Artie Lange's Podcast Channel - Artie discusses Norm MacDonald

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

Artie takes some time to reflect and remember his good friend Norm MacDonald.

Hey, it's Artie Lang, Artie Lang's Halfway House. And I just wanted to take an opportunity to talk about my good buddy, Norm MacDonald. Just a comic genius, a guy that was so important to me in my career. And everything after Mad TV in my career and life, I owe to Norm MacDonald, really. The way I met Norm was at a screen test for a movie called Dirty Work. The story is, I had just left me at TV because I got arrested for possession of coke. I was looking for work. And my manager at the time, Peter, told me about this project, Dirty Work, with Norm MacDonald. And I was always a big fan of Norm's.

I never met him, but I was a big fan of his. So they sent me out to California to read with him, kind of like a screen test, after I read on camera in New York. I did well enough to where I got to the screen test part, and that's where I met Norm and Bob Saget and Saget, who directed it. And I read with Norm. And the next day, Norm and Saga called me personally and said, you know, you got the part. Even after they knew that I had just been arrested for possession of cocaine and they knew I had a problem with substances. And we went out after the audition and I tried to buy coke from two guys because I was drunk. They noticed that.

And still, when I woke up, I said, oh, God, I'm not going to get the part. And then Norm called up and said, nah, man, all good. We love you. Just come on down and we'll go to Toronto and make this movie. And that's where we went to Toronto to make the film. And then one Saturday afternoon when the film wasn't filmed, when we weren't filming we had to move to Toronto for two months

Norm said hey man let's go out and get a bite to eat and we just walked around Toronto in the autumn air it was beautiful air and we just talked and we got to be good friends turns out we had a lot of the same vices and we were both gamblers we both liked shooting a game

of pool we never really parted ways after the film got finished we stayed in touch we both like i say loved gambling so we started gambling on uh on the football games that fall one thing one bet we discovered with the cut with the basketball was something called a lightning bet and this was where you would take the under say the under over in a game, which in a basketball game is the total amount of points scored, or a football game. And you say, well, the total amount of points scored between both teams is going to be, like in basketball, is going to be 130.

Okay, I'll take the over for such and such amount of money. And if it goes over 130, you win. What a lightning bet was, was if you went over 130, every point you go over, you win or lose money based on what you bet. Like if you lightning betted $200 a point on the over, every time someone scored after 130 points he won basically 400 bucks and every point they went under you you lost that money so norm and I both lightning bedded the over in the lowest scoring game in basketball history. Yeah, it was in NBA finals history.

I think it was the lowest scoring game. And the Bulls were playing the Utah Jazz, and the Bulls just clamped down on the Jazz defensive-wise. I think the Jazz had 45 points in the whole game. You guys were together in the same room while this was going on? Yeah, we were watching. We had to go on stage. We had to go on stage right afterwards.

Yeah, it was one of those six o'clock games. We had to figure out how to just live life after losing so much money. I did 200 a point. Norm did $1,000 a point. And the next day, it sucked because everywhere you looked, it would say, lowest score ever. And that was a reminder constantly. If you look at the headline in a newspaper, lowest scoring game ever.

But Norm was a great guy. Norm was fearless on stage. And he was a great guy to just go out with and talk about show business. Again, it's hard to believe that the guy's gone. He's an original in every way, including his delivery. One of my favorite Norm jokes is always like, I don't understand

when they give people give lottery tickets as gifts. Like, if you give someone a lottery ticket as a gift, it's like saying, here, here's nothing. Like if you give someone a lottery ticket as a gift, it's like saying here, here's nothing. Cause if you give somebody a lottery ticket, you don't want that lottery ticket to win.

You gave it away. And you know, a lottery ticket you give away as a gift for Christmas. And the guy wins $14 million. And you see him and you're like, Hey, what did you get me for christmas i remember i got i know i gave you the 14 million uh what did you give me for christmas oh yeah that coffee mug

any chance of that coffee mug skyrocketing in value and you know obviously i'm not doing a good Norm voice. But there was a guy in the newspaper in my hometown who said that my performance in Dirty Work had all the charm of a date rapist. And Norm heard that. And because I was down, he tried to cheer me up. Norm said, hey, man, that's fucking great. And I'm like, how is that great? He goes, a date rapist has to have way more charm than a regular rapist. A date rapist has to have way more charm than a regular rapist a date rapist has to get a date

and I'm like oddly enough it made me feel better so he was just filled with comic like these comic gems especially when you can be totally uncensored when you're just talking to him, but he was one of the best guys to talk to about show business.

Um, he was able to meet a lot of people, uh, but he was also like a big kid too. Um, one time he did, uh, the voice of the dog and Dr.

