Norm McDonald: "Bill Hicks and Mort Sahl are Shit"

[MortSahlFan]

http://www.vulture.com/2018/09/norm-macdonald-in-conversation.html

[Shit Good Nose]

Norm isn't the first person to say that about Hicks, and it's no longer the controversial opinion it once was.  Plenty of Hicks haters on here, for a start.

[Avril Lavigne]

I certainly don't hate Hicks, but when I was the perfect age to get into his work & already held him in some esteem due to the praise & tributes he received from one of my favourite bands at the time (Tool), I remember checking out some of his work and being tremendously underwhelmed.

[up_the_hampipe]

If anyone can call highly regarded comics shit, it's Norm. He's far funnier than most.

[Shit Good Nose]

I certainly don't hate Hicks, but when I was the perfect age to get into his work & already held him in some esteem due to the praise & tributes he received from one of my favourite bands at the time (Tool), I remember checking out some of his work and being tremendously underwhelmed.

I've been a big fan for a long time, right back to when he was still alive (as mentioned many times, I'm probably one of the very few if not only CaB members to have seen him - I was at the Revelations show that was filmed), so all the fawning and putting him up on the pedestal that came following his death didn't really influence me like it might have others.  And now, of course, we have two generations of comedy fans who missed all of that as well and therefore look at Hicks (and others) more subjectively without having the "HICKS IS GOD!" thing slammed in their faces like it was to comedy fans for much of the 90s.

[Avril Lavigne]

I've been a big fan for a long time, right back to when he was still alive (as mentioned many times, I'm probably one of the very few if not only CaB members to have seen him - I was at the Revelations show that was filmed), so all the fawning and putting him up on the pedestal that came following his death didn't really influence me like it might have others.  And now, of course, we have two generations of comedy fans who missed all of that as well and therefore look at Hicks (and others) more subjectively without having the "HICKS IS GOD!" thing slammed in their faces like it was to comedy fans for much of the 90s.

This sort of ties in with something I was talking to a friend about earlier, on how certain films or filmmakers can be seen as overrated when not viewed in the historical context of their artform.  I guess if you're not there at the time, any innovations or fresh approaches really lose a lot of their edge once they've been copied, developed and embellished.  I'm always dismayed at how many people think Aliens is boring and generic because it looks and feels like an amalgam of thousands of videogames, but that's just one example amongst hundreds.  This is why I never wrote Hicks off but I still feel like I'm missing what fans might feel is his best work despite having seen a lot of his shows.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

The fact that Norm singles out Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks and Mort Sahl suggests that it's their didacticism that he doesn't like, as opposed to anything else. He's singled out other comics in the past for similar reasons. He says it's not comedy, to which you could say: so what? This kind of purism is extremely limiting in art. As Andrew Dice Clay once said, "This isn't about laughter, it's about comedy".

Although Norm is absolutely welcome to proceed on whatever ideas work for him, as he's pretty much the funniest person on the planet.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Although Norm is absolutely welcome to proceed on whatever ideas work for him, as he's pretty much the funniest person on the planet.

Only because Ricky Gervais has presently had himself launched into space by Elon Musk in order to make a point about God not existing

[Bronzy]

were shit

Edit: How the fuck is Mort Sahl still alive

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Still alive, still performing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKHRbYO4axw

[Bronzy]

Still alive, still performing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKHRbYO4axw

I mean, he could have died just before I posted about the error in the thread title.

If I had to choose between either being grammatically correct or Mort Sahl dying, I'm afraid to say I'd pick the former.

[McChesney Duntz]

Norm's on to something there. How dare they call what Mort Sahl's doing now stand-up comedy? He stayed in his fucking chair the whole fucking time!

[Petey Pate]

Norm MacDonald is not a fan of Eric Andre either.

