Norm Macdonald was one of the funniest people I've ever met. He was a devout Christian, a devout man of faith, and a stand-up comic. And yet, he was also a man of many talents, and in this episode of Louder With Crowder, we pay our respects to one of our favorite comedians.
00:02:30.000As a matter of fact, we'll show some clips of how many times I've talked about what my top two guests that I ever wanted to get were Norm Macdonald and Alice Cooper.
00:02:53.000He won't because his publicist doesn't like me.
00:02:55.000And not only that, but I think a lot of people now jump on this bandwagon.
00:02:59.000Look, keep in mind that Norm Macdonald was reviled not very long ago by the Me Too people, by the, I don't even know what hashtag we're talking about, but people now act as though they appreciated the brilliance that was Norm.
00:03:14.000People don't realize also what a devout man of faith that he was.
00:03:18.000He tried to avoid politics, but it was pretty easy to pick up on where he lined up.
00:03:24.000So we're going to be talking about that today quite a bit, and I want to paint a more full picture of who the man was, and hopefully there's some people out there who maybe don't know about him too much, haven't appreciated him as much as you should, and really he should go along certainly with the greats.
00:03:38.000I would put him in funniest man that ever lived.
00:03:41.000I've said Norm Macdonald is the funniest man who's ever lived, and I've said that Nick DiPaolo is one of the funniest man's right now doing stand-up comedy, and I usually say it every time I bring on Nick DiPaolo, and he considers a comparison even in honor So I want to hear from you.
00:04:13.000But I want you to pause, leave a comment with your favorite Norm joke before you watch the rest of this show.
00:04:20.000But to lead this off, I just want to show you, this must be from somewhere in the 90s, Norm Macdonald and Dennis Miller.
00:04:28.000Keep in mind, this was before AM radio Dennis Miller, before Dennis Miller even knew that he was more right-leaning and Norm Macdonald had not been open about anything politically.
00:04:39.000But again, this is why comedy is so interesting.
00:04:42.000It's such a window into people sometimes.
00:04:45.000And it doesn't mean that all of it is real.
00:05:18.000Maybe at the time you thought it was a good play, but you look back on it and you think that was in bad taste.
00:05:22.000Well sometimes, like in stand-up, I'll do jokes that are, that I, like one time I was doing this thing in San Francisco and they were all gay people in the audience, they told me, so I figured I'll do it.
00:05:41.000And so I was talking about, because I went to this gay pride parade, and I saw in it there were these old men and old ladies, like, with these signs that said, we are proud of our gay son.
00:05:51.000You know, and so I was saying, that's an odd thing to be proud of, you know, because it's not an achievement, you know, it's not like something you work all your life to be gay or anything like that.
00:06:01.000And I just wondered, I just, I had a hard time believing that these 50, 60 year old men are actually bragging, you know, at work like they're, hey, Bill, you know, my kid, oh my God, we're proud of him, Johnny.
00:07:02.000I'm surprised you didn't throw in some more references.
00:07:05.000That's really nice to you coming into your own skin, almost like IMAX directors back when they were doing Hidden Earth Part 4, where they had to replace it with little Duodenum over there from Czechoslovakia.
00:08:44.000I don't know, but whoever died when I was in junior high, and I always think it's weird, but again, because Norm has been something that means so much, not only to me personally, but also to people out there.
00:08:52.000He was one of the last vanguards of comedy.
00:08:55.000And he was one of the last vanguards of comedy who had respect from his comedic peers.
00:10:43.000Which I'm pretty sure Nelly had the Band-Aid because he had a bad zit and needed to cover it up temporarily, but then was like, nah, it's my thing, I'm gonna wear a Band-Aid.
00:11:51.000Does he think that has anything to do with it?
00:11:53.000No idea, but I did hear on CNN this morning, they were talking about how your T cell count may be what confers some people natural immunity.
00:12:01.000And there is some concern with the vaccine and how it may interact with T cells.
00:13:14.000We're going to go back to Norm here in a little bit, but first we're going to talk about the Gavin Newsom thing really quickly, and the Millie Blankens situation.
00:13:23.000I have some strong thoughts on it, and then I want to get to honoring Norm as he deserved to be honored.
00:14:11.000Continual hit-and-run former male track athlete now menstruating female Caitlyn Jenner shocked voters by only receiving one I think she went right into menopause.
00:15:06.000And here's Gavin spinning, you know, everything that is ruining the United States.
00:15:10.000I should say, maybe not ruining everything in the United States of America, but certainly California, a once-wonderful state, as a victory.
00:15:16.000I want to focus on what we said yes to as a state.
00:15:58.000We said yes to the right to women to end the life of another human being with separate DNA, with separate heartbeat, with separate toes, fingers, sexual reproductive organs.
00:16:10.000And by the way, I'm pandering about all of it.
00:16:13.000We said yes to diversity, which means we said yes to record number of illegal immigrants crossing the border, committing crimes, not being part of the vaccine mandates, by the way.
00:16:22.000Though they are required to actually take doses of ivermectin to make sure they don't have parasitic worms.
00:16:27.000We said yes to driving down American wages.
00:16:30.000We said yes to effectively creating a new slave labor class here in California.
00:16:35.000And we said yes to sending business after business to Texas, including the one that innovated electric environmentally friendly cars and Tesla.
