Well, there's a shocker…and how sad to lose another very funny, smart man. My favorite comedians all tend to be the kind with unique voices…the kind where if someone quoted one of their jokes to you, you could say, "Hey, that sounds like a Chris Rock joke." Or a Lewis Black joke or a Kathy Griffin joke. (I used to use Dennis Miller as a great example of that but if I quoted some of the recent material I've heard him do, you'd say, "Hey, that sounds like a Donald Trump speech.")
But Norm was Norm from the first time I heard him. I wrote about that back here and will quote it now…
I've always found Norm Macdonald to be a very funny guy. I first saw him one night at the Improv. I was there with Victoria Jackson, back in the days when she didn't think folks like me were destined to burn in Hell for destroying America. She wanted me to see this new comedian she'd "discovered" so we saw Norm…and he was quite good. He did 15 strong minutes around 9 PM and then we joined him at the bar and talked a bit. He had to be at the Laugh Factory up on Sunset at Midnight and didn't have a car…so the three of us went to my house to talk, then Victoria and I drove him up to Sunset and watched him do the same material to even better response.
But as funny as he was on those stages, he was even funnier in my living room. It has never surprised me that he's attained such a following.
I don't know what else to write here except that I always found him funny…and honest. Some comics tell stories allegedly from their own lives and even if you're laughing, you're thinking, "That didn't happen." But with Norm, everything funny seemed possible if not probable. Such a loss.