I remember somebody showed me a talk show with "subversion" in it — the guy chainsawed his desk. It was so stupid. Why did you build a desk in the first place if you were only going to chainsaw it? Don't have a fucking desk! You just want little drops of subversion. Letterman in the '80s would be 90 percent a great talk show and then 10 percent subversion. If you get to 30 percent subversion, you're in Andy Kaufman land. If you get to 70 percent, you're a guy on the streets screaming at people. What are you trying to subvert anyway? Entertaining people? It's absurd.

Or Tig Notaro.

I've heard people go onstage and talk about cancer or some shit, and I go, "Isn't this what happens to everybody?" They seem to think they're singular in their story when their story is the most common story that could possibly be, which is suffering and pain.

[colacentral]

The chainsaw desk could be Tom Green.

[Howj Begg]

Norm MacDonald is not a fan of Eric Andre either.

God his opinion of Eric Andre is trash, as bad as some of his other opinions in that interview.

[Barry Admin]

To me, it hurts the comedy any time anything real creeps into it. I know people have different thoughts. I keep hearing how great Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks and Mort Sahl are. People have their own taste, but to me, all three of those people are just shit. They're not comedians in my mind.

Norm just sounds like a stupid, closed-minded OLD cunt.

[Mr Faineant]

Remember the Stephen merchant episode of NML? He said Hicks was shit, merchant said he'd argue he wasn't, then norm said "yeah, he's actually my favorite comedian."

[Barry Admin]

Picking those three out does seem intentionally provocative, to be fair. Only a dildo would genuinely hold such an opinion.

[thraxx]

The chainsaw desk could be Tom Green.

Eric Andre I reckon.

[lankyguy95]

It isn't Tom Green, he's friends with him.

[Avril Lavigne]

Tom Green was quite annoyed when his desk got chainsawed by a guest on The New Tom Green Show:
https://youtu.be/JJJMCcW0zQA?t=2m54s

[up_the_hampipe]

It isn't Tom Green, he's friends with him.

Which makes his distaste for Eric Andre more baffling.

[Chriddof]

RedLetterMedia recently compared both Andre and Green in their retrospective review of "Freddy Got Fingered", implying that Green's MTV-era shtick and what Andre does now is more similar than you'd think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEn3wcpNsg8

At around 1 minute 55 seconds in they start to show a number of clips that really put me in mind of an early and more 90s-MTV-ish version of what Andre does now, right down to destroying the set. I really agree with Mike Stoklasa's comment at 3:06, and I don't know if Andre has ever shown anything going really badly wrong in his show, instead of going really badly wrong in the way that's intended - like the Green outtake that immediately follows that comment from Mike (the Trump rally thing, maybe? I've not seen all of that).

I don't know how many people would agree with this, but I couldn't help feel that there was a certain truth to it. For what it's worth I dislike some of Morris' stunts for his own shows, and I always skip the prank phone calls in anything by VLS.

[Large Noise]

Norm's distaste for meta-comedy and subversion is a bit odd considering he'd go on Conan and do "a moth goes into a doctor's office" for 5 minutes. He's hilarious doing it, but it's clearly an exercise in subversion to some degree.

I do sympathise with his point about intellectual grandstanding though. I've not seen Nanette, but I thought Neal Brennan's 3 Mics special was self-serving shit and not very funny. And I can understand why someone like Norm would look at some stand-ups who're bang fucking average when it comes to making you laugh, and just think that they're using the gimmicks to get critical acclaim and cover for their lack of ability.

[Jumblegraws]

There's no consistency in his comedy purism, he's just randomly swinging his fists at whatever annoys him and attaching some lofty reason for doing so afterwards. I guess he just has a hole he needs to fill.

It reminds of Gallagher in that interview he did for the AV Club years ago https://www.avclub.com/gallagher-1798218616

Norm McDonald = Gallagher

[Weeping Prophet]

Norm's distaste for meta-comedy and subversion is a bit odd considering he'd go on Conan and do "a moth goes into a doctor's office" for 5 minutes. He's hilarious doing it, but it's clearly an exercise in subversion to some degree.

Not to mention his anti-roast roast of Bob Saget.