00:16:47.000We don't know how that one got away from us, but I won.
00:18:09.000So that tells you that he's done a bad job, that the policies aren't there.
00:18:13.000Then, when they're forced to decide between Gavin Newsom and Larry Elder, and the media attack machine can do their job of actually convincing Californians that Larry Elder is a white supremacist, He gets less of the votes.
00:18:54.000It's more proof of America being divided in half.
00:18:56.000I don't think it's more proof of America being... I think it's more proof that the left exclusively, exclusively... This is not a right-wing thing.
00:19:03.000Quotes for white guys pretending to be virtuous?
00:19:32.000Do we think that's a... In other words, even the sort of intangibles that he's going to unify the country, what could Biden campaign on?
00:19:38.000So I guarantee you what he will campaign on in 2024 Whoever it is, it doesn't matter.
00:19:42.000If it's Ted Cruz, if it's Ron DeSantis, if it's Donald Trump, we'll be racist, sexist, homophobic.
00:19:46.000For crying out loud, they tried to say that Larry Elder was worse than Gavin Newsom's wife when Rose McGowan, I was just listening to this somewhere in the media, Rose McGowan said, you know, Gavin Newsom's wife and their law firm tried to offer me hush money.
00:19:59.000And I don't know if it's true or not, but whatever happened to hashtag believeallwomen?
00:20:02.000The point is... They didn't even cover it.
00:20:08.000They didn't even cover it, but here's what's important about that.
00:20:11.000They tried to say, well, really, if you think that Gavin Newsom is better for women than compared to, and heard them on the radio play a clip of Larry Elder saying, well, you know, at least Donald Trump has done more for fat, overweight women getting them off the couch with these marches than any Michelle Obama fitness initiative.
00:20:27.000So you're comparing a joke about fat people to rape?
00:20:39.000They try and tell you, look, we're more popular on policy because most Americans consider themselves pro-choice, but then when you get down, hold on a second, heartbeat, oh yeah, that makes sense, hold on a second, where should abortion be allowed?
00:20:49.000It's nowhere near aligned with the DNC platform.
00:21:24.000I think the guy who's more racist is the person who, first off, accuses the black guy of being a white supremacist and accuses him of not being black enough and who has supporters who dress up as gorillas and egg the black candidate.
00:21:38.000I think at the very least you can make more of an argument that that's racist.
00:24:03.000But no one disagreed with the fact that it is absolutely insane, and like you were talking about, divisive, to label any Americans who say COVID is real, it's a real virus, and it affects certain people really negatively.
00:24:18.000For example, far more lethal for old people than the standard flu.
00:24:22.000We won't get into numbers with young people and infants, but it's a real virus, and it affects certain demographics very negatively, and that needs to be taken seriously.
00:24:29.000Precautions need to be taken to protect those people who are most at risk.
00:24:32.000Also, not a reason to shut down the economy, destroy it for generations to come, and certainly not a reason to effectively forcefully evaporate people's individual freedoms to take a vaccine or not.
00:24:46.000And anyone who says, hey, Vaccine probably safe, but we don't have any long-term studies, and if you say that you're lying because you couldn't possibly, doesn't make them an anti-vaxxer.
00:25:00.000It is divisive to consider someone who maintains all those points of view.
00:25:21.000Well, my wife went and got the monoclonal antibodies.
00:25:26.000It says on there, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, that the risks may outweigh the rewards, and so you probably should talk with your doctor, but in the absence of speaking with your doctor, not do it.
00:26:13.000Beyond any doubt whatsoever that this will not cause harm to a pregnant or breastfeeding woman, and they still apply that to monoclonal antibodies, which, by the way, if you go in and I highly recommend it, if you do test positive, has the shortest list of side effects I have ever seen from any medication in my life, and that includes my daily Zyrtec!
00:26:38.000No, that pisses me off, because my wife doesn't even get an exemption with work for being somebody who was breastfeeding at the time, and then we find out she's pregnant, and the work's like, hey, sorry.
00:26:58.000Well, they don't have the study, so how are you going to prove it?
00:27:01.000One of the nurses came up and said, oh, you're pregnant and you have COVID?
00:27:04.000You should get the vaccine right now, you know, it'll protect you.
00:27:07.000And then a doctor said, wait, wait, wait, that nurse said that the vaccine was treatment?
00:27:15.000So I have to worry about my wife being healthy because of a nurse with an opinion.
00:27:21.000Anyway, all right, so this is the thing Fauci now said that there may be vaccines for, so I use the term fascism.
00:27:27.000Actually, when you're talking about ultimately checkpoints for people in the United States, not even traveling internationally, on roads, mandates for interstate travel.
00:27:40.000This is very common practice now in Europe.
00:27:42.000I've just been traveling all over Europe.
00:27:43.000You can't get on a plane without having some kind of proof that you're negative.
00:27:47.000It seems to me crazy that a year and a half into this, you can still, I can still get on a plane to Boston or California and nobody's going to check me.
00:28:12.000In fact, if you look at the six-point program that the president came out with a couple of days What we were talking about with travel was doubling the
00:28:21.000fines of people who in fact are traveling and don't get tested.
00:28:27.000And I believe that the idea about requiring vaccination for travel is something that is
00:28:53.000So now he's saying we can answer this again.
