Year:  2011
Genre:  Comedy, Stand-up
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Norm McDonald
Run time:  58 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Norm McDonald is one of the funniest ppeople alive.  I think he deserves a far bigger audience and a far higher profile than the one he already enjoys.  His laid-back, deadpan delivery is magnificent, and he’s the only one who can really pull that style off consistently.  His new stand-up DVD is no exception – only Norm McDonald would make the TITLE of his DVD as deadpan as he is – Me Doing Stand-Up.  Even the title makes me laugh.

     Through this stand-up special McDonald tackles some subjects that might be taboo, or even controversial.  But I never noticed.  I was laughing too much and enjoying the show, so it was only after it was over that I thought – oh yeah – some of that might have offended someone somewhere.  Death, “battling” cancer, alcoholism, the lack of anonymity in “Alcoholics Anonymous” – McDonald is not mean-spirited in any way, there is no malice in his material or his delivery, and I doubt there is a subject on earth he could tackle that would ruffle too many feathers.

     I think his bit about his uncle, lying in his hospital bed “battling” cancer was the funniest – “here’s how he fought that battle – lynig in his hospital bed watching Matlock.”  Norm (I feel like I can use his first name because we went to many of the same schools and so, though I’ve never met him, I know him tangentially through less than thirty people – we’re tight) suggests that “battle” is the worst possible word, because when people die they “lost the battle with cancer” – and who wants to go out a loser?

     Norm is getting a little more recognition lately – his sports show is running on the Comedy Network now, and this DVD features a sitcom pilot of a show tentatively called Back To Norm.  The sitcom isn’t nearly as funny as his stand-up though.  McDonald is at his best when he’s performing only his own original material.  And Me Doing Stand-up is fantastic as a result.  It comes to DVD June 14th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 9th, 2011 at 8:10 am and is filed under 2011, Comedy, Stand-up. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.