Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Conan Talks About Norm Macdonald

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

Conan, Andy Richter, and longtime show producer Frank Smiley sit down to pay tribute to and discuss the legacy of Norm Macdonald - from his first stand-up appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 1993 to Norm's infamous Moth joke and the story behind it. Conan wants to try and answer the question: who was this completely original genius and how was he so insanely funny?

Hey there, and welcome to an unusual episode of Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. This episode is being done very spur-of-the-moment, and it's happening because, as everybody knows now, Norm MacDonald died two days ago, and I got the news, like everyone else, just absolutely stunned. Had no idea that Norm had not only been very ill, but been very ill for a very long time. None of us had any idea, and there's been this seismic reaction, which is completely appropriate in the comedy world, and a lot's been said about Norm, and I just had this very strong feeling yesterday that I needed to talk to people about it, and talk to people

who, like me, experience Norm in the moment, and really try and understand what it was about this man, this very improbable, unusual man. What made him so different? And I maintain that we are accustomed, sadly, to losing funny, talented people all the time, and we grow accustomed to it. I think Norm's impact is only going to grow, and I think his significance in comedy is only going to expand over time, because he was such, such an incredible talent, and trying to describe what made Norm different is so difficult, and I think so far when I've read

everything that's out there, and I'm hearing, you know, to be fair, people were all taken by surprise. You're just hearing he was an original, and there was no one like Norm, and I keep thinking, no, no one's getting to it, and I just wanted to take a stab today to try and understand what exactly it was about this guy that was so, so brilliantly unusual, and is going to be so lasting, and his work is so important. So what I've done is I've asked two people who were sort of in the engine room with me when, over the years, Norm made his appearances on the show, I'm sitting with Andy Richter,

who was right there for me, you were there, you were there for it, so I wanted you here because you are a really astute observer of comedic style, and you were right there for all of these amazing appearances that Norm made on our show, and I also asked my long-time friend and long-time producer, since really the beginning in 1993, Frank Smiley to be here. Hey, Frank. Hello. And Frank produced every single one of Norm's segments, and so if anyone can help me understand

what it was about this guy, I thought it would be Frank. So I got Frank Smiley here, I got Andy Richter here, and we're just going to talk about the Norm of it all here. Well, Frank got to talk to him, you know, he'd come on, and I think a lot of what you're seeing like commemorating Norm was clips from our show, which we were blessed to have those, but for every one of those segments, Frank talked to him for an hour, you and I got him for eight minutes or whatever, you know, so Frank probably doesn't. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I wanted to, before I even begin, I want to give a quick shout-out

to two people who, in my opinion, are the unsung heroes of the Norm MacDonald story, two people that meant a lot to Norm, and we're really there for him in pivotal moments, you know, one is Jim Downey, who, you know, for my money, the best, pound for pound, the best comedy mind that I've ever encountered, head writer at Sound Out Live for many years, wrote for David Letterman, just an absolutely brilliant man, I worked for him at Sound Out Live, and he was the one that really worked with Norm on update, and for that just incredibly classic period of weekend update at Sound Out Live. So a shout-out to Jim Downey, and I'm thinking about him because Norm so loved him and admired

him, and a shout-out to a very special person, Lori Jo Hoekstra, who was Norm's, you know, right hand partner in crime, and she, I did have a chance to speak to her since this all happened, and she's just such a lovely person, and I'm thinking of her because she just did so much for Norm over the years, and Norm was so lucky to have her. So I just wanted to address those two people who I think deserve our love and thoughts right now. Frank, do me a favor, because I was trying to, I recall, the first time I encountered Norm was when he did stand up on our late night show really early on, do you remember

how that happened? Yes, I do. And a month after we started, it was October of 93, and a guest dropped out as it would happen back then. Oh yeah, people were, back in October of 93, we had been on the air a month. Believe it or not, it wasn't going well, ladies and gentlemen. No one thought we would last 28 minutes, let alone 28 years. They were dropping like flies.

But guests were dropping out at the last second constantly, and so someone dropped out, and what'd you do? So I had worked with Norm a year earlier on the Dennis Miller show, which didn't last very long, but he, you know, was the funny, anybody who had met him even for a minute knew he was the funniest guy in the world. Sorry, Conan, but, you know, he is just a force. Dennis Miller you're talking about now. You're not making it clear.

You said, he worked on the Dennis Miller show, who we all know. I thought it was understood. I thought it was understood. I thought you were talking about Dennis Miller. I like Dennis, but come on. Dennis is funny too. Hey there, cha-cha. He's a...

So you knew him as a writer? So I knew him, and I knew he had just worked. He got a job as a writer on Saturday Night Live, so in a pinch I went up there, I thought he would do it, and I knew, you know, usually you work with a stand-up to hone a set, but with Norm, I didn't need to, I wasn't worried at all. I knew that afternoon he would come on the air and kill, and he did. He annihilated, and he did a bit about buying a dog, which was so funny. And that was the first time he did our show, and that was 28 years ago.

Right. And then he came on many times after that, and I've been thinking about, what is it that made this guy so insanely different from everyone else? And I had this recollection that, Andy, you said something once, which was, and I always remembered it. It was after a Norm segment, and Norm had annihilated, he had done really well as he always did, and you said to me, that guy doesn't care in a way that frightens me. And what you meant was, he had this seeming indifference about whether the crowd liked

it or not. He was going to do what he was going to do, and he was so ballsy that you found it kind of scary, and I knew exactly what you were talking about. It was always a high wire act. And one of the things I remember most about Norm is I would start laughing the minute he came out of the curtain. So I'd say, let's jump in, Norm MacDonald, and he would come out, and he had this look in his eye, this glint in his eye, and I was laughing before he said anything.