00:28:55.000We'll begin to the Norm tribute, but it would be, oh, okay, so now, you know, Dr. Anthony Fauci there, you know, the only scientist left.
00:29:05.000You know, he says that, uh, we're gonna have interstate travel.
00:29:07.000And so the advice to people out there, uh, particularly to people advocating for these, uh, vaccines and mandates, uh, is, uh, what we need you to do is go south on the 405 and take an exit as you go east on the 101.
00:29:20.000And then you're going to take an exit at North Sepulveda Boulevard, pull up to the stop sign, roll it.
00:29:25.000Be sure to always roll the stop sign, right?
00:29:26.000Of course, you don't wanna, you wanna stop, you don't wanna, uh, go.
00:29:29.000Then, uh, continue down toward, uh, Manhattan Beach and go fuck yourself.
00:29:42.000That's unbelievable that we're taking advice from somebody who says, Europe has it right, by the way, and I can't just travel from place to place.
00:30:17.000LotOfCredit.com, link in the description.
00:30:19.000But let's include a link, too, for people who haven't seen our segment on Fauci and AIDS.
00:30:22.000This is where Oprah got that one in five heterosexual couples would get AIDS, and that it was airborne, that a kid could get AIDS in the household if the father had AIDS.
00:30:32.000This is Dr. Fauci, who hasn't seen a patient in half a millennium.
00:30:38.000Just to be clear, the science we don't know yet, but with AIDS, we don't have long-term studies, but the penis can act as an AIDS nebulizer.
00:30:50.000You can get it from gay sex, you can get it from sharing needles, you can get it from a child's cough.
00:30:56.000Yeah, you can get it from a child's puff.
00:30:57.000For example, if he reaches in the Cinnamon Toast Crunch with his hand, this is why you're poor.
00:31:07.000If he reaches in the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and then the mother reaches in the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, then, if she's pregnant, the boy will have flippers.
00:31:17.000And then the box of life is empty, just like their box of life.
00:32:05.000Last year, when I was living in New York, they would have soldiers standing outside waiting, and they couldn't have looked more bored and annoyed with it.
00:32:12.000But to make you fill out something that said you would wait two weeks, blah, blah, blah, that would always happen.
00:35:25.000But, he did grill Blinken with some questioning yesterday.
00:35:29.000And I think this is important because it'll bring us into the Millie situation.
00:35:32.000Let's roll that clip of Romney and Blinken.
00:35:35.000How many of them approximately, you said we don't know the exact number, but how many legal permanent residents are we convinced are still in Afghanistan?
00:35:43.000We don't have an exact number, but a round number?
00:36:56.000Thousands of Americans and thousands of people who helped us fight off the Taliban, not to mention how many dogs who did want to come home, who attempted to come home, for months, and were blocked at the airport, who are stranded in Afghanistan, and that should give you a pit in your stomach, and it should also scare you that me, this guy, called it exactly.
00:37:17.000I told you they were going to say any American who wants to come home.
00:37:21.000It's not true, and now they admitted it's not true.
00:39:05.000This is trending, and I want to show you a clip from CNN.
00:39:09.000I want to talk about what's going on with Millie, and then I'm going to present to you, and I want you to hold me to what I'm about to say today, just like I wanted you to hold me to the fact that Biden was saying any Americans who want to come home got home, and I said it was a lie.
00:39:22.000Look, come back, mock me if I'm wrong about this today, mercilessly.
00:39:47.000So, CNN reported on an upcoming book written by Washington Post reporter Robert Costa, and there was someone else who helped with it.
00:39:55.000The book alleges that General Milley instructed the military, I want to make sure I get this right, not to obey orders on military strikes without his approval following January 6th.
00:40:05.000The book also alleges that Milley actually called, spoke, With top representatives in China.
00:40:13.000I don't know if we know exactly, was it supposed to be the Chinese?
00:40:16.000I don't know exactly who it was, but it was higher-ups.
00:40:18.000Because that's been misreported a little bit.
00:40:20.000But certainly people in the highest levels of government, if not the top, saying, hey, we're friends.
00:40:26.000If Donald Trump is going rogue and is going to try and, you know, if he might try and attack you guys, I'm going to give you a heads up.
00:40:53.000If they seem to think they have access to some tapes, they have access to some evidence, but they know it's damning, so they don't want you to have it.
00:40:59.000And only if someone does their due diligence and investigates what's going on at CNN and these media companies will we ever know the truth.
00:41:08.000He believes Trump, to your point, is unstable, unpredictable, and Woodward and Costa write, Milley believes that Trump is in serious mental decline.
00:41:21.000He also has been talking back-channel to the Chinese.
00:41:24.000He is aware from intelligence that the Chinese are on edge because of January 6th.
00:42:26.000He's definitely got that white and black bag.
00:42:30.000Also, there's no picture of Nancy Pelosi where she doesn't just look like an old haggard dog.
00:42:35.000Yeah, well because they're trying to say that Pelosi was calling Trump crazy, and Pelosi will look crazy if you show any picture of Pelosi at all.
00:43:51.000Code 18, Section 2387, this is, it defined a member of the armed forces who, with intent to interfere with, impair, or influence the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the military or naval forces of the United States, or advises, counsels, urges, or in any manner causes or attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty by any member of the military or naval forces of the United States.
00:44:21.000So let me give you a few quick points here, okay?
