Is Norm Macdonald the last living Borscht Belt performer?
Man, is this joke old. I'm surprised Conan didn't just provide the punchline after Norm sat down.
Norm Macdonald is either one of the funniest people alive, or caught a break early and rode the inertial indifference wave, or is among the 0.001% of the population so bizarre and so unaware, his behavior is laughable because he's successfully walking the knife edge between insanity on one side and 650-pound man whose family has to feed him in bed on the other.
Norm is a bit like Will Ferrell, in that he doesn't really care about audience response, especially if something is bombing. I think he enjoys the squirm. His patience to draw out a set-up far beyond necessary verges on drug-induced perseveration.
There is a better example of Norm telling a joke (or something, badly), but it is not safe for children (although the framing of the story is ostensibly about children in school - search "funniest joke ever" on YouTube), and although the joke really ends underwhelmingly, Norm's delivery, and his complete ignorance and flouting of the rules of how a polished (not Polish) entertainer should tell a story, just the nervous tension he creates by inducing fear of him not really knowing how his own joke ends, had me laughing out loud twice. So with Norm, it's not so much the destination or even the arrival at the destination, it's the wonderment of "does he even realize we are in the car together"?
Norm Macdonald is either one of the funniest people alive, or caught a break early and rode the inertial indifference wave, or is among the 0.001% of the population so bizarre and so unaware, his behavior is laughable because he's successfully walking the knife edge between insanity on one side and 650-pound man whose family has to feed him in bed on the other.
Norm is a bit like Will Ferrell, in that he doesn't really care about audience response, especially if something is bombing. I think he enjoys the squirm. His patience to draw out a set-up far beyond necessary verges on drug-induced perseveration.
There is a better example of Norm telling a joke (or something, badly), but it is not safe for children (although the framing of the story is ostensibly about children in school - search "funniest joke ever" on YouTube), and although the joke really ends underwhelmingly, Norm's delivery, and his complete ignorance and flouting of the rules of how a polished (not Polish) entertainer should tell a story, just the nervous tension he creates by inducing fear of him not really knowing how his own joke ends, had me laughing out loud twice. So with Norm, it's not so much the destination or even the arrival at the destination, it's the wonderment of "does he even realize we are in the car together"?
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