And I will attest, and you will back me up on this, both of you can back me up on this. I always wanted to be a host who helped the guest as much as I could. It's called host. Yeah. But what I would do is, you know, sometimes I'd be hearing something that wasn't that funny, but I learned how to be a generous laugher for people if it would help. I have always said to people, if you want to really see me laugh, and this is long before Norm passed, if you really want to see what it looks like when I am laughing, watch in

Norm MacDonald's segment, because I have my hands on my belly, which I think might be my tail. I put my hands on my stomach, and I would have my hands on my stomach sometimes just as Norm was coming out around the curtain, and I see that crazy look in his eye and that insane grin that he had with those sort of like round apple cheeks. He was a mischievous kid. He was a mischievous kid, and he was out to cause trouble, and he's coming around the bend, and his eye would catch me, and he'd always look a little surprised to see me,

even though I had just introduced him. Of course. And you'd just seen him five minutes before. I had just seen him five minutes before, but oh my God, and I think there was this, people get cynical about show business, and rightfully they think, well, it's all set up, or it's all been contrived, and sometimes it has been, but with that guy, when you look at any of these clips, you're watching us be just as stunned as the audience is, because we don't know.

We don't know what's going to happen. I think, well, one of the things to me, like Norm was so Canadian, like he was deeply, deeply polite, deeply, deeply concerned with the person that he's talking to. An audience, not so much, but a person that he's talking to, because even the famous clip of like, you know, and now, and it's arguably one of the biggest things circulating now about Lauren, about Norm is when he was on with Courtney Thorn Smith, and was making fun of Carrot Top, but he wasn't making fun of Courtney Thorn Smith. He was having fun with her, but he still was kind of taking care of her in a way, and having

fun with you. So he, I think he had this like sort of, and I mean, I just, I showed, my sister texted me the day after he died, and she said, do you remember, I was at the show, I was maybe 18 years old, and I was in your office, you weren't there, you were rehearsing or meeting or something, and Norm MacDonald walked in, and I introduced myself, and he sat down and talked to me for an hour, and asked me questions about myself, and, you know, and made me laugh a lot, and she said, nobody in your business has done that before or since, and that was, that was one aspect of Norm was like, an incredibly kind, considerate listener, but then there's

also this stripe of Norm that is a destroyer, and it is not, it's not a coincidence that when we talk about him, it's a, he annihilated, he killed, he destroyed, and what Norm was drawn to touch points that you're not supposed to touch, and Norm would not only touch them, he would dry hump them, you know, he would just, and so in a talk show context, you have this guy for whom nothing is sacred, and in fact, there's a little bit, like you don't sense aggression from him, except when you get to like hypocrisy, or something that's, you know, phoniness, and he was also, you know, he was also too not afraid, publicly or, or in private or something, to let people that he felt were not funny, who were being

paid to be funny, let them know he didn't think they were funny, and that's because he had so much genius. Well, he took it, he took it, I mean, yeah, he took it comedy very seriously, and, and one of the things that speaks to, you know, I was having a conversation with Jim Downey, and, and in the, in the wake of Norm's death, and Jim Downey, and I was trying to get to the, what is it that made Norm so different, and he reminded me, said, you know, on weekend update, we would do, there's a dress rehearsal, which I know, because I've worked at Sound Out Live, there's a dress rehearsal, and he said, the best way to test a joke on weekend

update is at dress rehearsal. If it does well at dress rehearsal, it will do well on air. If it doesn't do well at dress rehearsal, it will bomb on air. That's the best way to test it. And he said that Norm would do a joke at dress rehearsal that they both loved, and it would get nothing. And when weekend update was over, Jim would say, yeah, it's too bad that joke didn't do well, and Norm would say like, yeah, I know that we got to do it.

So he would do jokes that he knew were going to get nothing. If he thought the joke was worthwhile, he didn't give a shit. Now that is very uncommon. That is very... Well, he never pantered. He didn't pander at all. And that takes, you know, that's what made me think about the line you said so many years ago, Andy, like it almost terrifies me, his fearlessness, because it was the thing he

did so many times on our show, which I thought was absolutely outrageous, was he would launch into these long stories that you later, you quickly realized were farmer's daughter jokes. Shaggy dog. Shaggy dog stories. Yeah, yeah. Just absolute horseshit. Horshit stories. And he would go on and on and on, and I'm so happy that the moth joke has been getting

circulated so much from our Tonight Show because it is completely outrageous what he's doing. It is, you know, it's the Tonight Show, and he is telling this very long story, and he's taking all the time in the world. And I love it just because even though I was there, I'm delighted every time I see it. Every time I see it, I'm delighted with it because what he's doing is breaks every rule. Brevity is the soul of wit. That is the rule. Keep it, you know, and man, he completely like Picasso blew up the form.

He goes and he tells this joke forever, and then finally gets to this punchline, and you can see that he's, everyone's delighted, but he has broken every rule in the book. And I was asking, I was talking to Lori Jo, and I asked her if it's okay if I related this and she said it was okay. But she said that not too long ago, someone asked Norm about the moth story that he told on our Tonight Show, and that she said, the guy wanted to know what made you have the nerve to do that, and that he said that, you know, was that goddamn Frank Smiley? He said, I was only supposed to do one segment, and then suddenly in the commercial break,

I came over and said, like, you're doing another one because whenever I had Norm, I was greedy. I wanted more Norm. I always wanted more Norm, and so he didn't know that he was, that we were going to ask him to do a second segment. He had nothing planned, absolutely nothing planned, and so as recently as like, not that long ago, I mean, it was a couple of months ago, he was telling somebody, damn it, Frank Smiley, hey, get back out there, Conan Ross Moore. So he heard that joke from Colin Quinn, and he did the segment, and it was, he had seven

minutes prepared. And so he basically, you said, you know, and then he's done, he did say we'll be right back with more Norm, and he goes, I've got nothing to say. So then he remembered the Colin joke, and it was a 20 second joke. So he asked you, how long is the segment? And he was hoping you'd say 20 seconds, but you said seven minutes, so it became a seven minute joke. Yeah, and he's doing that, this has to be understood, he's doing this on the fly.