00:44:24.000This is important and you guys can come in.
00:44:25.000Commander-in-Chief doesn't actually apply to all Americans.
00:44:28.000Commander-in-Chief applies to people who are serving the United States military because their boss is the President.
00:44:33.000Whether you like that or not, if he issues orders, you have to carry out orders.
00:44:39.000To usurp those orders is treasonous, and we're talking specifically about treason if you are an active member of the military.
00:44:46.000Let me also paint to you a picture sort of pragmatically.
00:44:49.000Let's say you're going to buy a used car, and the dealer wants $20,000 for the car.
00:45:46.000They're going to say, well, at this point, you know, General Milley is actually a hero because he was trying to, he was so concerned about crazy, crazy, crazy, nine times from Nancy Pelosi, he was so concerned about a crazy, unstable Trump that he was actually trying to protect your constitutional rights by going around him.
00:46:03.000He was torn between obeying a president with no disregard for the Constitution or your rights, who was willing to completely Completely bypass constitutional law.
00:46:15.000So he had to take action for the good of the American people.
00:46:32.000Now let me ask you, if this passes the sniff test, General Milley was trying to protect our constitutional rights from the tyrant that is Donald Trump by feeding information to China?
00:46:46.000A nation that affords no rights, let alone a constitution?
00:46:52.000You believe the hero of the Constitution to accept the premise that the media will be feeding you that General Milley acted on conscience against an anti-constitutional president?
00:47:04.000By going around the back of the president of the only country that has a constitution like we have, by the way, which includes freedom of speech and freedom to protect that freedom of speech, to inform the Communist Chinese Party!
00:47:25.000I was watching CNN this morning trying not to lose my mind because they're laying the groundwork for that and saying that this happens all the time.
00:47:32.000This happened in Iran, this happened in North Korea, and I'm like, do you understand what you just heard on that call?
00:47:37.000You heard the Speaker of the House Going and basically becoming the executive branch, saying, don't worry about what the president, he's crazy, you have to make sure that these weapons are secure.
00:47:50.000Nancy Pelosi has zero say in if we go to war.
00:47:53.000She has zero say if we launch nuclear weapons.
00:47:58.000If he does not follow an order from Donald Trump, by the way, the president who didn't attack anyone and start wars. The entire modern presidency, right? And so you're
00:49:37.000When you take that away, and literally in the book I think they were quoting it saying, they were like, hey, don't listen to the tweets, don't listen to the rhetoric, everything's fine.
00:51:16.000What I loved about him on Weekend Update is he said when he wrote it, and you know, like he wrote with a few other people that were great, was he just said, just go for the joke.
00:51:36.000I remember him having lunch years ago talking about our favorite Norm Bitson.
00:51:39.000Talk about his time on the view but speaking of his battle with with cancer It's sort of paints a new light or sheds I should say a new light on this joke that he told I believe it was in his very In his last special he had two specials in the last five years at Hitler's dog and me doing stand-up, right?
00:51:54.000Hitler's dog was I think more recent and yeah me doing and they were both fantastic.
00:51:59.000I believe this is Hitler's those two of the funniest specials ever Which is really hard to do when you've been doing stand-up for so long.
00:52:04.000I think it was Don Henley who said with music, you know, anyone can write their freshman album.
00:52:24.000Look, there are some that are better, there are some that are worse, but they are all fantastic.
00:52:28.000But this, I believe, I don't know the exact year, but certainly took place in the last nine years and shows you how indignant Norm was with the media and how he joked about the face of death that he was actively facing at the time he told it.
00:52:42.000The reason I don't like it is because in the old days they'd go, hey, that old man died now.
00:53:24.000I'm pretty sure, I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure if the cancer dies, I mean if you die, the cancer also dies at exactly the same time.
00:53:33.000So that to me is not a loss, that's a draw.
00:53:40.000What's so great about that bit is you know it offended people, and he had the card to go, well, I have cancer, but he never played it.
00:53:47.000Just because he believed you could make fun of anything.
00:53:51.000And I think that's what really bothers me right now about him dying is, you know, for example, when everyone used to show the Johnny Cash poster, right?
00:54:16.000In other words, Johnny Cash was rebelling against a culture, and sure, he rebelled against some things that maybe you agreed with when you look at things like Nixon and you understand some of his views on war, which are not, by the way, untenable as a Christian.
00:54:29.000But what would be untenable as a Christian is to say, well, you know what, there is no hell and it's all good.
00:54:41.000Norm Macdonald was unapologetically Pro-free speech, defended at every turn, and also he unapologetically attacked laziness in comedy, particularly had a sore spot when you do the research for the sort of edgy atheist wave of comedy.
00:54:58.000Yeah, he really did, which was, especially at that time, On NBC to take that sort of a stance, too, which I know we'll probably get into later with that clip.
00:55:06.000Yeah, we have that coming up right here.
00:55:08.000He really stood against it, which was not easy to do.
00:55:10.000And people began to, like you said, that people did begin to turn on him in the last few years.
00:55:15.000And that's what I just find to be disgraceful, because it was always about being funny.
00:55:21.000Yeah, it was always about being funny, and I want to hear your favorite Norm jokes and how much you really knew about Norm.
00:55:25.000And one of my favorite quotes is actually said about Ricky Gervais when he was being interviewed about his book.
