America's Greatest Canadian

Today we pay tribute to Norm MacDonald, one of the great under-appreciated comic minds of our generation. If anyone reading this has any doubts as to Norm’s genius, please observe this Conan O’Brien clip to realize how misguided a worldview you possess.

Every aspect of the clip is mind-blowingly glorious, from the superb timing and delivery to the fact that the girl sitting next to him stars in the movie. More-so, Norm shares my - and hopefully every red-blooded American’s - disdain for Carrot Top. I recently tried to examine my hatred for Carrot Top. Originally, I hated him because he was unfunny and yet somehow popular. It was like the annoying kid in elementary school who kept cracking the same unfunny jokes and puns at recess had became rich and famous, meaning that somewhere in America there were people encouraging this behavior and convincing him he was hilarious. Every one-liner and zany prop-gag just made you want to push him off the top of the monkey bars and shut him the hell up. To make matters worse, with all the spare time that undeserved wealth granted him he was able to devote himself to body-building, so now the great majority of Americans have missed the chance to kick his ass. I think this lost opportunity has increased my anger tenfold, to the point where only by balancing my resentment towards him with my scorn for Jimmy Fallon am I able to retain my sanity and avoid an obsession which could only end in restraining orders and assault with a deadly weapon charges. Thus, on some level, Norm shares my feelings of contempt and openly conveys them on national television, a major victory for those of us concerned with the well-being of our great nation.

The video is a small sample that excellently conveys the beauty of Norm’s comedy. At once both subtle and brash, Norm exudes wry wit. In actuality, Norm defines wry more than wry defines Norm. As host of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, he used his pseudo-deadpan smirkiness to turn cruel jabs into punch-lines. He was also known for routinely mocking Chris Kattan, another insufferable personality who left behind the legacy of Mango and Mr. Peepers to star in the blockbuster Corky Romano. According to legend, whenever Kattan would pitch a new character, Norm would interrupt with "Let me guess...he's gay?"

You know what, let's just let Jim Breuer and Artie Lang cover the Chris Kattan thing.

Around Christmastime in 1997, Norm was fired from the Weekend Update (he left the show shortly after) in an inexplicable decision that united both Howard Stern and David Letterman in their outrage and eventually morphed into an SNL conspiracy theory over who made the decision and why it was really made (he was told it was because he "wasn't funny"). After Saturday Night Live, Norm starred in a pair of movies (for the record, if you watched Dirty Work and didn't enjoy it, there is a very real ceiling to our friendship) and television shows, entered the World Series of Poker, released a comedy album and made the occasional incredible talk show appearance, where he has routinely proved to be one of the funniest and most sardonic jackasses in show business. How he can be such a pure and unabashed asshole and yet somehow retain a sense of charm can boggle the mind.

My theory is that there are two types of assholes in the world. There are those brazen, selfish, "type-A" people who know they are always right, know they are better than everyone else, and don't know that 75% of people they come into contact with immediately hate them. This kind of person makes the world a lesser place just by getting out of bed every morning. On the other hand, there are those who are self-aware, using the asshole personality for its comedic potential and picking and choosing appropriate moments to unleash their calculated abrasive quips. They know they are being an asshole, other people know they aren't being entirely serious, and everyone has a good chuckle. Norm, however, manages to fall somewhere in between these categories. He seems so jovially self-aware in his demeanor, yet he can be as relentlessly brutal as humanly possible in the right situation, as the above clips should demonstrate. Is he a good person? I guess it depends on whether or not you are on the receiving end of his verbal assaults. I'd like to think that I or anyone I associate with falls in the opposite category of Chris Kattan and Carrot Top's entourages. From this perspective, Norm MacDonald can be seen as a great ally in the war on awful comedy. Onward, Norm, and Godpseed.