So his way to slow it down, that he came up with on the fly, is he invents. It's a check off play. It's a check off play. With Russian names. With Russian names, and there's a sadness, an ineffable sadness in life, laying on the character's soul, and I'm thinking, you know, who, I've never met anybody who would take that chance, and make that choice, and I'll never meet anybody like him again. He was the ballsyest comedian in the history of comedians.

He was taking that, and he was saying like, the joke doesn't matter. Like that, you know, watching that, seeing that clip again, you're getting to see his brain. He's just showing you his brain. And the notion that this is, that the joke is the thing, the joke isn't the thing. No, it's the journey. It's taking a stroll through this guy's brain, and hearing the choices that he makes and what he has to say.

And you know, and I think that that was like, kind of what, like there was so much of like what he, you know, would say, like, well, that doesn't matter, this matters, you know, and what mattered to him was his own self-expression, was his own, was spreading his own kind of genius and his own point of view. Like there's a clip out, he did some roast, and I remember seeing it at the time. I can't remember who it was that he was roasting, but all his jokes are things. It was Bob Saget. Was it Bob Saget?

And it was unbelievable. But all the jokes were things like, you know, Bob often has a lot of things on, you know, Bob often has things on his mind. It's when he's wearing a hat, like it was all these dad jokes, intentionally bombed. And then I, I didn't even know this, but I remember feeling like, okay, Norm, I mean, you know, these are funny and this is, and you're funny doing them because you can't help but be funny. But this is, feels a little hostile, you know, like, why, why are you breaking from what

this, you know, you were invited to a costume party and you came, you know, in a tuxi, you know, whatever. He didn't play by the rules of the thing. Turns out the producers told him, really go for it. Really get him. And Norm was like, ah, yeah, it's going to tell me what to do. I don't know. Here, I'll do this.

I'll do the softest, lamest dad jokes I can come up with. Yeah. And it was just to fuck you to the producers. It was looked weird at the time. It was funny in a way, but it still was just like, it was Norm doing what the fuck he wanted to do. It was still hilarious. Yeah.

Yeah. Norm is, it's like, Norm couldn't not be funny. Yeah. The other thing I want to talk about is his diction, his word choice. I've always, he spoke like someone from the 1920s. He would say, he would talk about hobos and he would say as, you know, you know, my wife a battle axe, you know, he talked in this way that was from a different time and I'm just an old lump of coal.

And you thought, what is, where is this coming from? And it didn't feel contrived. It was, you know, and I don't know if it came from coming from this province in Canada. Yeah. I think it does. I think it does. And his, you know, people can make up that kind of language and use it. This really came from him and he would make these choices like, I remember it once when

he was talking about a dog, a Doberman, and he kept calling it a Doberman. That's right. And you were like, why is he calling a Doberman a Doberman? He was doing it on purpose. Absolutely. He would do little things that would catch your ear. And it's almost like poetry in a way. The way he would deliver and write his sets.

Yeah. He had a real facility for the English language. Unbelievable. Really amazing construction. It all felt very spontaneous, but as I spoke to Smigel, Robert Smigel. Robert Smigel, who was the original head writer on the late night show. But more importantly Triumph the Insult comic book. He refers to himself as Triumph the Insult.

That's what it says on his, when he gets pulled over for speeding, it says on his driver's license. Insult comic dog, Triumph, weight eight inches. But he said, he saw him perform somewhere and he didn't, I don't know where. But he said, Norm went on a run and it was hilarious. And he went up to Norm and said, that was amazing, that run you went on in the moment. And he said, that wasn't in the moment. That was completely crap.

Every single word of it was written out. I'll tell you something else, too. He was a craftsman. Yeah, he was a craftsman. And the other thing he did, which was completely fearless is, if you look at that, him on the Espeys, you've seen that footage of him on the Espeys. And people were so angry at the time, because he's going after these athletes. And there was this sense of like, you can't do this.

And he took so much shit for that. And then you look at it now, that's what the Espeys has become. You know, the Espeys now is like a lot of people doing jokes about, a roast, a roast. But it became more that way. He just did that first. And at the time, people were really upset. And at the time, you feel like there's a lot of in comedy, people getting applause for being brave in one way or another.

But oftentimes, what they're doing, they know he's going to play well. But when he's doing it, he was doing things that really were brave, and he paid the price for it. He took a lot of heat when he went out. He took a lot of, I mean, it cost him his job. It sound out loud. One of his bosses was friends with a murderer. And so Norm was going to do it.

Alleged. This is a show that follows the rule of law. All right, Alleg, you can just plug in, Alleg. We can edit that. I see no proof, Andy. But he was, so, and the word, I mean, I'm assuming that it came down, hey, lay off the OJ stuff, because Norm would do at the time, like, five OJ jokes in a row. And to Norm's sensibility, somebody's saying, hey, the big boss wants you to stop making

jokes about that murderer, Norm is like, no, like, of anything that you should not back off of, it's making jokes about a murderer. That must have been tough for you at that time. Well, I remember, and I have it somewhere, either I have it or Jeff Ross has it, but we got the word came down. You can't book Norm MacDonald anymore. And it came from the top and from Donald Meyer and, you know, Donald Meyer was the one that, you know, Lauren suggested me for late night, he gave me the job.