00:55:30.000And he said, you know, the thing is, there are only really a few people who are, you know, like true stand-up comedians, you know, where they really identify with stand-up.
00:55:37.000You know, like people, you have people like Louis C.K.
00:55:41.000and people like George Wallace, you know, and I'm not nearly as highly regarded as those people.
00:55:46.000But he said, but you know, then you have people like Ricky Gervais where people say, he has these three specials, have you seen Ricky Gervais?
00:55:56.000And, oh, oh, we get, oh, okay, the atheist thing there, that's new.
00:56:04.000Then he said, but of course Ricky Gervais is very funny, The Office is an unbelievable piece of work, it's fantastic, but is that a stand-up?
00:56:11.000This was something he would take on all the time.
00:56:30.000But also, they were concerned about the fact that he was going after Michael Jackson so aggressively and OJ, and it being seen as potentially racist.
00:56:38.000So again, that's the context you need to understand back then.
00:56:41.000That a lot of people now don't remember.
00:56:45.000Because now you're looking at it going, well why would he get in trouble, OJ and Michael, like we all know.
00:57:09.000And it was right after Rodney King, and it was the Mark Furman-Edward thing where they were trying to turn this all into a racial issue, and NBC wanted to avoid it.
00:57:17.000And so, here, knowing that context, is a montage during this time of a racial powder keg.
00:57:27.000And the Pope came out with a book this week, which contains a series of essays examining faith and morality in today's secular world and the changing role of the Catholic Church as it approaches the 21st century.
00:57:38.000The book is entitled, God Himself Told Me That O.J.
00:57:45.000Simpson says that he would have taken a bullet or stood in front of a train for Nicole.
00:57:50.000Man, I'm going to tell you, that is some bad luck when the one guy who would have died for you kills you.
00:57:58.000Judge Ito was interviewed this week by a local TV station in Los Angeles.
00:58:03.000Asked by the interviewer if it was appropriate for a supposedly impartial judge to be on TV with his case still pending, Ito said, maybe not, but how appropriate is it to kill your ex-wife?
00:58:18.000He'd already been told, don't touch it.
00:58:24.000Simpson told police that Nicole Brown Simpson used to beat him up.
00:58:28.000He also claimed that she and Ron Goldman killed him.
00:58:31.000OJ Simpson's lawyers have decided to skip hearings on DNA evidence and go right to trial.
00:58:42.000Asked why they did this, the lawyers replied, we want to get OJ acquitted as speedily as possible so he can get back to doing what he does best, killing people.
00:58:53.000You know it's coming and it's still funny.
00:58:55.000Let's get to OJ. OJ Simpson's lawyers say they don't want the families of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman in the
00:59:46.000And he said, probably the most perfect joke, you know, is that I've been trying to search for my... and he really was serious, trying to search for the perfect joke his whole life.
00:59:53.000The closest I've come is where, you know, the punchline was the same as the setup, where I said, uh, uh, Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett have filed for divorce today, citing the reason that they realized she was Julia Roberts and he was Lyle Lovett.
01:00:10.000And what he said was probably the best joke he'd ever written.
01:02:54.000You know exactly the next 5-10 minutes of the movie, the scene is, Hello, real cops?
01:03:00.000And I love that he fed, however you want to call him, Chevy Chase, a lot of the lines that he actually felt like his gambling addiction went through him because he was the doctor that couldn't stop betting.
01:03:35.000Somebody put up a picture of him and Farley yesterday and I forgot like that's just such a great image of two people that are gone way too soon.
01:04:43.000I just, yeah, that movie is, it's just written for comedy.
01:04:47.000It's like a back-of-the-room funny, but also, yeah, it's arguably the funniest movie ever.
01:04:52.000Yeah, and it's like, there are cringe moments where you, because it tries so much, that not everything lands, but it's young Artie Lang and Norm Macdonald, Jack Warden, I forget the name, Shooter McGavin from Happy Gilmore, Chevy Chase, Well, Norm discovered Artie.
01:05:07.000He brought him on, I mean, I shouldn't say discovered, but got him to that next level.
01:05:12.000He was on Mad TV and then he brought him on Stern.
01:06:34.000Yeah, he's, you know, he's not a liar or a crook murderer or anything like that, so it'd be good to get the... See, I don't... I think we should get the homicide out of the White House.
01:06:46.000A fresh start, because we don't want any more murderers.
01:06:48.000I think we should just go on to the next question.
01:07:15.000I don't want to get into this, and I don't want to hear it, and this is not the place to make those accusations, and you're supposed to be funny!
01:08:03.000So in other words, when he says, all right, manslaughter, as though he's being conciliatory there, No, he's drawing attention to the fact that this obviously could only have been premeditated murder.
01:08:14.000And this is back, George W. Bush had just won.
01:08:18.000So this would have been, you know, 2000, maybe 2001.
01:08:27.000And I remember going, at this point there was no YouTube, and I'm like, oh my god.
01:08:31.000Where am I ever going to see this again?
01:08:32.000It's just so funny because they keep going like, he lets them get far enough down the road where they think they're safe and on to the next topic and then he's just like, I thought this was a matter of record.
01:08:44.000And you can tell, though, that they're frustrated with him, and he's never frustrated with them.
01:08:49.000He just knows that he... He doesn't dislike them.
