The first time I encountered Norm was when he did stand up
on our Late Night show really early on.
Do you remember how that happened?
Yes, I do.
It was a month after we started,
it was October of '93-
Mm hmm. and a guest dropped out,
as it would happen back then.
Oh yeah, people were, people were...
Back in October of '93, we had been on the air a month.
Believe it or not, it wasn't going well,
ladies and gentlemen, no one, (all laughing)
no one thought we would last 28 minutes
let alone in 28 years, but-
They were dropping like flies.
Oh, but guests were dropping out
at the last second constantly- Yeah.
and so someone dropped out and what'd you do?
So I had worked with Norm a year earlier
on the Dennis Miller Show, which didn't last very long,
but he, you know, was the funny...
anybody who had met him, even for a minute,
knew he's the funniest guy in the world.
Sorry, Conan,
but he is just a force.
Dennis Miller, you're talking about now.
(Frank laughing) You're not making it clear.
(Andy and Frank laughing)
You said he was, he worked on "The Dennis Miller Show,"
who we all know- I thought it was understood,
I thought it was understood. Yeah, I thought so too.
He was talking about Dennis Miller, yeah, yeah.
I like Dennis, but come on.
Dennis is funny too,
but Norm is unbelievable. "Hey, cha-cha."
So you knew him as a writer. So I knew him
and I knew he had just worked...
He got a job as a writer on Saturday Night Live-
Mm hmm. so in a pinch,
I went up there,
I thought he would do it and I knew...
Usually you work with a standup to hone a set,
but with Norm, I didn't need to... I wasn't worried at all.
I knew, that afternoon, he would come on the air
and kill and he did.
He annihilated and he did a bit about buying a dog-
Mm hmm.
which was so funny.
And that was the first time he did our show
and that was 28 years ago.
Right,
and then he came on many times after that,
and I'd been thinking about, what is it,
what is it that made this guy
so
insanely different from everyone else?
And I had this recollection
that Andy, you said something once,
which was...
and I always remembered it.
It was after a Norm segment and Norm had annihilated,
he had done really well as he always did,
and you said to me,
"That guy doesn't care
"in a way that frightens me."
And what you meant was
he had this seeming like indifference
about whether the crowd liked it or not.
He was going to do what he was going to do.
Mm hmm. And he was so ballsy
that you found it kind of scary
and I knew exactly what you were talking about.
It was always a high wire act
and one of the things I remember most about Norm
is I would start laughing the minute he came out-
Yeah. of the curtain.
So I'd say let's summon Norm Macdonald
and he would come out and he had this look in his eye-
Mm hmm.
This glint in his eye
and I was laughing before he said anything-
Yeah, yeah. And I will attest
and you will back me up on this,
both of you can back me up on this,
I always wanted to be a host who
helped the guest
as much as I could. Yeah, it's called "host."
Yeah, well... (Andy laughing)
But what I would do is, as you know,
sometimes I'd be hearing something that wasn't that funny,
but I learned how to be a generous laugher for people-
Yeah. if it would help.
Right.
I have always said to people,
"If you want to really see me laugh,"
and this is long before Norm passed,
"if you really want to see what it looks like-
Yeah. "when I am laughing,
"watch a Norm Macdonald segment,"
because I have my hands on my belly,
which I think might be my tell.
Mm hmm. Like I put my hands
on my stomach and I would have my hands
on my stomach sometimes just as Norm is coming out
around the curtain and I see that crazy look in his eye
and that insane grin that he had
with those sort of like round apple cheeks.
He was like a mischievous kid.
Yeah. He was a mischievous kid
and he was out to cause trouble
and he's comin' around the bend
and his eye would catch me
and he'd always looked a little surprised to see me,
even though I had just introduced him.
Of course, (Conan laughing)
and you'd just seen him five minutes before.
I had just seen him five minutes before,
but oh my God,
and I think there was this...
People get cynical about show business
and rightfully they think,
well, it's all set up or it's all been contrived,
and sometimes it has been,
but with that guy,
when you look at any of these clips,
you're watching us be just as stunned-
(Conan laughing) Yeah, yeah.
as the audience is 'cause we don't know.
Yeah. We don't know
what's gonna happen. Yeah.
I think, well,
one of the things to me like,
like Norm was so Canadian- Mm hmm.
like he was like deeply, deeply polite-
Mm hmm. deeply, deeply concerned
with the person that he's talking to.
An audience, not so much,
but a person that he's talking to...
'Cause even the famous clip of like,
that and now,
and it's arguably one of the biggest things circulating now
about Lorn... er "Lorn..."
about Norm is when he was on with Courtney Thorne-Smith-
Yeah, yeah.
and was making fun of Carrot Top,
but he wasn't making fun of Courtney Thorne-Smith.
Right. He was having fun with her,
but he still was kind of taking care of her in a way
and having fun with you. Yeah.
So he... I think he had this like sort of...
And I mean... I just... I showed...
My sister texted me the day after he died
and she said, "Do you remember,
"I was at the show, I was maybe 18 years old,
"and I was in your office, you weren't there,
"you were rehearsing or meeting or something,
"and Norm Macdonald walked in and I introduced myself
"and he sat down and talked to me for an hour
"and asked me questions about myself
"and made me laugh a lot."
And she said, "nobody in your business has done that
"before or since." Right, right.
And that was one aspect of Norm
was like an incredibly kind, considerate listener,
but then there's also this stripe of Norm,
that is a destroyer. (Conan laughing)
It's not a coincidence that when we talk about him-
Yeah. It's, "He annihilated."
"He killed."- Yeah.
"He destroyed." Yeah.
And Norm was drawn to touch points
that you're not supposed to touch-
Yup.
and Norm would not only touch them,
he would dry hump them, Yeah.
(Conan laughing)
And so in a talk show context,
you have this guy for whom nothing is sacred-
Yup. and in fact,
there's a little bit...
Like you don't sense aggression from him,
except when you get to like hypocrisy-
Mm hmm. or something, that's,
you know, phoniness. Yeah.
And he was also,
he was also too not afraid publicly
or in private or something
to let people that he felt were not funny,
who were being paid to be funny,
let them know he didn't think they were funny.
Yeah.
And that's because he had so much genius-
He took it... He took it...
I mean he took comedy very seriously.
Yeah.