@Cord Bullard hm ok I see what you're saying, I don't know why I was thinking punchline in a more traditional (boring) sense but you're right those work too. Norm's the best
He always has a punchline it's just normally so either subtle or completely obvious that I suppose could be missed. That's his thing, hell do such a blatant dad joke in front of a comedy audience and get a laugh. It's genius
Billy Connolly was the same. He would go on long winding tales of his youth and barely even have a punchline before he changed it into another story, but my goodness how you laugh along the entire way 😂 such under rated talent is required for this.
Norm is a genius story teller. Multiple rounds of applause and laughter from the audience just from telling this totally random ale that has no relation to anything.
Never knew of him before recently. His comic timing is impeccable and his "look" at the recipient of the joke as he punches through another line. Just glorious stuff. 90% of my youtubing at the mo is Norm McDonald. Love it.
EoinFC If you have seen it already nevermind.. but if not, watch his "dirty work" movie. I think he might be the funniest presence known to man.. He was awesome!
“There’s a knock on the door. So I figure, uh oh, old Harold Delaney wants to have sex with me.” If you don’t think that’s a joke, you have a very limited concept of what a joke is.
There's normally some sort of payoff... even if the payoff is really dumb and ridiculous (which it always is). This one sort of just went nowhere. LOL.
Oh Lord. For me this was such strange timing. Earlier this month, i located and ordered a used copy of his "Based on a True Story" 'memoir' and it was delivered yesterday - the day that the sad news of his passing broke. And the introduction in his book relates a story in which bogus news of his death had been inserted into his Wikipedia article - which was where i first learned of his death yesterday! I am convinced a small part of my life was briefly possessed as it were by the soul of this humble, childlike fellow as he unites his sense of humor with that of his creator in the next life. Thank you Lord for giving us Norm Macdonald.
Norm. The only thing sadder than your death is knowing that there are people on this earth that will never see or understand your genius. RIP to the true king of comedy.
I finally saw him perform live earlier this year, easily the best comedian I've seen! He seemed to enjoy himself as well, as evident by going long -- which he then worked into a bit, telling us how the club had given him the signal several times now, but they since gave up so he knew he would get reprimanded after the show, but then he told us that his plan was to deny outright that he saw it, predicting the manager's response would then be "what do you mean you didn't see it? You talked about it for 10 minutes after I gave up!!" Yup, he's my all-time favorite as well!!
@@ObscuredByTime comedy central is so far gone these days, Norm #2, only behind Don Rickles, in my book. Fuckin Howie Mandell, comedy central should change their name to Comedy Cemetery. Because they're dead.
Too bad Norm didn't write fiction. Who wouldn't want to read an endless story with no point no punchline appropos of nothing and yet extremely boring. Except if you got the audio version with Norm himself you know doing the talking on it so you could you know pick up on how hysterically funny the guy actually came across in real life altho you would prefer a video to catch you know the expressions on his face there.
It took me awhile to get Norm and his style of comedy. Now i can't get enough of his stories. Thank you for all the laughs Norm. R I P to a true legend.
Yeah, I would skip past Norm Macdonald. His first impression doesn't knock you over. But, Thank God.. I have a sense of humor! Slowly, I began to get his " punch lines "! Now, I am along for the comic journey!
Norm Macdonald is like Cool Hand Luke doing stand up comedy! He is one of those rare comedians that even when a joke misses, his facial expression, cadence, timing and voice is so funny, it all works out!
@@dpring777 Even if someone were to pronounce "about" like "a boot", I fail to see what's so funny about the sentence "You never heard tell of about?".
It's all about the delivery. Norm had it down to a science. some of the actual jokes aren't even funny it is just how Norm delivers them. What a guy. Sadly he will be missed.
I think Norm reminds me of Jimmy Stewart when he would appear on Johnny Carson, a great story teller, you just had to be patient, it was always worth it. Thank you Norm,
The subbtle part to the joke is Norm making all these great words which would get you a high score but being behind to low scoring words because of the triple word.
