I love the guy, but I couldn't get through 10 minutes of it.

Standup was never his primary strength.

Opinions vary on that, and I can easily see that he won’t appeal to every sense of humor. But he hits mine right between the eyes. I think his stand-up was masterful. (Obviously, humor is subjective. For example, some people love Dane Cook. I think he’s a hack and not funny in the least.)

Having said that, this special wasn’t really stand-up. It was more just musings with the occasional joke mixed in.

Haven't watched it yet, but you're wrong about the standup part. Saw him live twice and he crushed it with a lot of stuff that was riffing on Austin specifically. All of the Letterman and Conan interviews are basically standup too.

delivery, style, & mannerism work far better in conversational format and that seems a little off on stage, but i'll take norm in any format

and this is my favorite joke of his all time

Saying it wasn't his primary strength isn't saying that he was bad at it. He was good at it for sure. I just don't think he's a legend if the standup is all we got.

Re: the Letterman/Conan interviews, yes, sort of, but there's a reason that the reformatting of it to an interview set brought his humor to a whole other level. Part of it was that it just worked better with someone to interact and help set up, and part of it was that - to the extent that he said anything that wasn't pre-written - he had maybe the quickest wit of any comedian ever, and his little moments of inspiration came through better in these interviews than they would in any impromptu moment in a standup set.

For me, this special unfortunately having no audience just made it quite difficult to enjoy in the same way the same material might have if circumstances were different.

Recommend trying again and powering through.

There were parts in the middle when I legit couldn’t breathe.

The Letterman/Conan/Chappell/Sandler etc panel is afterwards is take it or leave it—somewhat interesting but not strictly necessary.

I'm going to give the special another shot. Twice I started watching in bed and fell asleep. Ofc I was super tired when I started so there's that.

I liked the after special commentary group of comedians that provided some nice insight into Norm's comedic style and the comedy process. The fact that Norm could get through one hour of new material the day before a high risk major event in his life showed how much he loved his profession.

“In my opinion, if we are going to fight the war on terror a good place to start would be our countries haunted houses.”

Norm MacDonald used to be a funny guy, now he is dead.

My wife taught his kids to swim in private lessons at his house, she was an LA county lifeguard.

She has some hysterical stories about Norm. He does not know how to swim and she tried to teach him.

Typical Norm fashion he didnt even try but just tried to get handled by a girl in a bikini

I saw him at the seminole hard rock like 12 years ago and dam near peed my pants

He told those 10 minute long story-jokes from 1950 like the farmers daughter kind-of-stuff... 60% of the audience was confused af

Was alot of don rickles and rodney dangerfield style stuff that i love and most people cant stand

love u norm!

One of the most pleasant experiences that I've ever had playing poker. Smiles all around. What a Legend.