And so I had a lot of, you know, feelings of loyalty to Donald Meyer, because I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for Don sticking with me. So I owe him that. So I wrote a letter to Don that said, you know, I got this directive, you've hired me to do the best show I can do, and this is my best guest. And so I need to do what I need to do my job, which is the best show I can do. And I got the I got the letter back and written in the margins was just something I don't remember the exact, but it was something like I'm, you know, I would expect I expected

better from you or something like that. It was it was basically me being told, do as you're told, yeah, but or I'm really disappointed in your lack of loyalty or something. And I felt at the time that's not no, that's not a lack of loyalty. That is loyalty. I've got to be, you know. So it was, you know, I always greedily wanted more norm. And, you know, I was upset, you know, this is in a purely selfish way, but the number

one fan request request, I think this podcast now is only three years old, the number one request for a guest by far ahead of everyone, Norm MacDonald, yeah, and we tried for a long time to get norm to come on the podcast and couldn't get him to come on. And I, you know, started to get into my head about it and think, well, is something wrong? Is he upset with us? And it's only now that I'm realizing that he was ill. It was hard to book him on the show, you know, like it became a Davis has said that, you know, we try constantly and he just wasn't doing anything.

Yeah. We were all scratching our heads. We were all, we were all wondering where he is. And I know that fans were thinking, well, you know, where is he? And we, we were as confused as anybody. And of course now, sadly, you know, we know how much difficulty he was having and how long and how very sick, how long he's been sick and how very sick he was, but yeah, I go back to, again, like I'm like a dog with a bone trying to figure out.

He's very, you know, I'm just going to tell Frank is new to this, so he keeps shuffling papers right up against the microphone. There you go. That's okay, Frank. He wants it to make sure. Frank, you can have it right here on the table. Yeah, sure. He wants some people to know we're reading from a script.

He's got all these notes. Norm equals funny. Like that's not going to, that's not going to help you. I remember, you know, I gave this shout out to Jim Downey earlier. Jim Downey and Norm were such a good team because they both have a very high bar for comedy and a really good ear. And I think Norm was the perfect vehicle for, for Jim's humor and vice versa. They were just had a really copacetic relationship.

So one of my favorite norm jokes of all time was an OJ joke. And the picture comes up and it's that picture of Johnny Cochran at the trial and OJ is seated next to him and Johnny Cochran's holding up the knit cap that was found at the scene. And forgive my bad norm impression, but it was kind of like something along the lines of, you know, rough, difficult time today in the OJ Simpson trial. Johnny Cochran introduced the, the knit hat that was found at the scene of the, of the murders. And he held it aloft and showed the jury this, the hat that had been found.

Things got off the rails a little bit when OJ Simpson interrupted him and said, Hey, hey, careful with that. That's my lucky stabbing cap. And I remember that joke came through the TV and slapped me in the face. It was so good. And I love the whole light. And of course, you know, Norm, what he would do is, and I never saw him do that. He would tell the joke and then he would stare you down through the television.

Like try that on for a size. Something no one else could get away with. You would look like such an asshole if you, if anybody else did that. But you know, that's, that's my lucky stabbing cap. And then you can just see his eyes on fire and that grin and he's going to hold it there. And he knows he's going to lose his job. He's going to lose his job over this funniest guy to ever be on that show in, you know, and he's going to lose his job.

He, he, you know, like I said, he had a very destructive streak. He publicly stated he lost his, his entire fortune twice gambling, you know, and, and so he would find things like this. And it wasn't like to just destroy his own job, but it was like to destroy the hypocrisy of, you know, and, you know, he also was really drawn to touchy subjects. So it's like a brutal murder. Yeah. It was a lot of pleasure in, in being dangerous.

Yeah. Whether it was doing a joke. How many anal rate jokes did we hear? You know, how many, you know, including, uh, I must bring it up, the Swedish Sherman. He, that became. Andy Rickley, the Swedish Sherman. That became a thing. Yeah.

And actually Conan and I were talking about this yesterday. I had forgotten about this. And of course, um, you said that you, you sometimes see it online. Yeah. I'm like, okay, well, let's hear about that because, uh, you know, me, I'm in the nose cone of the rocket. Right. Right.

I'm at the top of the pyramid. Right. You're ivory tower. There's a lot of clouds underneath your window. I'm up there. Counting my both points. I can't be concerned with what you're doing down in the moat. No, people, I mean, every, uh, weekly, someone will just, and arbitrary, you know, arbitrarily

just call me a Swedish German. And it was a. Explain how that, what that means. I know, well, I mean, I know they're norm fans because norm would do, and norm was also like kind of a traditionalist. So he did the, you know, talk to the talk show host, but then there's this guy over here, this one. Let's make fun of him.

Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of his jokes, he, like I say, he was drawn to the things that you're not supposed to say. So a lot of his jokes were about being queer, gay porno. This fellow over here, he enjoys the gay porno and that became a thing with me. And at one point he was talking about your ethnicity, your Irish, I'm Scottish, what are you?

And I said, uh, Swedish German. And for some reason it was like, really? And I was like, yeah, why would I make that up? But that then later became a euphemism for gay, you know, the old prospector comes to town and wants a prostitute, but no, there's no prostitutes. There's just Andy Richter, the Swedish German. It's outrageous because it's norm. It's outrageous because it's on a talk show.

And it's you. And it's me. But like, and I think that some people think that like, I was somehow, and well, and somebody else, a friend of mine pointed out, there's nothing, you can't do anything with that. Right. Like you, there's nothing to do with that when, when Norm MacDonald says this fellow over here, like, and he, you know, we'd go to like, hey, Kodron, have you met his wife? But then you did say, at least I had my dignity and says, you were raped.

Yeah. He goes to rape, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. And I never was that crazy about that because I would think, you know, I'm sitting there and we're in a studio and we're laughing about it now. And it is like the point of that joke is this fellow's a queer and, and it's a very, very

old fashioned retrograde joke that we just don't do anymore. Right. And some jokes that we don't do anymore, we don't do them anymore because they shouldn't be done. Right. And we shouldn't have been doing them in the first place. You know, I was always thinking about the gay people that work on the Conan O'Brien show.

