Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

2021 - IN MEMORIAM - MOVIES & TV


odessasteps

Recommended Posts

Bob Dole is our Prince Philip.*

 

Out of all the comedians I love, Norm is the one that remained the biggest mystery to me in this sense: Any of the other ones I feel like after seeing enough of their work, listening to interviews, podcasts, etc., you have some idea what they are like in real life, what their inner emotional life was like, even what it might be like to hang out with them.  Norm was just inscrutable that way, though. He never let the performance face down.

Like, I feel like I can imagine Patton Oswalt or Bob Odenkirk on vacation, struggling with a bunch of luggage and kids getting into a cab and grumbling like a normal person. But I can't imagine Norm ever having any look on his face other than a distant bemused smirk. I can imagine Seinfeld in an argument with someone or Bill Burr sending his food back and looking embarrassed about it. But I can't imagine Norm in those situations without the other person having to stop and say "Wait, do you really want to send these back or are you joking" and him being like "yeah, yeah, I'm sending these back to the chef to cook them better so I can eat them and not die." and the waiter studying his face and being like "So this is a bit..."

It's like he was a machine just built by aliens to produce irony and that was all he was programmed for. There was something comforting about the solidity of that. Almost like nothing in the world could be so bad that Norm McDonald couldn't make a joke about it. Even his own most humiliating experiences. Nothing could shake him loose of that, at least nothing that's happened so far. It's like optimistic Nihilism or something.

 

* I feel like Norm would approve of this comparison

 

 

 

Edited by piranesi
  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...