According to Conan O’Brien, the short version is Colin Quinn’s version, and Norm only pulled this out because he was told to fill a 7 minute segment on his show. It was the only thing he could think of to talk about and to make it fill the time added all the extra details.
Wrong room:
I continue to explore Mr.MacDonald’s work. Today this laid me out for several minutes; I admit that I, like Blake Griffin, had never thought about the Rookie of the Year Curse:
That’s a fun one. A few days ago, Letterman did a similar thing at a Nets press conference, asking Kevin Durant why his nickname is KD. I wonder if that was a little tribute to Norm by Dave.
I saw that. Was that really only a few days ago? It was almost like the old-days with Dave, back when he actually did stuff.
“What percent do you plan to give on the court this year? 90? 95? 110?”
Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update did a little piece:
That segment easily could’ve been another ten minutes (at least!) of comedy gold!
Yeah, there could have bee a lot more Norm. That said, I wasn’t expecting that first Dasani joke and gave an honest to goodness Laugh Out Loud. Not a chuckle or smirk, a screen spraying (if I’d been sipping something, luckily not) full belly laugh on a Sunday morning.
A 35 minute compilation of all of Norm’s OJ jokes from SNL Weekend Update.
On the radio today heard two additional sketches by Norm. “Hidden Track” mocked Star Search, (where Norm first appeared and did not do well). “Magic Phones”, which was new to me, is a funny and folksy discussion of smartphones.
For the sake of completeness, over the last few months comedy radio has played two other excellent stand-up routines. I would call them Teachers and -Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau. Probably not their real names.
I didn’t know Norm had a gambling problem but I came across this video (it’s audio over a still photo) of him describing an aspect of his addiction a bit (~1:40):
Conan O’Brien, on his podcast in an episode where he reminisced about Norm, told a story about a time that Norm was a guest on his show. Conan met Norm backstage just before the show was about to start and noticed Norm seemed a bit off. He asked Norm what was wrong and Norm said “Ahhh, the team I bet on just lost. So I just lost (insane amount of money, I think something like $18 grand)”.
Norm just shrugged it off and put in one of his many classic hilarious offbeat guest appearances on the show.
I never knew about his real life gambling issues - his character on his sitcom Norm had a gambling problem as well.
Some previously unseen footage came up in my youtube feed today.
I had no idea he had battle cancer his entire life. Yeesh.
There’s a new special coming out and I’m already crying. Do yourself a favor and DON’T listen to the fake ass narration, just terrible.
Looks like that special dropped today and was well reviewed (gift link should work for all):
His material was good but it misses something without a live audience. Apparently, one of the things that makes him so funny is the way he works the crowd.