How do I look them in the face after being there and hearty harring about the punchline being that I'm a gay fellow? And you know, and we're thinking about the people in my family who are gay, like if they're going to watch that, how are they going to think when the real bottom line, what's funny about that is that I was supposedly a homosexual and that I was, which to me, I always was like, it's like, it's like saying, like this fellow over here, he's a, he doesn't want anybody to know it, but he's a secret Jew, his, his kitchen's full of motzes. You know, it's like, you would go like, what are you talking about?

You know, what is that? How is that funny? My kitchen's full of motzes. I know, but you're, you're not a secret, but, but you know what I mean? I just, it always, it made me uncomfortable not because I was afraid that people would think I was gay because if I was gay, everybody would know that I was gay. It made me uncomfortable because there were people out there in the audience who, whom I love and care about, who would be left thinking like, what's so terrible about me that I am

a joke, that I'm a punchline, you know, that how I am and who I am is a punchline to a joke. But that was when, when you're the kind of comic that norm is and you are going after any uncomfortable subject and you're like, oh, let me get in there and, and, you know, roam around and really get my elbows, you know, it's, you're gonna, it's gonna be ugly sometimes. Yeah. It's gonna be uncomfortable.

Yes. And I, I, I remember he did, I mean, I just think it was one of his later appearances on our show. Um, you know, he went after Oscar Pistorius, you know, who's, you know, the Blade Runner, he was, he was convicted of, of, of murder and he was the one who famously had, you know, blades, uh, you know, he was born, uh, I guess without legs and had blades instead and was this great, uh, Olympic athlete and he went after him and, and his joke was something along the lines of, I have no problem with him as a murderer.

Yeah. I don't have a problem with the murder. But the murder, it's, you should use real, your real legs if you're gonna be, and it's an ins, you think about it, everything about that joke is completely wrong and especially in this era that we're in, uh, you know, completely unacceptable, but it was Norm and Norm would dig into it with this and, and I'm, look, I, I know the guy to be extremely sensitive and to be very kind. Like almost too sensitive in many ways.

Yeah. And, and yet he wasn't having any of, if this, uh, well, you got to be careful here, you know, or, you know, that joke, that could really hurt people's feelings that could, he I think made some kind of deal with himself early on that across the board, he was not going to care. Yeah. Um, about that. Nobody's going to tell me what to say.

Yeah. And I think, um, you know, his line was one of the basic requirements of being a sprinter is you have to have legs. Right. Remember he had a, he had a, he had a joke I loved early on about, uh, kickboxing. It was like, remember he said kickboxing combines all the grace and finesse of boxing with kicking. I just was like, he had this, uh, you know, the way he would just punch it and reduce

it to its absolute, um, you know, most absurd, you know, yeah, and you could did picture like kicking just what sounds lame or than a guy kicking somebody. Yeah. Well, even, I mean, there was a lot of like, he luxuriated in his own normness and that's like why there were all those long, long, long jokes. It was, it was just him, like there's, it's aggressive. It's an aggressive thing to waste that much TV time because I think he's thinking, ah, TV time is precious.

Now let me show you. It's not that precious. Look what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell a six minute joke about whatever went along for every second of it. Oh, I know. I know. He made it. He made a long joke of work of art.

Yeah. Yeah. An old joke that wasn't his. You know, the dammit, he, he did this bit for us that he insisted on doing. Sully Sullenberger. Yes. He did a bit where he, you know, he come out, he came out and he's like, yeah, Conan, I made a movie.

And I'm like, oh, really? I've made a movie. And, and yeah, I funded it myself and of course I, and it's, it was about Sully Sullenberger who landed. Sully Sullenberger biography. Yeah. A biography about the pilot who landed the plane and he, I think maintained that he did this.

He had this idea before Tom Hanks. So he's a little indignant. Well, it was actually, we showed it before Hanks ever made the movie. Oh, is that true? Okay. All right. It was 2009. It was right after Sully Sullenberger heroically landed on the Hudson.

And so he shot this thing and he got to our show early. And of course it looks like shit because we just, we just had a. It's fast. Yeah. With the barest cockpit set. And he insisted on using the woman who did his makeup. Deborah. Deborah Pullman.

He insisted on using her in the bit, even though it's not even clear why he needed her in the bit. His wife. Played his wife. Yeah. Played his wife. And this, to this day, I don't know what that sketch. Well, it was a dry bit.

It was a very dry sketch. It was one of the driest things I've ever seen. So the idea is that Sully Sullenberger heroically landed on the Hudson like around that time. He made this movie about Sully Sullenberger, but six months it's been in the can. So he was looking for an ending. Yeah. And this guy lands. So basically.

So basically. No, the joke is he made a movie about Sully Sullenberger before he heroically landed the plane on that. So the clip is him landing on the tarmac. That's it. Successfully. He successfully lands the plane and says thanks for flying American Airlines. Yes.

Have a good day. So the joke is that, amazingly, a director decides to make a movie about a random pilot Sully Sullenberger and makes it about a successful landing before the most dramatic landing in the history of aviation. And he showed this thing. I think he had a fake mustache on, but he's barely. And this is another thing I love about him. He didn't care at all about the craft of acting.

And I'll watch. I mean, recently I watched Dirty Work. Yeah. It was on TV. He would say, I'm not an actor. Yeah. He would always say that. Like, I don't act.

I'm not going to act. I'm not an actor. That's not what I do. So he had no interest in that. So even in the sketch, he's not even pretending to be in a sketch. Yes. He's not. But he was great.

Yeah. He was like, if you look at his SNL appearances, his work on SNL, his letterman was great. Yep. Burt Reynolds. Burt Reynolds was great. Yeah, yeah. He was fantastic. Oh, yeah.

