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The GENRE
ONLINE.NET Interview – Comedian & SNL Alumni Norm Macdonald
By Mark A. Rivera
Norm Macdonald was one of the best
Anchors for Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update in the mid 1990s. Comedian
and SNL alumni Chevy Chase has stated that Macdonald was the first person to get
it “right” since he left the series in the 1970s. I remember seeing standup
clips of Norm Macdonald on MTV’s Half Hour Comedy Hour along with other
comedians that have since gone on to become household names like Chris Rock.
Though not critically embraced when it was first released, Norm Macdonald and
his costar Comedian and MAD TV alumni Artie Lange appeared in Dirty Work,
which has developed a cult following after audio clips of a scene with Macdonald
and Lange being verbally abused hilariously by Don Rickles began to air on The
Howard Stern Show. Macdonald and Lange have also worked together on the
sitcom Norm. Macdonald was also a writer for Roseanne. Recently
Norm Macdonald released his long awaited comedy CD RIDICULOUS and was
gracious enough to sit down and talk about the album and more.
You never know how a celebrity’s
personality will come across when you actually talk with them directly. I’ve
interviewed a lot of people for GENRE ONLINE.NET over the years and have found
it surprising how one person’s image as a filmmaker or actor for example will
contrast with how they communicate when they are relaxed and being themselves.
Sometimes they can be distant or very appreciative while others may not seem all
that different from their public persona. Norm Macdonald seemed very down to
earth when I spoke to him and perhaps a little tired since I was not the first
press person he had spoken to that day. However what stuck out in my mind was
Mr. Macdonald’s openness. We seemed to get along so well during our interview
that what was originally to be a ten minute interview turned into a longer
conversation about many things both RIDICULOUS and not.
Mark A. Rivera) Why did it take 9
years to produce your new comedy CD RIDICULOUS?
Norm Macdonald) I had no time limit.
So without a time limit, I wanted to change things all the time and then I kept
getting more and more ideas. I actually didn’t know that after a certain point
the CD begins to degenerate and so it can only hold so much time on it. I had
like three or four hours of stuff and then I had to choose stuff, which is
really difficult to do and while there was some stuff that was easy to throw
away, some was very hard to let go. Mostly I was tinkering and tinkering and it
wasn’t like I wanted it to take that long, but with no hurry… I wanted to
make it as funny as I could.
Mark) Actually you answered one of
my questions that I wanted to ask regarding whether or not you had to cut
anything from the album and obviously there was a lot of material that you left
out. Think any of the material not used on the CD will show up on a future CD,
movie, TV program, or something?
Norm) Yeah, it will end up somewhere
probably. Sometimes though these things never end up anywhere. I had things
written up for Saturday Night Live that were good, but never ended up
anywhere. It’s kind of useless if it’s not published.
Mark) You could always put it in a
book like Steve Martin.
Norm) Yeah, a book may be the
easiest way, but I don’t know… I have lots of ideas.
Mark) Well that’s a blessing.
Better to have too many ideas than not enough especially in your field. So I
take it then that some of the segments on the album were recorded years ago and
then mixed together on the album?
Norm) I think the oldest might be
from five years ago. Actually you can tell because in the Sportscaster sketch
the teams are wrong.
Mark) I don’t really follow sports
so I didn’t notice anything, but I found it funny. I mean you have a gift for
lack of a better expression of a “deadpan” style. I mean you were the best
in the mid 90s on Weekend Update. I mean every time you joked about Marion
Barry, O.J. Simpson, or David Hasselhoff, it was just so funny. I also remember
you from when you were on MTV’s Half Hour Comedy Hour back in the late
1980s.
Norm) Oh my God, you remember that?
Mark) Yeah.
Norm) I think that was one of the
first things I ever did.
Mark) Do you think that the sketches
you write regardless of whether it is the gambling sketch or “The World’s
First Two Gay Guys” or “Girls, Girls, Girls” and whatnot reveal anything
about your personal life or feelings?
Norm) They all come from parts of my
life. I used to be a compulsive gambler and I was talking to this guy and I
can’t tell who it is, but there was this terrific guy that was always betting
money on the games and it made me laugh so much about how tortured he must have
been to watch the game and losing all this money. And the world’s first two
gay guys was from when I was a kid I asked my father a question about gay guys
and my father said, “There were no gay guys when I was a kid. They didn’t
come out till around the 50s.”
Mark) (Laughing) That’s a cute
one.
Norm) It made me laugh and I’d
tell people in school because I didn’t know any better, “No they started
around the 50s.” Sometimes I think my Dad actually believed it too.
Mark) That’s a good line for a
movie.
Norm) And my favorite bit though
probably not the funniest was “The Fantastic Four”
because when I was a
little boy, me and my two brothers would do that sketch verbatim for hours and
hours.
Mark) With regard to “Girls,
Girls, Girls” when you approached someone who is a colleague and I guess a
friend as well like Molly Shannon with the script, was it kind of embarrassing?