Doolittle. So he kind of knew Eddie Murphy. So they wanted, uh, so when the voice of the dog in Dr. Doolittle, so he kind of knew Eddie Murphy. So when we were doing the sitcom, they wanted him to call Eddie Murphy to do a guest spot on the sitcom, and Norm didn't want to do that. He's like, please don't do that. That's so embarrassing. But they called anyway for Norm, and Norm came up to me and said, hey, man, Eddie Murphy's going to be on a speakerphone in my office. Why don't you come in and you can hear it? Because you know I'd be excited about it because, you know,

I love Eddie Murphy as is Norm. And so he put it on speaker, and we heard Norm. I heard Norm and Eddie Murphy telling stories going back and forth. And Eddie Murphy was great to hear tell a story because if he's talking about another celebrity in the story, he does a perfect impression of the guy. So he's doing this thing where Red Fox on the set of Harlem Nights goes, yeah, Red Fox every day

would try to sell me this watch. Norm's like, what do you mean sell a watch? He would try to sell me a watch. He would say, this was Elvis Presley's watch. He gave this to me in Las Vegas. And then he said, yeah, well that means that's your watch. That's not Elvis Presley's watch. He gave this to me in Las Vegas. And Eddie Murphy said, yeah, well, that means that's your watch. That's not Elvis Presley's watch. I'm not paying $10,000 for a watch because I guess you need the money for the internal revenue service.

But, yeah, so the fact is he normally is just like a big kid like that. He's like, you know, I get a kick out of hearing Eddie Murphy talk on the phone. And he sort of egged him into telling stories. Another story Eddie Murphy told, well, listen, is he goes, yeah, James Brown told me when I was young, you think you have a million dollars? And I said, yeah, I think I have a million dollars. He goes, no, you don't have a million dollars. The man has a million dollars. You don't have a million dollars.

The bank has the money. He goes, what you want to do is bury your money. He's like, what are you doing? Bury it out in the field or some shit. you'll always have it. So Norm did a bit where he's like, I mean, Eddie Murphy did a bit.

He started talking like James Brown would talk at the end of his life, trying to look for the money he buried, but he forgot exactly where, like he's covered in mud. I know I found money around here somewhere. So there's money around here somewhere. I know there's a million dollars here somewhere. But little moments like that,

stuff like that, that I spent time with Norm was the best. Just a unique, original guy who was also a great friend. He was a great talk show guest. Letterman loved him. And Letterman loved him. Letterman, you know, Norm did stand up on Letterman's Last Week on the Air, which was kind of like a famous thing where Norm showed a lot of emotions.

But one time Chris Farley was hosting the Saturday Night Live, and he was so out of control that Norm had to watch him. And Norm called me to watch him, which was, you know, kind of like, yeah, how out of control do you have to be that Norm and I are watching you? And we went to the after party after Chris Farley hosted Saturday Night Live. And we were at the after party. And Norm went off talking to somebody. And I'm watching Far i'm watching farley says hey keep an eye on farley so i saw chris farley disappeared to a bathroom with andy dick for a few minutes and then he came out giggling

and norm came back over and said hey man how's uh how's farley i said bad news man and he goes what he goes he went to a bathroom with and Andy Dick for five minutes and came out smiling. And Norm said, there's only two reasons you go to a bathroom with Andy Dick. And neither one of them is good. And Norm said, Jesus Christ, I hope he's high. You know, and again, he could take a funny situation, make it funnier. I hope he's high. Again, he could take a funny situation, make it funnier. Norm was also great at doing it. It's hard to explain sometimes.

He was great at taking something that's obvious, an obvious weird thing about something, and observing it, and then just bringing it to his act and explaining it to people like in uh in his last stand-up especially he does a bit about a heart attack he goes everybody in this uh country is all scared of a terrorist attack when your heart can attack you right right like uh i don't think there's any chance we're going to get hit with another terrorist attack, but there's going to be a lot of heart attacks. Right. And he goes, yeah, my heart can attack me. And again, it's just the phrase heart attack. You think about it, when a guy like that, a brilliant guy at observing stuff, brings it to light, you really notice what absurdity is out there.

But Norm, I don't know, man. It almost makes you want to cry. You don't get a lot of time with certain people. You know, Norm is only 61 years old. And I can't even remember the last time I talked to him, which sucks. I know he reached out for me to do his podcast, right, Tom? Like about a year ago or something? Yeah, right through Twitter, yeah.

Yeah. And he was always complimentary towards the books and everything like that. He was just a great guy. And I don't know. I'm kind of emotional about it. I miss you, Norm. And I don't know. I'm kind of emotional about it. I miss you, Norm. And I always will. And save a table for me, pal.

I'll be up there. Or down there. Up there. Up there, down there, whatever. But I wanted to say a quick, you know, do this quick little segment about Norm. I wanted to do this quick little segment about Norm. I know it's choppy in here and there, but it's just off the top of my head, memories of Norm MacDonald. There's a lot of them.

Thanks, Norm. Peace.