He's being those guys. Bob Dole. Yeah, Bob Dole was great. He's being those guys, but he's also never not being Norm. You know, like he's always Norm. It's always Norm doing that. Well, but the Letterman impression was bizarre. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But something that I think, you know, has to be understood about Norm is that he was always Norm. So there are people that I go and I see them in the dressing room before the show and chat with them a little bit and they're kind of revving up to be the person they're going to be on the show. Norm was that guy all the time.

And using those old weird euphemisms and using, you know, that strange language and that cadence, that way of talking, and he was always that guy. And then after the show, you'd go to tell him, that was really great. Oh, yeah. And then it worked out. You know, what do you think? I'm some kind of hobo, you know, just like he's doing that backstage beforehand afterwards, I think, in every incarnation.

Now he said from the beginning of in 93, when he did stand up, he would call the TV, the TV. The TV. Who else do you know who says the TV? Oh, I know. I know who you're talking about. Bob Dylan. Right.

Because I got to meet Bob Dylan once and I was backstage with our guitarist, Jimi Vivino, at a Bob Dylan show. And suddenly I got literally like pushed into a room where there was some, you know, heavy hitting people in there. I did not consider myself nor do I still one of those, but I got pushed in and I got kind of shoved to the front of this line and there's Bob Dylan. And he looked right at me and he went, I know you from the TV. So and I remembered that in my head, like he calls the television, the TV with the emphasis

on T. And then Norm, all these years used to say, it's the TV. Now Norm is a giant Dylan fan. I didn't know that. But Norm is still in fan and sometimes in his material, I feel like that there's. I think that's just Minnesota and Canada. Bob Dylan's from Minnesota. So you're hearing a guy from Minnesota and you're hearing a guy from Canada and you're hearing just a North American, Northern, North American, the TV, you know, because that's

that Canadian guy also says like, I'm not a hobo, you know, I mean, those are all old crusty white manisms, you know, very Canadian, very upper Northern, you know, US. Well, here's an interesting fact and I don't think anybody, I don't think it's been out there publicly, but Dylan was a fan of Norm's and invited him to his house. Oh, wow. And Norm was at Dylan's Malibu house for like two days. Wow. Wow.

Slept the night out. Slept the night out. Wow. Slept the night out. He's a chaffee. What do you want to watch on the TV? What do you want to watch on the TV? Let's both watch the TV.

Finally, I found someone who finally I found someone who says it right. You want to play volleyball? But he, he told me about this and it was an interesting experience, but he never talked about it publicly, which shows you, first of all, what a thrill that must have been for this guy who grew up a Dylan fan. But he never, he talked about almost everything. You know, S. Bob Yooker, he didn't keep much secret,

but he never really talked about Dylan. And it just shows you how much he did. Right, he didn't trade off of it. Yeah, yeah. Any other comedian could have turned that into like a whole special, you know? But, yeah, you dirty dog, I think all people would, ah, yeah, you dirty dog, yeah, like, you know,

what is that? Who talks that way? It's just unbelievable. Yeah, a guy from, that's what I think there's this tension. But from another century. Yes. There's this tension. But he saw the value in speaking like that for comedy.

Yes, yes. It wasn't just the way he speaks, it was he used it. Yes, but there was a tension in him of being that guy and being from that guy, but I think also rejecting that guy and not really, like he didn't stay in Canada, you know, he left Canada. And so he, I think he kind of had that, you know, play by the rules, don't ruffle any feathers,

don't make the neighbors talk about you base. And then, and then became this guy that like, did not give a shit what the neighbors said about you. Right, right. You know, and I think that that tension in there is like, you know, like I said, the guy, he said, you know, there's a lot of tearing down. You know, that's kind of what he did.

And there's a price to be paid for that. Yeah, well that's, but he's the best at it. I have to say, I have, you know, I've had this knowing regret this last day and a half and it's reading all this praise for norm, which again, I believe is completely justified and will endure. And it's been a regret that he had,

he didn't get to experience this. You know, he took so much flack in his career. He took so much shit. And yes, he knew that he had fans, but I wish, you know, it's a common wish for people, but I wish he had been able to read the stuff that's being written about him. I wish he knew how beloved he is.

And also how in awe comedians are of what he did and what he meant and how, you know. How important he was to the people who are probably the most important people in the world to him. Yeah. And he, you know, I wish he knew that. And that's the one regret I, you know, he kept his illness a complete secret from everybody.

Everybody. And that was his choice and I respect that choice, but selfishly for me, I wish I had had the chance and I wish, a lot of us wish we had had the chance to go in and tell him you were a singular artist and you've really made a huge difference. And you've, I mean, if nothing else, I don't know if anybody that could make me laugh like that, anybody.

Me too. Me too. I don't think there's anybody that I've ever met that made me laugh. Yeah. It made me laugh with abandon. Like a child. I'm just, I would lose control. Yeah.

It was, what he was doing was so, so insane. And, you know, and. Well, he was effortlessly funny. He just, almost everything he did was. It's all about the brain. It's like he just had a brain unlike any other brain. And that's, you know, so much of what the people that you love, the comedians that you love,

you're loving this brain, this unique brain that takes the input and the output is unlike any other output. But, you know, the one thing I would say is it's the brain and the talent, but then, you know, I reserve my highest praise for people with standards. And that guy had rules. He had rules about, there's kinds of comedy that work

and get you applause. And there's kinds of comedy that are very risky and often don't work. And that's the stuff that he reveled in and was willing to go through, you know, go through the experience of hearing no laughs just because he knew on some level he was right and would be redeemed in the end.