@@joshforde698: the real subtle part of the joke was that his story had 3 B's in the game with "rabbit" & "boot," but there are only two B's in Scrabble, and since Norm mentioned there were no blank squares and that the words weren't connected, then there had to be three separate B's, which isn't possible. I think Norm did this intentionally as an Easter egg.
"Old Harold Delaney"! This has always been one of my favourite stories of his; I remember first seeing it years ago, and I wanted to watch it again when I heard about his sad passing today. So glad I was able to find it to see it again! Thanks for posting this!
I couldn't agree more. I was looking for this one too -- so glad to have found it, because there seem to be 1,000 clips of this guy telling his wonderful stories. We miss you Norm.
I did not appreciate Norm while he was alive. I only knew him from SNL. But I have watched so many clips the past week. He was a genius. I rarely laugh out loud. It literally takes something epic to make me laugh. I belly laughed the whole time he was telling the Scrabble story. It was hilarious but there was a bit of sweetness or charm to it too. I will listen to this many more times.
As a longtime Scrabble player, I love this Norm "story." I think my favorite part is where "Harold Delaney" just puts "hat" on the triple word score spot even though it's not connected to anything.
Funny thing is, it wasn't a Bed & Breakfast at all, just an old man's house when you think about it. There wasn't anyone else staying, the dude was grumpy, no social skills, and he never even thought of serving Norm any breakfast. Just old Harold Delaney's house
Marco Estiercol I think the story is funnier by giving the guy a full name, even if in reality it wasn't "Harold Delaney". (It wouldn't surprise me if this whole story was made up.) SO many people try to tell stories about "this one guy" and repeatedly use "so the guy says," and such. But simply by using a name, ANY name, it's somehow noticeably funnier, and I wish I knew why.
***** Yeah, but you can ask anybody who's played more than a few games of Scrabble, and they've all been there, trying to make good words like "Avacado", and the other guy just sticks a "T" above your "O" and that's his word: "To". To play a truly good game of Scrabble, there's a balance between competition and cooperation. You both want to make the best words possible, so everybody had room to build all over the board.
I shamefully admit I didn't really know much about Norm MacDonald until about a month ago. I am a fellow Canadian and wish I had took the time in the past to watch this legend. I wasn't ever in to SNL and haven't watched many late night talk shows. I am 43 years old and Norm was becoming massively popular in the 90's and I somehow missed him. All I can say is in the past few weeks I can't stop watching Norm MacDonald. I am so grateful I stopped and checked out a suggestion RU-vid came up with. Norm was a very intelligent person. He was charming and offensive to some. The thing that I love about him is he is real. Bottom line is Norm MacDonald is consistently funny in his work. That is rare today. Most of the popular sitcoms presently can't make me laugh. Put Norm in one and it would. RIP Norm and thank you for making me laugh.
He’s a beautiful soul. As he got closer to the end of his life he became almost monastic, and his exchanges were more and more profound (his later podcasts and radio interviews are gold) He lived in a small, almost empty apartment, was abstinent for years, asked nothing of anyone, and always spoke the truth. He never told people how sick he was, but in hindsight he was sharing some deep truths in his own way. It’s enough to bring a tear to your eye, but he always makes you laugh yourself silly too. Extremely intelligent, well read, knowledgeable in a million directions, but humble as a human being could be. If the goal is to leave it better than you found it, Norm won the game.
I wrote something similar on another video. Some comedians tell funny stories. Norm tells stories and makes them funny. That voice, and delivery gets me every time.
I always love a nice story about some old coot who owns a bed and breakfast and forces his only guest to play scrabble all night long while he cheats at the game and then doesn't fix them any breakfast in the morning even though it's a "bed & breakfast". That's my favorite story genre.
