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Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Flashback: Norm Macdonald

Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Josh Szeps

Society & Culture, Education, Comedy Interviews, Comedy, Self-improvement

4.5905 Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Comedy legend Norm Macdonald died today. Revisit his deranged 2015 interview with Josh on HuffPost Live.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Oh, Norm MacDonald.

0:06.7

This is a bit heartbreaking for me.

0:09.5

I just wanted to bring you this as a way of eulogizing one of the most influential comedic voices in my youth.

0:16.9

I remember when I was a kid, I would stay up late and watch Dave Letterman when

0:21.9

Letterman had just moved to CBS.

0:25.1

I would sometimes even set my VHS tape recorder to record him in the wee hours of the

0:31.7

morning and then watch it in the morning before going to school.

0:34.8

And I saw Norm MacDonald do a bit on Letterman. And I still remember

0:39.7

just thinking, who is this weird guy with this deadpan delivery? If you're not very familiar

0:46.0

with Norm, he's really a comics comic. I mean, he is quite absurdist, I say is, was quite

0:53.2

absurdist, quite almost vaudevillian, and was an

0:57.6

inspiration to the likes of Letterman and Conan O'Brien and Jim Carrey. He's Canadian originally,

1:05.2

and he started out professionally writing on Roseanne in the early 90s when that sitcom was huge.

1:13.7

And he got picked up by Saturday Night Live in the mid-90s.

1:16.9

And he did lots and lots and lots of jokes about O.J. Simpson during the O.J. Simpson trial,

1:22.4

which pissed off the head of NBC.

1:25.6

I can't remember exactly what position that guy had, but he was a friend of OJs.

1:30.2

And Norm got fired unceremoniously after just three years of being one of the best weekend

1:37.1

update anchors at the Saturday Night Live news desk ever.

1:42.9

And he was beloved. He went off and did his own show, never really reached

1:47.7

the same peaks in the past 10 or 20 years as he had in the 1990s. And one of the highlights of my

1:55.7

hosting, television hosting, presenting experience in New York City was having him on Huff Coast Live, which

...

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