Norm) My God I was so embarrassed
that I did not want to do it because I could never ask a woman to do these
things. I said to Molly, listen I don’t know what to say… See I had been
reading a lot about multiple personality disorders and I don’t think it will
offend anybody because from what I read there’s no such thing, but if there
were a person to have multiple personality disorder and I started thinking one
girl would be a whore and say…
Mark) Filthy things.
Norm) (Snickering slightly) Filthy
things… And how would the psychiatrist react and Molly was so cool.
Mark) She actually sounds very sexy
in that sketch.
Norm) One of the studio guys kept
playing it all the time and finally I felt enough, it’s supposed to be comedy
bit.
Mark) I can picture the sound byte
being used on The Howard Stern Show. I mean I don’t know if they
do or would, I just can imagine it you know… What’s tougher for you? Writing
an album of sketches, writing a standup comedy act to perform, or working as a
writer on a network show like Roseanne or Saturday Night Live?
Norm) Well sitcoms are the easiest
thing in the world because the bar is so low. I did standup and when Roseanne
saw me perform and asked if I want to write for her show? I said, “I don’t
know if I can,” but then after I got there, compared to standup it was simple.
I mean in standup if a joke doesn’t work, the audience hates your guts so you
have to either be able to dance around it, which I’m not really able to do or
you got to be a lot funnier than on a sitcom. Great question… Like which is
the hardest?
Mark) Yeah, I mean in a way you kind
have answered it. Standup is the hardest I guess from what your saying. I was
just curious because it’s sort of like when you do a series of sketches, the
impression I get is not that you are a perfectionist, but you want to put out
the best possible product, which is understandable. I know if you’re working
on SNL, you’re on your feet constantly coming up with something new every week
because of the nature of that kind of show. I was an intern on The Cosby Show…
Norm) Were you?
Mark) Yeah…
Norm) Cool.
Mark) I saw what the writers did and
they may collaborate on stuff, but in the end maybe two or three writers will
get credit or something like that, I mean I wasn’t an intern on SNL, but you
know I have some understanding of it and if it’s correct for me to say without
putting words in your mouth, standup is probably the hardest thing to do in
terms of writing material…
Norm) Saturday Night Live is
about as close as you can get because Lorne let me write everything I did. I
don’t find collaboration such a strong idea. Maybe like two people, but if you
get eight or nine people working on one page of a script. I mean Rembrandt
didn’t have eight or nine people working on his art.
Mark) Writing by committee.
Norm) Da Vinci and whatever the fuck
else. (Laughter) I mean I think it would be a mess because you’d never have a
singular vision.
Mark) Sure.
Norm) Standup is the hardest, but at
the same time like it’s the best when it’s just a single person.
Mark) Sure. I think I get the
impression that when it works you know it’s like a high of happiness or feel
good feeling like “Wow I killed tonight!” You know what I mean?
Norm) Yeah, yeah, yeah… I never
aimed stuff for an audience. That’s why I bombed for so long because guys
would give advice on how to make the audiences laugh and they were right, but I
could never really do that. I could never like figure out what the audience
wanted and then tailor it that way. I’m not good at that. I remember on Saturday
Night Live I was never able to do that, but I would always think of funny
stuff that made me laugh. I was always kind of directing my comedy to just
entertain myself.
Mark) It works I mean in being
yourself and doing it your way, well you wouldn’t be where you are today if it
didn’t.
Norm) All through my life sometimes,
it doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes people get offended and I really
do get sad because the last thing I want to do is offend anyone and sometimes
I’m talking about stuff like my father or something else… And I swear to God
I never wanted to offend anyone.
Mark) Do you think in the near
future you’ll make any appearances like do a standup special or appear on SNL
this season or anything like that?
Norm) I’d love to do SNL. That
would be fun, but I don’t know about a standup special. I’ve been approached
to do them and stuff. The same with the album I could have just made it a
standup record, but I kind of like the traditional nightclub. I don’t even
really like theaters.
Mark) You like a more intimate
setting.
Norm) I like a small nightclub and I
don’t know why it’s just some weird thing where I don’t want to put it on
videotape or stuff. I don’t mind doing five minutes on Leno or Letterman or
something, but I don’t know why it is I like the separate worlds. Three
hundred people are my perfect audience although more people show up, but
that’s about my perfect audience size. It’s just about two or three hundred
people.
Mark) Related to the standup thing,
on the album there is the bonus track and I don’t want to give away what the
bonus track is about, but we know it’s related to a reality TV show that was
oft it’s time equivalent to something else that’s on a major network that
people watch today, although I don’t, but people watch these things. I wanted
to ask you because your views were dead on and funny, I was wondering do you
have any views on the direction of television today?
Norm) I hate reality shows.
Mark) Me too.
