RIP.
RIP.
You may already know this, but those are his versions of old street jokes. Comedians often fill time with short street jokes that have been told for decades (often to connect between longer bits), but Norm is one of the few who decided he would stretch one to fill an entire interview.
He also filled an entire Comedy Central Roast appearance with mundane jokes that he took from one of those silly "101 Jokes" books. Many of the jokes were so out of date they made puns on tech that is no longer used (like some joke that depended on the audience understanding that "Underwood" was a popular typewriter company back in the day.)
Somewhat related-- there's a video somewhere of Andy Kaufman essentially throwing an entire Saturday Night Live audition. He does a nervous recitation of a long, shitty monologue based on lyrics from a crappy 70s pop song, repeats it twice (making exactly the same mistakes each time), then recites the opening to the old Superman tv show in a purposely bad southern accent. Norm obviously did his pranks in an attempt to entertain an audience, but I cannot figure out what Kaufman's motive was in his audition. In any case, I found it hilarious and Norm was obviously greatly influenced by a lot of Kaufman's stuff.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oMjXZUKUQEk
I mean, aside from the obvious end-of-sentence punches, the southern accent isn't that bad. Especially for someone who grew up in NYC and Boston(?).
Andy was very uncomfortable about that joke because he didn’t want being gay to be a subject of ridicule, and he didn’t know how to face the gay crew members on the show, or gay friends and family, after making fun of the mere fact somebody could be gay.
At first I didn’t emphasize because the value of Norm MacDonald is that anything is fair game in the service of comedy and entertainment.
But now I get it. For Norm it was an improv bit in the middle of a “standup” bit on some show he was taping. For Andy it was an externally-imposed combo of ruined relationships, happening in the middle of his 9-5 entertainment industry career.
Both sides are valid, and I say this as someone who’s lovingly absorbed every Norm clip there is.
https://archive.org/details/Norm_Macdonald_Live/Norm+Macdona...
Have you tried the Dirty Johnny "but in this one, he isn't dirty" joke?