Remembering Norm Macdonald

The thing I alluded to before is now on youtube. I recommended it before, there's no excuse now.

The New Norm MacDonald Stand-Up Special is Sad

 Throughout "Norm MacDonald Live" and "Norm MacDonald Has a Show" there is some progression but mostly there is consistency - Norm is Norm. But when you get to his interview with David Letterman on the latter, he suddenly seems to be playing a character. He's a goof, he's a gab, he's almost hyperactive - he's like a child who's had too much sugar.

That same character is back, it seems to me, in Norm's new stand-up special. Knowing he was very sick, but also knowing he couldn't do shows in the pandemic, he recorded a stand-up special in his house which was just released on Netflix. There is no crowd, there is no venue, it is just him and a camera (and a dog and a phone call). It may be because of the silence that he's so animated - he knows, perhaps, he needs to supply the energy that a live audience would normally supply. Or it may be some other reason. Far be it from me to claim to know Norm.

But it is strange and it is a style of stand-up comedy that I've never seen from him. He reminds me of a ventriloquist's dummy (in a good way) - he's all eyebrows, wide eyes and teeth. And, though unusual, it mostly works and there is some great material but there is some lull in there too. It may be that the material is as strong as ever but I'm one of those people who needs to hear audience affirmation, I don't know. And it may be that he just lacked the chance to hone the material on the road in the nightclubs. One thing's for sure, the knowledge that he was ill makes the amount of energy he's putting forth that much more heroic and admirable.

Following the stand-up, Netflix adds on a segment where a group of comedians react to the special and talk about it. Obviously it's impossible to talk about what they've just seen without also eulogizing the man and what he meant. This is, shockingly, my favorite part of the special and I didn't want it to end. Norm was so unique and so enigmatic, it seemed like it could have gone on forever. And I must note, though I don't know where to do it, that Conan addresses the earlier questions I had about Norm not being on Conan's show for many years. He says that Norm was invited but kept turning him down, probably because of his illness. That doesn't completely answer the question for me but there's no reason to re-hash that here.

I may be imagining things, I don't know how to judge my own perception, but it seems to me that at one part of the special Norm gets choked up and emotional. That emotion bleeds into the eulogy segment and I was left feeling sad all over again at the tremendous loss for us and the secret suffering that he went through. And this is the end because I don't know what else to say.

New Norm Macdonald Standup Special to be Released on Netflix

 Norm Macdonald taped a standup special in his living room before going in for an operation (just in case). The footage was never released but will be on Netflix May 30th.

Read more here.

MST3K - Season 12 Trailer

The trailer for Mystery Science Theater 3000 Season 12 is out and it reveals all the movies that will be watched.


Mac and Me. So awesome.

MST3K Returns Thanksgiving Day

I made the title "MST3K Returns Thanksgiving Day" but if I had left it at "Thanksgiving" would people be confused? "Is it Thanksgiving Eve?" "I thought it was the Second Night of Thanksgiving!"

The new season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will be released to Netflix on Thanksgiving and will consist of 6 episodes. You can read about it here.

Norm Macdonald Has a (New) Show

Norm Macdonald's talk show is coming to Netflix, titled "Norm Macdonald Has a Show". The trailer is out now.


All episodes will be available 9/14.

I have two conflicting feelings about this. I'm pessimistic that Netflix has tried to make the show "slicker" and more produced. But I'm hopeful that Norm is fiercely independent enough to resist interference. Hopefully it goes well.

Letterman Teaser Trailer

Netflix has released a teaser trailer for David Letterman's new talk show "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction".


Episodes will be released on Netflix and will come out 1 per month. The first episode "airs" January 12 with guest Barack Obama.

On a personal note, I find myself disinterested. I was never watching the Late Show for the interviews. I really respect and appreciate Letterman's interview style and so I imagine, as interview shows go, this will be among the best. But I've also come to the point of celebrity culture saturation where I don't want to know more about Jay-Z, I don't want to know more about George Clooney, I don't care. I couldn't care less. And so I don't know what I'll do about this particular show.

Conan - Santa's Netflix Special

Santa's back and he's EDGY.


I can't see real good, is that Kenny Rogers over there?

MST3K Renewed For Second Season

In case you missed the Turkey Day marathon, it was announced that Mystery Science Theater will get a second season on Netflix (and 12th season over all). Dampening my excitement is the fact that it took them way too long to renew the show - delaying the new episodes by half a year or so. It's unknown how long production will take and when the new episodes will premier.

