Norm Macdonald Live with Sarah Silverman and David Letterman

Norm's "new season" has dropped with David Letterman!  It's really an apparent continuation of season 3, which began with two episodes last September and then went on hiatus.  Anyhow, I decided to write up my reviews of the show so far.

Season 1
-26 March 2013 Super Dave Osborne -- classic; Bob Einstein is a comedy machine
-2 April 2013 Tom Green -- low-key and Green seems sad, but is quite engaging
-9 April 2013 Fred Stoller -- good stories; hilarious reactions to Adam Eget
-16 April 2013 Russell Brand -- can't watch him
-23 April 2013 Billy Bob Thornton -- Norm transforms a weird and uncomfortable guest into someone watchable
-30 April 2013 Larry King -- another classic; far more entertaining than I would have guessed
-7 May 2013 Kevin Nealon -- cool SNL stories; always a good guest
-14 May 2013 Simon Helberg -- haven't seen it
-21 May 2013 Nick Swardson -- filthy and great but seems a little too in awe of Norm; watch for his Mr. Furley imitation alone
-27 May 2013 Andy Dick -- another pleasant surprise; much less annoying than I would have predicted
-11 June 2013 Gilbert Gottfried -- hilarious, but we need less callbacks! The show's only an hour!

Season 2
This season was uniformly entertaining...
-12 May 2014 Ray Romano
-21 May 2014 Adam Sandler
-26 May 2014 David Spade
-2 June 2014 Carl Reiner
-9 June 2014 Fred Willard
-16 June 2014 Todd Glass -- lots of YT comments about how Norm spent the whole time messing with him; NO! Norm messes with everyone
-30 June 2014 Bob Saget
-7 July 2014 David Koechner -- some commenters feel that Norm was apathetic toward David Koechner, or that Koechner misunderstood Norm's jokes, but I disagree.  He was entertaining
-14 July 2014 Roseanne Barr -- surprisingly low-key; very entertaining; best death stare at Adam Eget since Super Dave
-21 July 2014 Marc Maron
-28 July 2014 Martin Mull -- good chat about his stand-up
-7 August 2014 Jack Carter -- I believe this was his last appearance anywhere

Season 3
-15 September 2016 Stephen Merchant -- Norm starts by imitating William F. Buckley, which is appropriate since this ends up feeling more like a UK v US political roundtable (at one point, Merchant even asks why Norm isn't asking for cool showbiz stories, like when Adam Sandler was the guest)
-26 September 2016 Bill Hader -- cool showbiz stories, but Hader seems really low-energy
-25 July 2017 David Letterman -- classic

-1 August 2017 Mike Tyson -- the only time Norm and the guest both seem to make eachother uncomfortable. Hilarious.

-8 August 2017 Bobby Lee -- funny but disturbing

-15 August 2017 Sarah Silverman [two episodes] -- classic

-22 August 2017 Dana Carvey -- classic; Carvey clearly has a lot of respect for Norm

-29 August 2017 Jerry Seinfeld -- I didn't know that Jerry was such a Norm fan! At the end, Norm says the show was "dream like"; I agree. This also includes a slew of excellent impressions from Norm

-5 September 2017 Caitlyn Jenner -- haven't seen it except for clips

-12 September 2017 Rich Little -- only watched part of it; Little has slowed down a bit

-19 September 2017 Margaret Cho -- funny but also informative

-26 September 2017 Tim Allen -- much better than expected; Allen was really "on" compared to some of his mainstream talk show appearances

-3 October 2017 Jim Carrey -- a perfect, anarchic last episode, just as it was when Carrey was the final guest on "Larry Sanders," 19 years earlier. Fitting.

{NOTE: this article originally ended with the listing for the David Letterman episode, and then the following upcoming guest info. It was updated June 25, 2023 with the remainder of season 3. Obviously, only a few of the upcoming guests actually made it onto the show... and I also recall Norm mentioning Jan Michael Vincent.}

Upcoming guests?
Sarah Silverman (see pic) and Caitlyn Jenner have apparently already been taped, and Norm seems to confirm, in this interview, that Mike Tyson and Jim Carrey are being taped soon.  (UPDATE: Jerry Seinfeld airs next week).
Other upcoming guests listed on Wikipedia include Dana Carvey, Judd Apatow, Margaret Cho, Jerry Mathers, Bobby Lee, Conan O'Brien, Bruce Vilanch, Artie Lange and Jon Hein.  Norm also mentioned in the above article that he's been trying to get O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake.