[mr. logic]

Remember the Stephen merchant episode of NML? He said Hicks was shit, merchant said he'd argue he wasn't, then norm said "yeah, he's actually my favorite comedian."

That was Bob Hope.

[Petey Pate]

He's elaborated in the past on twitter why he dislikes 'anti' or 'meta' comedy.

I've never been a person who uses labels I hardly understand. But, it's been pointed out to me of late that I, myself, have been labelled. The label that has been sometimes given me is meta-comic or anti-comic. I was never sure what it meant, the word does not exist in the OED, so today I looked to see if it was on Wikipedia. It makes sense. A pretend word on a pretend encyclopaedia. So I read the thing and I saw my name, which I half -expected and made me fully appalled. I'm not an anti-comic and I'm not a meta-comic. And i despise anyone who is. Because these people are not comics, and they ridicule comics and do not like comics and satirize and parody comics. I am a comic and these (anti-comics and meta-comics) are my enemies. Every joke I've ever told I found funny at the time. Sometimes, looking back, I found them unfunny. But at the time, they made me laugh.

The first time I remember being accused of being an anti-comic was during the Roast of Bob Saget. This is because my jokes were not dirty, but instead clean. The producer of the show said to be shocking, and I truly believed that doing clean jokes in this context would be shocking. But, as far as the jokes I delivered, I found each of them funny, in their own way. The second time, this accusation struck me, was when I did a joke about a moth on the Conan Obrien joke. It was called a shaggy dog story. It was not. It was called an anti-joke. It was not. It was a very funny joke and that is why the audience laughed hard and long. They did not laugh because it was a comment on bad jokes and how we all know they are bad. They laughed because it was a very good joke.

The truth is all anti-comedy, or meta-comedy, is worthless. It is for the weak and cowardly. The idea is this. The performer does not find the comedy he sees to be funny. So he chooses the worst he can find and ridicules it. It is not comedy. It is critique. And it is not funny. And, of course, that is what is supposed to make it funny. But it has never worked.

Never.

Many point to Andy Kaufman as an anti-comic. When they do, they expose themselves to be the idiots they are. Andy Kaufman was a comic. He used comedic techniques, he ridiculed no comedic techniques. Andy Kaufman was one of the greatest comics ever, because of his large arsenal of comedic weapons, which he used only when necessary. Andy Kaufman was not an anti-comic. But he spawned many. Being such a fine and original voice, Andy Kaufman, a great comic, was misunderstood. But he was not misunderstood by the masses. They loved him. He was misunderstood by a small minority who were convinced he was misunderstood by the masses. And this minority was going to let everyone know that they understood, they "got' the ungettable Andy. And some grew up to take the stage, where their mission would be to follow in the footsteps of their hero,whom they considered misunderstood. And he was misunderstood.

By them.

I say they because i don't want to name anyone but I am sure you know of whom I speak. And so they perform their anti comedy which is comprised of this. "I have found a form of comedy I find bad so i will do it, but I will do it intentionally bad' is their credo. Both are bad. Because,goes their thinking,"intentionally bad is better than unintentionally bad I could argue either way on this but I know one thing. Anti-comics, when you come right down to it are critics, which may be why they find favor among, guess who, critics. So, just for the record, i am not an anti-comic or meta-comic, I am a comic and therefor despise anyone who ridicules what I love. The end.

[up_the_hampipe]

I don't know where he's got this idea that anti-comics hate comedy. Does he think these people are trying to destroy it from the inside? Nothing is exempt from mockery in comedy, including comedy itself.

[BeardFaceMan]

Yeah I think hes misunderstanding the concept of anti-comedy there as its somethimg he clearly does, I havent seen much of Norm but what I have seen has been either sarcasm or anti-comedy. I'm sure he does find the jokes funny in the moment but he obviously knows not everyone is going to be in on the joke and that's the point, hes doing it to make himself laugh, not an audience.  Thats anti-comedy in my book. For someone who is supposedly a comedy purist his ideas are all over the place.