I happened to catch most of the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget over at Bonnie's last night. Comedy Central continues its trend of going after the easiest targets imaginable (Pamela Anderson being the lowest point of the whole series), but the lineup of roasters made it worthwhile. Roasts tend to fall into repetitive patterns by the end of the show as each roaster pulls out a slightly different variation of the same jokes. Cloris Leachman is so old, Jeff Garland is so fat, Susie Essman is a man, etc.
But some of the performances really stood out. Brian Posehn was predictably hilarious, as evidenced by his opening line, "I don't even know Bob. I'm just here because Lisa Lampanelli finally got murdered by one of her black boyfriends."
But the absolute best part of the entire evening was Norm Macdonald's bit. He did a parody of a roast, with some old fashioned vaudeville-esqe insult jokes that really contrasted with everyone else's blue material. I was baffled after his first joke, but I quickly caught on. The jokes were not funny. Like, "Susie Essman may be a vegetarian, but she's still full of bologna in my book." But his dedication to the bit, and his typical deadpan delivery made it the funniest thing of the whole show.
I don't know how he doesn't get more work. He is always funny, and seems to be a genuinely nice guy to boot. This guy needs to get on the Judd Apatow train, or something.
Norm's roast isn't on YouTube yet, or anything. Here are some other random clips of him on various shows:
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5 comments:
I've been hearing about how awesome that part was. I didn't watch the roast, for obvious reasons.
Not only was Norm the funniest part of the show, but he also had the most sincerely sweet moment with Bob. It was incredibly classy.
He really needs to get another movie or show or something.
Sorry, but Norm blew. I give him credit for trying to do something different, but know your fucking audience man. So he did a throwback to a 60's roast. Unfortunately no one cares.
Anonymous Harsh Criticism... making the world a better place.
Anonymous: strong words for someone unwilling to identify themselves.
But seriously. Know your audience? I assume you mean the at-home audience rather than the attending audience, since that audience consisted of Dave Coulier and Last Comic Standing Contestants. If that's your audience better to throw yourself into the orchestra pit and wait for death.
I honestly thought Norm's routine was hilarious. The "let's see how vulgar I can be" typical roast shtick just gets old and repetitive after a while. Cloris Leachman was getting laughs out of respect rather than the strength of her jokes. As far as knowing your audience, she was referencing things no one under the age of thirty has any clue about.
Some of the others fared much better. I already mentioned Brian Posehn in the post. Gilbert Gottfried is always excellent.
But for me Norm stole the show. Even his comeback - "who wouldn't want to watch Henry Fonda picking blueberries?" - during Jim Norton's roast was classic.
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