Next year will be the show's 30th anniversary.

MST3K - Season 11

The new 11th season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 "drops" on Netflix this week. Friday April 14th, to be exact, and I can tell you it's going to be good.

If you're like me and you watch the hype and hoopla concerning the new season you'll see a lot being made of the special effects, the sets, the guest stars, the new bots, the new actors... All that is fine, and I'm a little curious about the special guest stars as well (Jerry Seinfeld), but as I said in a previous post, it's all about getting in the movie theater and making jokes and very little else about the show matters.

As a Kickstarter backer I was able to see the first episode before it gets officially released on Friday. And it's pretty great. They watch a terrible movie that I've never heard of in my life and the jokes are fast and furious. If I have any complaint, it's that the jokes were so fast it's hard to keep up at some points. It demands your full attention or you're going to miss a lot.

So, as a hardcore fan, I approve... I really enjoyed it... And I'm officially as excited about a "tv" show as I have been about any tv show in recent memory. It's back, somehow it really is back.

MST3K New Season Trailer

It just so happens that April 13th Rifftrax's viewing of "Samurai Cop" comes to theaters and then the new season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is released on Netflix on April 14th. Not just the first episode, the entire season. And then Red Letter Media has a screening of "Samurai Cop" on April 16th but in 2011. Still a weird coincidence, if you ask me.

Netflix just released the trailer for the new season. Nothing very exciting, in my eyes. It's all about the movies and the jokes for me.

MST3K New Season

The release date of the next season of MST3K has just been announced. The new season of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" will premiere on Netflix April 14th, 2017. That is all.

New Episodes of MST3K Will Be on Netflix

There's still some time left before we see any new episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 but the makers have announced where the episodes will be released. The show is coming to Netflix.

The new season is slated to begin in the Fall.

Seinfeld Chronicled

Yesterday I completed a (about) 6 month-long project (I say "project" because it sound more impressive). Using Netflix, I had rented every disc of every season of Seinfeld as fast as the mail allowed.

I had previously confirmed that I had seen every episode and I'm well aware that thousands of reruns are aired every night on TBS alone. But the point was to go through all the deleted scenes, all the commentaries, all the extras as well as the flubs, bloopers, screwups and boners. I'm a big fan of all that "inside" stuff about where the ideas came from, how the show was created, what were the obstacles, etc. And on that count, it pretty much delivered although it was a long haul with a good number of thin spots. Still, next time anyone watches Seinfeld with me, they better prepare to get hit with some knowledge.

That's 9 seasons over 8 DVD seasons and 4 discs per season for 32 DVD rentals and 180 episodes. So, that's that done. On to the next thing...

STELLLLAAAA!!!!!

Simply put, "Stella" is perhaps the weirdest sitcom in the history of television and is therefore highly recommended. Although Netflix, and even IMDB, list the show as "sketch comedy" it's clearly not and they're stupid. It's a sitcom but "sitcom" in the tradition of the Marx Brothers/Three Stooges with a definite hint of Monty Python (ok, saying that it's like a sketch comedy show isn't helping the fact that I said it's not a sketch comedy. It definitely isn't.)

The show follows three men who live together (one of which is Michael Ian Black of "I Love the '80s" fame) and wear suits in every life situation. Yes, that's my synopsis of the show. The rest has to be seen. Oh yes, and it's very different.

If you do check it out (available now on Netflix instant) you'll probably spend most of the first episode trying to figure out what you're watching exactly. Don't panic. That's normal. Stick with it. The second and third episodes are epic. If those episodes don't strike you, you can give up on the show and I question your judgement.

"Stella" aired on Comedy Central in 2005 and was cancelled after only one season. This show is yet another in a line of brilliant television shows that were cancelled way too prematurely and that I've only found out about through Netflix years after the fact. Even today, as far as I can tell, no one knows about this show. Now you're in on the ground floor. Spread the word, see.

Mitchell, Webb, Donald Kaufman?

Thanks to the powers of Netflix, I've recently been going through the British sketch comedy show "That Mitchell and Webb Look". It's actually pretty funny and I'm surprised I'm only now learning about it since it started in 2006 and I've known about David Mitchell ever since he was a panelist on the fantastic quiz show "QI".

I might post a few clips on this blog in future (because, frankly, who's gonna stop me) but I had to at least post this one. If "Synecdoche, New York" were a comedy sketch it would be this. And anything with that description is worth watching.

That Mitchell and Webb Look - The Chiropractor