stories. I’d rather hear the stories and the jokes some of which they never got to with everyone just doing whatever their non-verbal, partially verbal shticks are. Chevy did it too but some of what he does is so funny and unexpected like drinking his water through his nose it’s forgivable. (Still love memoirs of an invisible man!)
David Letterman: Of all of Norm’s shows I found David Letterman to be the most interesting. I watched the entire thing, didn’t get bored or distracted, still a bit too much shtick from Norm on this one and it’s not necessary. It’s a talk show, let ’em talk. David is really smart, seasoned and kind of slick. I know pretty much everyone in Hollywood has another life and I found myself thinking that David is probably a college professor somewhere, likely in psychology and does counseling or psychotherapy. Just a guess but the guy was fascinating, has a great manner and a silky voice. I thought the show moved along well and some of that might be David’s comfort with the talk show venue and he basically ignored some of the nervous shtick. (Follow up on Letterman in the next post)
Great guests, good show and a very funny story by Judge Judy about three hoodlums going to a store at midnight looking for Matzohs. A1 rating for the show, mostly because I’m sucking up, people used to hate when I said lousy things about them but now it’s usually regarded as good but I still don’t want to insult anyone, so it’s really a B.
In my mind the talk show to beat similar to Norms was The Dennis Miller Show. The show was so funny and it was on late when I was pretty tired and I used to pray it wasn’t too funny because I was so tired and my ribs would hurt from laughing. He made a gay spelling bee joke that was so funny he had to come on the next week and apologize saying, “Sometimes I’m an A-S-S-H-O-L-E.” I think he toned the show down after that a bit which he should have avoided because for thirty minutes it was pure hysteria and I believe Norm MacDonald was on the show and he and Dennis talked about when they fly together they use a female name for the airplane. Dennis was saying they call the plane “The Lady” but Norm confided they were calling the plane, “The Bitch”. He also told Dennis that Joe the Camel looked like “a giant cock”. He over the topped Dennis that night, even Dennis feigned leaving the set after that.
Later gators
FYI: Running around LA in my underwear was just a metaphor. I was fully clothed the whole time. Also, thanks to the Hispanic actors and actress who took me back to my hotel when I got blindsided at the Hollywood Bowl Overlook, wish I could have hung with you guys but the object of the mission was to stay on track. Thanks to the BB Queen for the brew.
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