What made Norm Macdonald one of the all-time greats was his utter, mind-blowing originality. JohnRoycomic writes on the unique genius of the late comic
Photo: Michael S. Schwartz/WireImage When a comedian asks another comedian for their favorite comic, the answer is often “Norm Macdonald.” The stand-up, who died on September 14 at age 61, seemed physically incapable of insincerity, pandering, or presenting a hackneyed premise. He only got laughs his way. You will hear a lot in this sad time of remembrance about his fearlessness and his willingness to stick with a joke even when the audience didn’t get it, and all of this was true.
On his final Letterman set in 2015 — when his stand-up style was perfected after a quarter-century at his craft — he still slurred words, spoke in fragments, and stuttered, and somehow it all worked brilliantly. His premises were so unique, it didn’t matter how he delivered them, like his insight that Germany scared him because they decided to attack “the world” and you’d think it would only take five minutes for the world to beat them but “it was actually pretty close.” Or that, in “I.D.
The casual enthusiasm with which he threw his whole self into this joke showed Macdonald both knew it was dumb and didn’t give a shit on a godly level. I was rolling off the couch, and so were all my roommates. It was a kind of comedy I had never seen, and a simple truth that I had seen no one else touch on. The absolute sweet spot in joke writing is a premise that the audience has never thought of before but seems completely obvious the second after they hear it.
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