01:08:51.000He's just trying to be funny and, you know, honest.
01:08:55.000Well, and to be fair, he's not always a bad... Like, there's also, when you're a guest, you'd want to be cordial, but they weren't mad that he was being a bad guest.
01:09:03.000They were mad that he was bringing up a topic that that was a source.
01:09:06.000Well, yeah, that he went right to it, and they had to take, you know, the other stand.
01:09:10.000They just had to say, don't talk about that.
01:09:11.000And think about, he had met the Clintons and the connection with SNL and NBC, SNL and the Clintons is huge.
01:09:20.000And we've done a whole segment on that.
01:09:21.000It's pretty much every network, every single major network in their heads.
01:09:25.000If you go to ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, you go from the CEO or network president, just down through vice presidents, you will find someone directly who worked in a Clinton campaign or Barack Obama, either a speechwriter, advisor, we've done a whole segment on it.
01:09:40.000Kate McKinnon playing the piano playing hallelujah as Hillary Clinton when she lost what I mean that's just showing your hand yeah I know that was really something she's brave though so uh this is something by the way just so I want you to know um You know, Norm Macdonald had a big impact on me.
01:10:00.000And then we'll get to, obviously, a big impact on Dave.
01:10:05.000So I was fortunate that my mother, who works for this company now, was an award-winning wardrobe stylist, costume designer.
01:10:15.000Uh, up in Montreal, for the Montreal Comedy Festival, just for laughs.
01:10:19.000And for people who don't know, that's... I don't know, now there are other ones, but certainly for a time, it was the biggest comedy event of the year.
01:10:52.000So it's changed, but back then you used to have to go through the Just for Laughs, and so my mom would do the wardrobe and costumes, and so one year she could be having, I've talked about this, could be Jerry Seinfeld, could be John John Candy, I remember they had a real panic because John Candy was doing a sketch where he sang the Barney song, and this was when Barney was pretty new, and they blew him up.
01:11:09.000But they got a letter from the Barney people at PBS, so they had to change it enough.
01:11:15.000So it wasn't like a purple Barney, it was more of a mauve And I remember my mom having to go out and basically refabric this Barney outfit.
01:11:25.000So I just remember all these things as a kid being backstage, and I was allowed to be either backstage or as a seat filler.
01:11:31.000And what happens is these executives will get really expensive seats, and they often don't show up.
01:11:34.000And so if the show starts and the seats are empty, this is televised in Canada, so they'll send in people to fill in two empty seats there, three empty seats there, and there are very few empty seats, but it's just you don't want any empty seats in those first few rows.
01:11:45.000So I got to watch the set that got Ray Romano his show, that got Kevin James his show.
01:11:49.000I remember seeing Jeff Dunham when no one knew who he was when I was a little kid.
01:11:52.000And this, I believe, happened, the claim is it was 1991 online, but I think he either retold it or they're wrong and it was 92 or 93 because I know I was there both of those years and watching from the crowd.
01:12:06.000And I remember hearing Norm Macdonald tell this joke, this is not political at all, but I remember as a kid, Having really only been allowed to listen to Bill Cosby and, like, Jerry Seinfeld, not that much at this point.
01:12:17.000My parents may not have been super familiar with Norm's stand-up, because back then they knew him as the Weekend Update guy, but maybe didn't know a whole bunch about his stand-up.
01:12:24.000So I watched his set live, and he had a joke about a man killing his family because the devil told him to.
01:12:29.000And it was the first joke that I had heard with the structure that was totally different, and immediately he became One of, if not my favorite, comedians.
01:12:39.000So, I was watching this live, little Steven Crowder, in 92 or 93.
01:12:45.000Norm Macdonald, tell this joke, clip K. Man, there's crazy guys everywhere.
01:12:49.000I was reading about this guy in the paper, get this folks, guy I was reading about, he killed his whole family because the devil told him to.
01:14:03.000Yeah, serial killers, where it's like, you spend all this time stalking somebody, plotting their murder, eventually finding them, killing them, cutting them up, then you get to the burial part and you're like, ah, just throw some twigs and leaves.
01:15:50.000I got a van full of cheese sandwiches.
01:15:52.000Abducting and killing. How he would do it.
01:15:58.000He also has a great bit about how shame, the shame of sex, where he's like, people put on leather and he's like, they want to make it more shameful than it already is.
01:16:06.000He's like, you're already closing the blinds.
01:16:08.000It's not because you're doing something good in there.
01:16:12.000He's like, and then you finish and you're like, I'm just going to take off these leather trousers.
01:16:18.000Something people don't know about you?
01:16:22.000He got to roll clip J where he confused Larry King.
01:16:25.000And it's not that hard to confuse Larry King, let's be honest.
01:19:33.000So, he was a very devout, conflicted Christian, and actually I'll talk about how, you'll see later, one of these guys who we criticized in the last Comic Standing, I had on the show.
01:19:44.000Seven or eight years ago, Harrison Greenbaum, a gay comedian who Norm didn't really like, unless comic standing, but here he is taking opportunities to express his faith, and it pissed a lot of people off, not to mention if you actually read his writings.
01:19:58.000You get a lot of attention on Twittersphere for being open about your religious views.
01:24:17.000I'm in recovery, and one of my favorite things that he ever said about gambling was, yeah it's a disease, but it's the only disease where you win money.