Elvis Played His Final Concerts 40 Years Ago in Cincinnati and Indianapolis

Elvis Presley began his final run of concerts 40 years ago today, June 25, in Cincinnati.
More than 17,000 people jammed into Riverfront Coliseum – now called U.S Bank Arena – for what would turn out to be Elvis’ second-to-last concert.  Presley arrived late, telling the crowd it was due to dental problems.
The show came at the end of almost two months of constant touring, and the King of Rock and Roll’s performance was described as “loose and light-hearted” by the Cincinnati Enquirer --  a far cry from some of Presley’s other 1977 shows.
After Cincinnati, Elvis flew to Indianapolis and played what would be his final show on June 26, 1977 before about 17,000 people at Market Square Arena.
Before the show, cameras at the airport captured the last known footage of Presley, accepting a gold record.  The film would be used in the posthumous TV special, “Elvis In Concert,” that fall.  The program – like many of Presley’s final shows -- was noted for the singer’s unhealthy appearance and inconsistent performance, and has never been shown again.  (The concert footage in the special was actually shot in Omaha on June 19 and Rapid City, South Dakota, on June 21.)
A few weeks before his death, Elvis’ “Moody Blue” LP was released on translucent blue vinyl.  Although much of Elvis’ 1970s product consisted of cheaply slapped-together compilations of old cuts built around hit singles, “Moody Blue” was somewhat consistent: six cuts from sessions at Graceland in October, 1976, and three from live shows in April, 1977.  A studio session meant to fill out this LP was scheduled for January, 1977, but canceled, which is why RCA recorded the live tracks; they also rounded out the LP with a live cover of Olivia Newton-John’s “Let Me Be There” that had already been released in 1974.
The content is pretty good: “Moody Blue” is a light touch of disco that somehow topped the country charts and also hit #31 on the pop charts.  “Way Down” is a chugging rocker with eerily prescient lyrics.  It also hit #1 country and #31 pop, but then shot back up to #18 pop after Elvis died.  In England, it became Elvis’ first #1 since 1970’s “The Wonder of You.”  It also contains what is recognized by the “Guinness Book” as the lowest note ever recorded by a human voice (J.D. Sumner’s double-low-C).  Another stand-out cut is a live cover of Olivia Newton-John’s “If You Love Me (Let Me Know).”  Even Elvis’ take on “Little Darlin’” outshines Rogers & Clark.
The album itself hit #1 country and #3 pop.
Copies of “Moody Blue” (like many later Elvis works) seem to be budget bin staples; I routinely find sealed copies of this album for under a dollar, likely because it sold so much better than his other albums of that era.
The first half-million blue vinyl copies sold out in early August, 1977, and RCA switched to standard black vinyl.  When Elvis died on August 16, the company immediately went back to blue vinyl, thus making the black vinyl copies very rare.  Note that Canadian black vinyl copies, and later black vinyl reissues from the 1980s and beyond, are not rare.
What of the arenas?  Riverfront Coliseum would be the site where, in 1979, 11 fans were trampled to death before a concert by The Who.  Its name was changed to “The Crown” in 1997, “Firstar Center” in 1999 and “U.S. Bank Arena” in 2002.
Market Square Arena’s main tenant for most of its life was the Indiana Pacers.  The arena closed in 1999, the day after the team closed its season and moved to Bankers Life Fieldhouse.  The next season (1999-2000), they made their only (to date) NBA Finals appearance, eventually losing to the Lakers in six.  David Letterman spent much of the spring and summer of 2000 cheering on the team during his program, while also wistfully recalling their ABA days with Darnell Hillman and Bob Netolicky.
Five weeks after playing Indianapolis, Elvis’ former bodyguards released a tell-all book (“Elvis: What Happened?”) detailing his drug use.  Two weeks after that, on August 16, he died of a heart attack.  He had been scheduled to leave that evening for another tour.

And now, for no reason, is a discussion of Andy Kaufman's take on Elvis, just months before the final shows.

Here's video from Elvis' final shows.

SNL and Harry Potter

One of SNL's most famous episodes in recent years -- May 1, 2004, with Lindsay Lohan -- includes not only the Debbie Downer/DisneyWorld sketch, but also this take on Harry Potter. Less well-known is a second sketch: a few years later, when Daniel Radcliffe hosted, they mocked a grown-up Potter returning to Hogwarts.

Interesting celebrity commercials with John Cleese, Dustin Hoffman and Alan Alda

Here's some more classic celebrity commercials. They are not as bad as most of the ones I've posted here.