Norm) I despise them, but in a way I
understand them because I know these guys that do reality TV because the sitcoms
are all so fucking bad that these reality shows are more entertaining than
what’s on opposite them so it’s not their fault. The network is going to put
out what people want to see. The real problem I have is when celebrities do
them. I go, “What’s wrong?’ I know some of the guys that do Last Comic
Standing and I tell them don’t do that fucking show because I love standup
so much that I hate the whole idea of a show with competing standup comedians
and the worst part of it is they give you immunity so you don’t have to do
standup like that’s some fucking reward. You don’t have to do standup? You
should want to do standup. Your goal should be to do standup.
Mark) That’s a good observation.
You know in the eighties there were these two film documentaries called The
Fall Of Western Society. One focused on punk rock and the other focused on
heavy metal and I always feel that if they ever did another one, they should
make it about reality television. Sometimes I want to suspend my disbelief
because reality is too much.
Norm) I like fantastic things. Maybe
it’s because society has insulated everybody so much through TV that people
have no relationships and so the programmers go, well fuck it we’ll give you
some friends. We’ll give you reality.
Mark) But ultimately even that’s
not real. It’s like the term politically correct; it’s almost an oxymoron
because how can you truly be politically correct? It’s relative and cannot be
determined across the board. It’s only as correct as where you are and who you
are with.
Norm) Exactly.
Mark) There is no such thing.
Norm) It’s so unreal, those
reality shows. Obviously a great movie or a great TV show is going to be more
real than a reality show.
Mark) Good Night, And Good Luck
was a good movie.
Norm) Yeah that was great.
Mark) I don’t like tuning into the
SCI FI Channel and instead of seeing something fantastic, I see a reality show
about people trying to be fantastic.
Norm) What show are you talking
about?
Mark) They have silly shows now like
Who Wants To Be A Superhero?
Norm) I used to watch the SCI FI
Channel. Is this a new show?
Mark) They have been doing more
reality TV lately.
Norm) Oh its reality.
Mark) That’s what I mean. When I
tuned into SCI FI and I also review a lot of their programs and they have Who
Wants To Be A Superhero? with Stan Lee. Stan Lee is a lovable guy.
Norm) Stan Lee goes along with that?
Mark) Yeah. I think Stan Lee will go
along with anything. He’s got that kind of easygoing personality and he has
for lack of a better word, so much gumption about him I think he can do anything
and you just got to love him because he’s Stan Lee. You know what I mean?
Norm) That’s true.
Mark) I was curious about the
significance of The Bensonhurst Marching Band Theme was because I grew up and
live in Brooklyn. I don’t live far from Bensonhurst so I was wondering if that
was a creative choice to have one of the running themes on the album be The
Bensonhurst Marching Band Theme?
Norm) Yeah my buddy is from
Brooklyn. He’s an older guy and I needed some underlying music for the subtext
and he told me about it and I thought it was definitely an evocative melody of
New York and of course evocative of Brooklyn. That’s interesting that you
recognize it.
Mark) Oh well I live in the
neighborhood next door called Bay Ridge.
Norm) I know Bay Ridge.
Mark) So I live in Bay Ridge and
most of my friends in high school either lived in Bay Ridge or Bensonhurst so
you I’m familiar with the neighborhood. I mean there are parts in Saturday
Night Fever that while the stores don’t exist anymore, I can recognize the
streets. I can even tell when they have Travolta walking in one place in
Bensonhurst and turn the corner and suddenly he’s in Bay Ridge. I’m sure the
same thing happens with all the movies in Los Angeles that they make and people
recognize the street and then suddenly the character turns the corner and he’s
in a location that’s actually three miles away, you know what I mean? You’ve
been a professional comedian now at least twenty years or close to it?
Norm) A little less, but close.
Mark) Is there any young and up and
coming comedians out there that you like?
Norm) There’s a guy named Brian
Regan, who I hope will really take off.
Now I come to an embarrassing point
in this interview. It actually went on for additional thirty minutes, but the
audiocassette I recorded our conversation on was partially devoured by my little
Sony cassette-corder. So in actuality this is just half the interview, but I
hope it gives you all some sense of what the new album RIDICULOUS is
about and some background about Mr. Macdonald. If I can splice the tape back so
that the rest of the interview can be transcribed here, I will do it. However
rather than try and make a fake summary for something I feel clearly gets cut
off, I’d rather just be honest about what has happened and hope you all will
understand. Norm Macdonald’s audio CD RIDICULOUS is available now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Comedy
Central Records and Broadway Video.
One thing is for certain, I’m
upgrading to pure digital audio recording for interviews from now on. I guess it
is about time given the nature of what I cover here at GENRE ONLINE.NET. Anyway,
my apologies and my special thanks to Norm Macdonald, his publicist, the folks
at Electric Artists and Comedy Central Records for making this possible.
© Copyright 2006 By Mark A. Rivera
Exclusively For GENRE ONLINE.NET.
All Rights Reserved.
All Rights Reserved.