01:24:26.000By the way, have you watched Loudermilk on Amazon?
01:24:49.000It makes fun of Trump a couple times, but it also makes fun of the LGBTQ, AIP, gender pronouns, political correctness.
01:24:54.000It's one of those shows that is as balanced and an equal opportunity offender that I can possibly think of.
01:24:59.000And so it seems appropriate, while talking about Norm, to mention that show Louder Milk on Amazon, because hopefully it'll have a fourth season.
01:25:06.000I would say one of the best comedy that I can think of, of the last few years.
01:25:37.000And he came to me, you know, and he told me, and I like to look, I'm the kind of guy that likes to look at the bright side of things, you know.
01:25:43.000So I told him, I said, Richie, it's true that you have a disease and everything, but I think you got the best one.
01:25:51.000It's the only disease where you get to drink booze all the time.
01:26:00.000I haven't looked at every medical journal, but I believe It's the only disease where you can constantly drink booze.
01:26:09.000As a matter of fact, that is the disease.
01:26:18.000You know, and I don't think Richie would think he had a disease.
01:26:21.000Like, I don't think Richie would go to my Uncle Bert and go, hey, I understand you got bowel cancer.
01:27:26.000And I love when he talks about going to AA where he's like, so you, uh, Because you go into a church basement and you give everybody your name, which doesn't sound that anonymous.
01:27:37.000And you only give them the last letter because you don't want them to know who they are.
01:27:41.000You know, and then he just, it's just brilliant.
01:27:42.000I don't want to butcher it, but he's like, then you tell everybody, yeah, you blew a dog for a pint of gin.
01:27:48.000He just goes, and who better to trust than a room full of drunks?
01:28:24.000They just happened to be jokes that pushed your buttons, sort of like an Alice Cooper, and that's why I think they're very similar.
01:28:29.000Alice Cooper learned how to push your buttons, and so did Dio.
01:28:33.000You know, Dio back then talked about imagery.
01:28:34.000He was like, well, how do you think that's satanic?
01:28:36.000How do you know what Satan looks like with that image, and how do you know that that priest is the good guy?
01:28:40.000You're the one who's conferred this meaning to this imagery.
01:28:44.000And Norm Macdonald allowed people to copy-paste what they thought onto him, and so people would be offended or be brought tremendous joy by the exact same bit.
01:28:54.000Something I took from that, too, it was almost like cautionary.
01:28:57.000I was like, oh, well, yeah, I guess at the beginning of the day, if I choose to start drinking, I know you can have a proclivity for it or a tendency to get addicted to things, I get that, but it's like, huh, that guy didn't choose to get cancer.
01:29:08.000There's a slight difference there, right?
01:29:10.000Yeah, and even if we played it for another second, I forgot about the line where he just goes, and I find it easier to talk to people.
01:29:21.000And it's funny, you know, Dennis Miller, Adam Sandler, Norm, Spade, all friends, and none of them were conservatives when they were younger.
01:29:30.000They all became conservative as they got older.
01:30:56.000No, we could, look, hey guys, comment, we could do it, we could, I don't know how we would do it, we could release it on MugClip.
01:31:02.000Look, when we show up at SMU McFarland Auditorium, it's what, 2,400 people, people have been turned away, I guarantee you we can tape a special and find a way to distribute it.
01:31:10.000There's no reason to wait for anyone else to do it.
01:31:12.000I'll be in Dallas at the Majestic in February.
01:31:17.000The point is, I'm not giving them commission fees to the Majestic.
01:31:20.000You guys should rent out your own theater and do it.
01:31:22.000Yeah, no, maybe it could be at the Majestic, but yeah, but I just want to figure out what's best for you, what you would be happy with, and how we can distribute it.
01:31:29.000Would you guys love to see Dave's special out there?
01:32:01.000Dave's shows are all a little different because Dave is great stand-up, but he is the best person thinking on his feet, as you can see in this show, of anyone I've ever seen.
01:33:30.000The reason that hashtag I'm with Norm, which is what I'm calling, is so important, he's not just a comedian, he's a veritable authoritarianism weatherstick.
01:33:37.000He's a comedian with the single most stellar track record for using comedy to shine a light on the real taboos of our time.
01:33:47.000To simplify, if Norm Macdonald is pushing back against something, that tells you that it's wrong, whatever it may be.
01:33:54.000This is, for me, the lion in the sand, because this is somebody who has consistently risked it all, he has consistently been right, he was consistently praised for it, until all of a sudden, he's done it with the wrong people.
01:35:08.000Next one, we were writing this bit, we couldn't get away from it sounding like Norm Macdonald in our head, so we're going to do this as a Norm Macdonald joke.
01:35:17.000All right, so today is the birthday of, you know, both Michael Jackson and Ingrid Bergman.
01:35:23.000One captured the hearts of millions in her portrayal of Isolunde in the classic film Casablanca, a film some have called the apex of cinema.
01:36:07.000Yeah, Colin kept interrupting him, and I'm sitting home going, will you let him?
01:36:10.000It's obviously a bitch, you know what I mean?
01:36:12.000It was the same episode, you know, it got cancelled back then, and I mean actually they banned him from The View because he said George Bush had just become president, and he said, yeah, you know, it's good to get a good guy in the White House, you know, getting murderers out of the White House, you know?