_Rolling Stone_ magazine, which is smaller and shorter than it used to be, just recently ranked every single cast member of _Saturday Night Live_ in history, and they put Norm in the bottom ten. Think of every obnoxious, talentless, or just plain boring person to ever be on SNL -- they probably rated that person ahead of Norm. People you don't even remember. Saying Terry Sweeney, Charles Rocket, Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Shannon, Tina Fey, Martin Short, Chris Kattan for chrissakes, and just about everyone else is funnier than Norm MacDonald -- well, good luck, _Rolling Stone,_ but I've always hated the magazine, and this is a good example of WHY.
Frank Vee True ... He's not. I'm pretty leftist but I give Norm a free pass on his politics, he can believe whatever he wants, 'cause it only makes it funnier. When you get too many people together who all share the same political views, you get a bunch of nauseating smugness. This is true for both liberals and conservatives. So it was good to have Norm coming from a different perspective. I loved his joke about Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie Presley's divorce: "She's more of a stay-at-home type, and he's more of a homosexual pedophile."
***** Couldn't agree more. In an age when magazines and newspapers are less relevant than ever, they _still_ suck compared to others. (I only buy guitar magazines that actually teach me how to play songs. We don't need to pay for _reviews_ and _interviews._) They deserve to fail. This may seem like a topic jump, but Adam Ant, who's mentally ill but very intelligent, says Live Aid killed rock music in 1985. I think he's right. Live Aid was a good thing, but it turned rock into this OH-so-important and self-righteous thing, with the likes of Bono, Sting, Don Henley, et. al. And _RS_ magazine was very happy to put themselves in front of that, as "We are the established arbiters of what's hip and relevant; you _do not_ succeed in the industry without our support. We're indispensable. You need us; we don't need you." Well, thank god that's no longer true, and also, fuck them. Still, I don't see how anyone _possibly_ rates Norm worse than so, SO many utter failures. Norm _wrote_ for that show before and during his time as a performer. His Weekend Updates are legendary. Yet there is no "SNL: Best of Norm Macdonald" DVD ,like there is for everybody else who was any good. There's even a "Best of Christopher Walken", who only _hosted_ the show many times (and he's awesome, I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, just that he wasn't a cast member). There seems to be this mentality of "It doesn't matter HOW many people love Norm Macdonald. Even if we COULD make money, we WON'T." But I still think of him as relevant. He not only changed my idea of what's funny, but how I actually use the English language in conversation! Example: Y'know how lefties like to make fun of Fox News Channel, and call it "_Faux_ News Channel"? Well, I hate that. From a sheer comedy perspective, that's an epic fail. It sucks. Then I saw something 10,000X better: "Fox Not News Channel". THAT's funny. Fuck clever wordplay, man, I like a _sledgehammer!_ And it was Norm who showed me the light on that. "And now, the fake news." Make Words Count! Don't _toy_ with them. If I was truly good, this comment would be _so_ much shorter, but thanks for reading!
I remember when this aired when I was a kid. I ALWAYS remembered this interview because i remember even back then it made me laugh really hard. And this makes me realize as an adult how I had an excellent taste in humor as a kid ;)
Norm is one of the few comedians who's act starts from the first letter, the punchlines hardly ever comes, perhaps towards the end, but it's not needed due to his amazing descriptions and content.
Harold Delaney is a real guy who is a Chef for a classic Bed and Breakfast in B.C....I highly doubt he is in his "eighties" though. The fact that Norm used words that counted more letters than what traditionally comes with an official Scrabble game it is at least somewhat fictional.
@JediNxf7 His story had 3 B's in the game, Rabbit and Boot. There are only 2 B's in Scrabble. And Norm mentioned there were no blanks and that the words weren't connected so it would have been 3 B's which isn't possible. I actually think Norm did this intentionally as an "Easter egg"
I know the joke by heart by now, but every time I come back here I'm in stitches. More even than before. Just noticed my last comment on this vid dates from before his passing. Still can't believe he's gone.
So many people loved Norm -- I hope he knew it. I always loved this story. I liked his sitcom too and even won a NORM cap from the show when they had a contest where you identified the movie they used a line from.