And now people are looking at all these clips and they're looking at these clips of him on the SBs going after these athletes and saying, this is absolutely hilarious. You were telling me, you texted me yesterday that you were watching, or two days ago, that you were watching yourself listening to Norm in the segments and laughing as though

you'd never heard them. Because I, you know, he was on so many times and I forgot some of these things. And I remembered the moth, but it's not like, I don't. Yeah, it's, yeah. And also, I don't go back and, I don't look at myself. I'm not, I'm not, that's not my idea of a good time is to go look at clips of myself.

I thought we were gonna be honest in this. You beat me to that. Look, come on. Your phone, your phone is silently playing old clips and you're not doing this. Look at me, look at that jawline. That hair is immaculate. Oh boy.

Wow, I really have friend dresser laughing hard in 95. No, I, so I was looking, you know, like everyone else, people were sending me these clips and I was watching them and I was laughing as hard, watching them now as I was in the studio. And, you know, what a gift to, it's just this nice gift that we'll keep giving. Yeah.

When it's my time to go, someone can string together a couple of Norm MacDonald appearances and give me a really strong shot of morphine and I can watch those and just go out laughing. That would be nice. I read something because, you know, I spent the day, whatever day that was, was it Wednesday? Yeah, Wednesday, you know, looking at,

like so many of us did, looking at clips and reading stuff. And I read an article that was, that's pretty recent. It was an interview with maybe Vulture, you know, New York magazine or something, but there was something in it that speaks very much to this, what you're saying, like it would have been nice if he could have heard all this stuff.

He was talking about, the person was talking to him and there had been some kind of special standup event that Chris Rock was did and Dave Chappelle did. And those guys at the time had not, you know, they hadn't been in circulation very much. And Norm had decided not to do it. And I may be getting it a little wrong, but he said, well, you know, I would have done it

and I would have gone out there and I would have destroyed, but nobody would have given a shit. Like no one would have talked about me destroying out there, which is probably true. Like in terms of like, if you saw an article about that particular event, they probably would have been, and Norm MacDonald was there, you know?

And it's just so, like I say, it broke my heart that he was opting out of things because he felt that it was, like there wasn't just the joy in doing it. It was like, what's it gonna matter? Like there was just this kind of, and who knows what was playing into that, you know, kind of attitude. But I wish he could have heard all this stuff too.

I did say, I said to, I said to Lori Jo, today I said on the flip side, because I brought this up and they said on the flip side, if Norm, if in a magical world, Norm had been presented with all of this incredible praise, he would have found a way to deflect it. Yeah, yeah. Ridiculous. Probably would have made his skin crawl.

Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, he wouldn't have, this might have been the way he wanted it, you know? But, you know, I wanted to have this, this is the most selfish episode I've ever done of this podcast, which is pretty selfish. My podcast is very selfish in that I really do just talk to people I really wanna talk to

and I have a lot of fun and then they shove some mattress commercials into it and throw it out there. And I love doing it, I really love doing it, but this was just sort of my attempt on the fly to say I've gotta talk about Norm with people who really knew Norm or were there with me when I experienced the Norm of it all and try and understand what it was.

And I think we've said a lot, but I still feel like, you know. Well, I also went down that rabbit hole of watching clips and there's so many amazing moments that are favorites of people, but I don't know if you guys have favorites, but this is, I found one that was crazy I forgot about, which was a long joke about a drunk who was playing darts with Norm.

And Norm said, if he got a bullseye, he'd give him a prize and the drunk got a bullseye. So Norm gave him a turtle and a shoe box that he was gonna give to his nephew. And the drunk and Norm are playing darts a week later and the drunk gets another bullseye and wants another prize. And Norm said, what did you win last time? And he says, I wanna roast beef on a hard roll.

I wanna roast beef on a hard roll. I wanna roast beef on a hard roll. Yeah, I could see, you know, it's so funny because. That was about five times as long as I just told you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, you gave, you gave, no. He'd go into, now I say to this fella, I say to him, you look like an interesting kind of man. You look like a man who's been around

and seen some things. What if you and I were to maybe throw a few darts around? First he throws a three. Yeah. And I says, and I says, and I says to him, and I says, and I say to him, and I say, you seem like a man who might use a, you know, just I love when he would come out.

I would start laughing at, but what's up, Norm? Well, Conan, I got myself a farm. And I think, no, you fucking didn't, you know, but everyone in the world is trying to figure out what's a funny story I can tell. And he would have the, but in a farm, you see, and I live there with my three daughters. One, of course, very beautiful, one less so,

and of course, one very unfortunate, and one day a salesman comes on down the road, he does, and I'm thinking, and I'm laughing at, I'm laughing when I just say, what are you up to? And he says, well, I got myself a farm, I'm gone. No, you didn't get it. Let me tell you an 80-year-old joke. Let me tell you a joke that Lincoln told.

And then he'll spring up some character. Jock did you do to who? You know, you know, some crazy made up character. But, you know, I do know that I really like, cause on one of the episodes, it was really funny, we're loving it, and he finishes the story, and it ends with this terrible pun, the porpoise pun, remember that?

I think I'm still, it's this long story that ends with a pun, instead of I'm serving a useful purpose, he says, I'm serving a youthful purpose, and it's this long joke that gets to just that pun, and I'm loving it, we're both loving it, but also we can't believe this is where the story has gone, is to this pun, so he springs the trap, and the crowd starts to applaud,

and I start to sell the crowd, no, you can't applaud. Yeah, yeah. What he's just done right now is criminal. He's taking time from all of us. Yeah, he's criminal, he can't be allowed to get away with this, and then Andy, you say, what you just did, Norm, is you stopped us on the street, took us for a two mile walk in the woods

to show us a turd, and Norm is laughing so hard, I think he gets down on his knees, and is like clapping, and I realize that the ultimate joy of this man, to me, is he is a mischievous kid at heart. There's all this intellect, and there's all of this integrity, and there's all the things that we've talked about, word choice, and his way of being able to, and I do believe, like a modernist painter,

completely blow up the form and take it inside out, I think all those things are true, but at the core, there is a mischievous child who knows that he's gonna sit in the update desk at SNL, and he's gonna stare right in the camera, and tell a joke that he knows for a fact is gonna get nothing, and will enrage the president of NBC, and cost him his job,

and he is like a kid in a candy store, and to me, that's, I mean, God bless. It's a lot of fun to watch. And I think he also really enjoyed being around other comedians, like that's where he seemed to really come a lot. I mean, he was a stand-up, but he also really liked being on in a situation with other comedians,

and I've had people say to me, like, did it bother you? Because, like I said, I would be the butt of the joke sometime, and I would say, like, no, that's him, that's like practically, like, him showing love to me. Like, he would not insult me if he thought that I, you know, was somehow inferior. Well, I think it's like being insulted by Rickles.