First up, Sir John Gielgud for Paul Masson wine, and its immortal cathphrase.

Bruno Sammartino, Bobby Riggs, Phil Esposito, Brooks Robinson, Johnny Unitas and Walt Frazier all pretend like they love to hang out at Bally's Atlantic City. The weird audio edit at the end is far more annoying than what they intended (humor?).

A post-MASH Alan Alda tries to sell Atari computers (just before Commodore's Jack Tramiel took over the company from Warner Bros. and initiated a race-to-the-bottom price war that only further exacerbated the Video Game Crash). And a pre-MASH Mike Farrell sells Schmidt's Big Mouth Beer. Both of these are likely already addressed in this post.

One of many commercials for Memorex tape featuring the great Ella Fitzgerald. Chuck Mangione is also in the ad with her, and from the way they describe things, could this be for the short-lived and elusive Type III audio tape?! This (and the next ad) are taken from the April 14, 1979 broadcast of SNL with host Milton Berle (a train wreck).

The Commodores sell Schlitz beer; it's catchy and goofy. Schlitz is the same company that would make The Bull malt liquor a few years later.

Here's Dustin Hoffman showing some pretty good physical comedy/comedic timing chops while showing off the Volkswagen Type 3. For some non-Dustin Hoffman, non-Type 3 VW commercials (all about the Beetle/Bug aka Type 1) check out this blog post.

John Cleese for American Express.

And finally, Tim Conway for Lays potato chips

Louis CK: Checking out of hotels

A fine two-hander from one of Louis CK's recent hosting stints.  I wonder if this originated with one of the writers, or from Louis' experiences on tour.  And fortunately, it is NOT a TV parody... the next time you watch an episode from the late 1990s forward, note how many of the sketches seem to have been inspired by very-late-night channel-surfing.  It's embarrassing!  I maintain the problem is due to 1) writing in the middle of the night (instead of being out with people), and 2) having 80,000 channels and a TV in every writers' office (which was not the case at SNL for many years).

Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time

It's been 14 years since "Rolling Stone" magazine compiled its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time.  Most of the complaints about the list are that it's Baby Boomer-centric (and I can't argue with that), but is that a bad thing?!  That's open to discussion.  Jann Wenner's tastes have always baffled me, and in fact remind me more and more often that his magazine is the best of a weak lot... Crawdaddy?  CIRCUS?!?!  (Check out this blog post, which features a terrible commercial for Circus.  Publisher Jerry Rothberg has no business on-camera... "do you know the faaaaacccccts").

Anyhow, RS also compiled a 100 greatest LP list (1987) and a 200 greatest (1997), so aren't they due?  In 2012, the 500 greatest was updated with 38 new albums, 16 of which came out after the original list.  I guess they wanted to seem relevant or something (and then they published it in a BIG, FAT, PRINTED BOOK instead of making it available in an easy-to-navigate online format).  I don't know enough about the revised list, but I would love to see them go all the way to 1000... not unlike the "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" list.

All that being said, there are several disks I never see on any of these lists, which should be.  To wit:

-Magical Mystery Tour (The Beatles, 1967): I make a case for this in this video (at the 36:30 mark, or so).
-Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, Ltd. (The Monkees, 1967)
-A Wizard, A True Star (Todd Rundgren, 1973)
-Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus (Spirit, 1970)
-On the Threshold Of a Dream (Moody Blues, 1969)
-Nashville Skyline (Bob Dylan, 1969)
-Tug of War (Paul McCartney, 1982)
-Ringo (Ringo Starr, 1973)
-33 1/3 (George Harrison, 1976)


As a bonus, since I don't know where else to put it, here's the catchy opening "theme" (if you can call it that) from The Beatles ABC-TV cartoon series:

2 Promos For Happy Days and Bob Newhart

Following on the post about "Happy Days" promos, here's one from Nick at Nite (and one for Bob Newhart, below), back when promos were actually useful (1998) and not just a crawl on the screen. I have to say, this is probably more entertaining, and took more effort, than most of the actual shows on Nick at Nite today. Happy Days writer Mark Rothman talks about the origin of "Sit On It" on his blog. And for fun, here's a manic Tom Hanks taking on the Fonz in 1982.



This "Bob Newhart Show" promo must have been the brainchild of the same person who made "Sit On It" above. Both of them have that 1990s LA vibe that gave us Quentin Tarantino and "Pulp Fiction." And they're both catchy.

#snl4kidz