01:36:30.000But in that same show, he talked about going to the Friars Club.
01:36:34.000He talked about going to the Friars Club.
01:36:36.000And this was on, I remember watching with my dad.
01:36:38.000I just, I love Norman McDonald as a kid.
01:36:40.000And I'm watching with my dad, and I remember sitting there crying.
01:36:43.000He says, you know, I go to the, I don't know if it was a Friars Club, but it was something like that, where I get invited to this, you know, club, you know, and, uh, they, uh, they tell me, you know, you're going to go there and hang out.
01:36:51.000It's kind of, you know, you know, Barbara, it's a roast.
01:36:55.000And, uh, but then I realized, you know, when I get there, there's all these old comedians, but not like good comedians, not like Bob Hope or Milton Berle, you know, like, uh, like, uh, Frank Travolina, you know?
01:37:03.000And then I realized, I said, like, hey, this guy over here, uh, you know, someone asked me if I wanted whiskey or something, and he goes, he can't have any.
01:37:09.000You know, and I realized that every joke is, uh, about me being a homosexual man.
01:37:13.000You know, and I'm not a homosexual man, as you well know.
01:37:18.000And he goes, but I realized that's how they, you know, these old-timers decided to do it, so I, uh, I turned over to, uh, uh, Frank, I think, I think it was Frank Trevelina who goes, I turned over to Frank, and I said, uh, you know, uh, he likes, uh, having sex with guys, you know?
01:37:31.000And all he did was, he, uh, he looked at me like this.
01:41:41.000It's all these open-mikers who go after them, who just want to sort of... And this is also what you're seeing right now with Norman.
01:41:46.000I think everyone should obviously honor Norman, him passing.
01:41:49.000But now you have people who were on the other side of these issues.
01:41:53.000In opposition to Norm, now I've been like, oh yeah, I thought he was great!
01:41:57.000And he has been one of the biggest influences on this show, period.
01:42:01.000I used to tell people, when people used to say, and if you look at some of the jokes that we've written or that we've told on the show, you can clearly see the influence.
01:42:10.000David Letterman and John Stossel. That's how I used to describe it to people.
01:42:14.000I would say David Letterman meets kind of John Stossel.
01:42:17.000And then there's a little bit of early Howard Stern and the, you know, sense of humor.
01:42:21.000Norm Macdonald is always, you know, you think he's the funniest person ever.
01:43:07.000What one thing have all of them, early Letterman, the common thread that they all, is they all poked their finger in the chest of authority.
01:43:18.000From David Letterman, daring NBC to fire him, or sorry, CBS to fire him, right?
01:43:23.000Showing up at the GE studios there with fruit baskets and then kicking him out of his own office.
01:43:29.000Norm Macdonald poking his finger in the chest of NBC.
01:44:01.000You think that the media is fans of us?
01:44:04.000So there's always been an influence for me.
01:44:06.000I've just always found it funny when someone, the jester, pokes fun at the king.
01:44:11.000And that, whether I realize it or not in the formative years, is also what turned me into a problem child.
01:44:17.000But not in the sense of, you know, I wasn't doing drugs and stuff like that, and I wasn't, like, harming people, but I had a strong sense of justice, but I had no respect for authority if I thought it was ill-gotten.
01:44:43.000She says she's a communist and it works beautiful in theory.
01:44:45.000And so every time I go into drama class, I take a big gold Steven shit on her.
01:44:50.000My dad was like, you shouldn't do that, but it's drama class, it's your views, I mean, come on!
01:44:57.000Here's some quotes though, too, from Norm, defending free speech and criticizing sort of the modern, like you're talking about modern comedians, he says, if you can tell me one funny socially relevant joke, I'd give you a million dollars.
01:45:11.000Comedians, when they get really good, and nowadays they don't even have to get good, reach a point where they feel they should be philosophers.
01:45:17.000I've heard it said even that the modern day philosophers are comedians.
01:46:26.000You have the point of view of someone who obviously thinks that comedy should be funny, and he thinks that, or at least he used it to poke fun at authority, and he thinks that, he doesn't use the term cancel culture, he's more articulate in this thing, cancel culture!
01:46:40.000He's saying it's wrong to treat people this way, and the reason it's wrong is because We have a society where we're looking for scalps.
01:46:53.000That stems from a worldview of Norm MacDonald that he has a job to do, and his job is not to go out and have a pity party over his cancer, which I think a lot of us would have liked to know how much time we had left with him.
01:47:06.000Whether you liked it or not, his job was to be a comedian.
01:47:09.000You only got to know what he wanted you to know about him.
01:47:13.000And he wanted you to know that he thought we were heading down the wrong path.
01:47:16.000In the entertainment industry, in comedy, and a big reason because of that is because we've lost the forgiveness of someone, who someone and an influence was very important in his life, of God.
01:47:28.000That's where that worldview comes from.
01:47:31.000Without God, the Lord shaped hole in your heart, Larry King, there can be no forgiveness.
01:47:38.000And I just think that Norm Macdonald, when people come out and just show one or two jokes, really miss and under-appreciate who he was, what he did, and the mark that he left, not only on this show, not only on this little world, but the world as you know it, in a bigger way than maybe you realize.
01:47:54.000So, let's leave and then go to YouTube.