Yeah, it's like, he's inviting me to play, when he's making fun of me, you know. I also think he was, you know, what we did, when we debuted our show, we went back to this idea, which was like the Ed McMahon, but we wanted to turn it on its head, which is, no, you're not there to be the butt of the joke, you are this incredibly funny guy

who's got free reign to do whatever you want. He's playing with the old form, which is, ah, come on in, you know, what's up with this guy over here? And he's doing it because he loved all those old contrivances, he just loved them. Well, you know, the other thing, you know, you were talking about how nice he was to your sister, and it showed that side that engaged.

He was engaging, but you know, I got to see, well, first of all, he was emotional, and we saw that on Letterman when he was the last standup, but when he brought his son to the show, Dylan, he, you could see the love, and even throughout the 28 years that we worked together, I mean, anytime his son was brought up, and I think it's on the show,

you could see how much he loved them. And I remember when he brought Dylan to the Tonight Show, and we put him in a bit, and it was great. It was a parody of the show, John and Kate plus eight. It was called Norm plus one, and it was just Norm and Dylan watching TV and being like, don't you have to go to school today or something, and just, you know, yeah, I do.

And so it was kind of, you know, just that, but you could see how happy he was to be in a bit with his son and being around them. Yeah. You know, there was that side, you know? Yeah, I think that he will be, you know, I do think that, you know, the more I think about it,

the more I think he is going to be, I think, as important or more important in five years from now than even at this moment. Yeah. I just think he's got to have, because especially he's so different from anything else in the comedy world. And also he so was out of time and out of sync

with a lot of the cultural mores now and the way that, and it's almost like he showed up in a time machine or came through a portal and just arrived here and, you know, refused to play ball. And it was, it really is art. It really is fascinating to see someone pull that off. And I was just left with this feeling of, oh, Jesus, no more of that.

Yeah. No more norm, and it's a very selfish feeling. Like, no, I can't believe there's not going to be more. That's unbelievable to me. It's strange. Yeah. But he's a gift because you can go on YouTube and laugh for, there's so much out there

that is so entertaining. Yeah. And it's endless. Well, that's the, And it's all great. That is the gift now of this world we live in. People always talk about, well, all the problems with the internet and how much grief it's brought us.

And I think, yeah, it's equally good. It's equal parts good and bad, I'm sure. But man, to have, you know, this access to norm at all times, whenever you, and the fact that his work is just going to be bouncing around the internet forever. Yeah. And, you know, gives me a lot of joy, so. And you get to see all the different things.

You get to, because I, you know, I was thinking, when a lot of the, you know, a lot of the clips that went around on Wednesday and that we're going around yesterday are him on talk shows. And that was just such like one small part of what he did. And I think probably more people know him from talk show appearances than people that have, you know, watched his standup specials and things.

It's just, it's, you know, that's, it's more widespread in the popular culture, but now people are going to get to see those things. And hopefully, you know, they'll put some more of a, you know, some more of the weekend update stuff that he did out. Yeah. Well, that's all been destroyed.

It was a big fire. Mysterious fire. The clip wear. Yup. I'm really appreciate you guys coming in. I called both of you yesterday and said, I've got this weird idea, but, you know, it would just help me to sit and talk about Norm.

And this was helpful and I felt like a therapy session. So I think we'll be bringing him up again. That's for sure. And there'll be plenty of people parsing the Norm of it all in the coming weeks, months, years, but it was good to just sit here and talk him about it and talk about him a bit, you know? I'm just grateful I got to know him a little bit.

Yeah. And I don't know why this just occurred to me. I just suddenly had a flash memory. It's such a disorganized show, but this is just what's happening, but I keep having these moments at NBC and Norm was gonna do the show and I heard that he was in the makeup room,

that little makeup room. So I went in to say hi, and I thought he was getting his makeup on. No, he was sitting in a makeup chair, but he already had his makeup on and he was watching a college basketball game. And it was the very end of the college basketball game and the game ends and he was like,

damn it! And I was saying, Norm, what's wrong? And he's like, I just lost a lot of money. He's like, I just lost a shit ton of money on that game. And he was in such a bad mood. And I was like, are you gonna be okay for the show? He was like, eh, let's do it. Everything.

Well, what good is this? Yeah, yeah. But then of course, he was killed and he was hilarious, but you don't wanna see your comedian lose his house on a basketball game in the makeup room seconds before you do the show, but yeah, that was also Norm. Many sides, very complex,

and I'm gonna wrap this up, but Norm, we are thinking of you, and we will see you on the next Astral Plane where you will probably waste my time with a 45 minute pointless knock knock joke. And he'll be in trouble with the manager. And you'll be in trouble with God. God will be mad at you.

God's, God's, what's up? God's ass all of a sudden. What's with his kid? Get it, you're God. Oh, okay. What are you, God? Yeah, all right, you're God. I guess we'll play it that way then, huh?

Anyway, I didn't know they let hobos in heaven. All right, thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next Astral Plane.