Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Michael Barry Show.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
My favorites tend to change, and therefore I don't really
name favorites, but I would say right now, my favorite
comedian is Norm MacDonald. Norm McDonald is what I would
consider a fearless comic. He told jokes often, not only
knowing they would bomb, hoping they would bomb. He enjoyed
(00:24):
the discomfort. It was kind of an Andy Kaufman type
thing for him. It's an incredible show of power.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But he also had had an insight into the way
we think, the way we process our hypocrisy, our peacocky,
and that I always found quite fascinating and wonderful. Anyway,
he was a comedian, writer, actor. He was Canadian, as
(00:58):
so many great comedians and singers have been.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
He was known for what I would call a sharp
wit and a very dry delivery, and his humor was
shall we say, deadpan, And if it was a joke
that bombed, if it fell flat, he didn't address the
fact that it fell flat. He looked at you as
if to say, what are you going to do now?
(01:26):
It was a complete power move and I loved it.
You will remember him as rising to fame in the uh,
I guess that would have been the nineties. Yeah, early nineties,
because he's claimed to fame. Was was was his whole
OJ coverage. He was on Saturday Night Live, and he
was the anchor of Weekend Update, which has which has
(01:51):
launched some careers, starting of course with Chevy Chase. His
style was at that point biting. He was, he was,
he was really feeling his oats at that point. And
there was a guy named was it Norm Omeyer, Dave Olmeyer,
Ohmeyer's guy's name, and he was big buddies with OJ,
and he didn't want OJ to be talked about as
(02:12):
part of the jokes on Weekend Update. So Norm McDonald
would do it every week, sometimes multiple times, and they
finally called him in and said, look, you're gonna be
fired if you bring it up. And his point was
it has to be talked about, and he did and
they fired him.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
By the way, you can now purchase a bronze statue
of the jokes for only three three hundred and ninety
five dollars, and for an even five grand you can
buy one that Al Collings has kissed the ass of
According to retailer, is the most popular Halloween mass This
year is OJ Simpson and the most popular Halloween greeting
(02:52):
is I'll kill you and that guy who's bringing over
your glasses or treats. And the Pope came out of
the book this week, which contains a series of essays
examining faith and morality in today's secular world and the
changing role of the Catholic Church as it approaches the
(03:14):
twenty first century. The book is entitled God Himself told
Me that OJ is Guilty. In other book news, Prince
Charles released an autobiography in which he states that he
never loved Princess Die and that his father pressured him
to marry her. The book is entitled of Course OJ
did it?
Speaker 5 (03:32):
I mean, come on. In his book, O. J.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Simpson says that he would have taken a bullet or
stood in front of a train for Nicole Man. I'm
gonna tell you, that is some bad luck. When the
one guy who would have died for you kills you.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
That's part of.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
You.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Don't get worse luck than that.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
And OJ announced this week that he's coming out with
a new book called I Want to Tell You and
if it's successful, OJ will work on yet another book
entitled From Football to prison my twenty five years of
showering with other men. And finally, in honor of the
(04:19):
fiftieth anniversary of their first publication, Random House will be
releasing special commemorative issues of many Doctor Seuss classics. The
first to hit the bookshelves will be Green Eggs and
Ham and oj is Guilty.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And what I love about this is didn't they bring
him back? A year? Year and a half later they
bring him back to guest host And instead of just
letting it go and pretending that they hadn't just fired him. No, no, no,
let me make this as awkward as possible for you.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
You know what, the people with the people here asked
me to do the show. You know, I got to say,
I felt kind of weird.
Speaker 7 (04:57):
You know.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
I don't know if you remember this, but I used
to actually be on this show.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You know.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
I used to do the weekend update news routine. You
remember that, and uh, yeah, that's where I did the
make believe news jokes. You know that was me? Right. So,
then a year and a half ago, right, I had
a sort of a disagreement with the management at at
(05:22):
the NBC.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
I wanted to keep my job, right and they felt
the exact opposite. So so you see.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
They like they fired me because they said that I
wasn't funny. You know now, now, with most jobs, I
could have had a hell of a lawsuit on my
hands for that. But but see, this is a comedy show,
so they got me, you know, you know, you know.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
But now it was the weird part, right. It's only
a year and a half later, and now they asked
me to host the show. So I wondered, I go, hey,
wait a second here.
Speaker 7 (06:04):
Hey, I know, how did I go in a year
and a half from being not funny enough to be
even allowed in the building.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
To being so funny that I'm now hosting the show?
How did I suddenly get so damn funny? It was
inexplicable to me because a year and a half, let's face,
(06:41):
is not enough time for a dude to learn how
to be funny. Dan, it occurred to me, I haven't
gotten funnier. The show has gotten really bad. Yeah I'm funny.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Compared to you. Well you'll see later. Okay, so let's recap.
The bad news is I'm still not funny. The good
news is the show blows.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
All right, folks, we got a bad show for you tonight,
Doctor Dre Snook, Doggy Dog and whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
If you don't understand why I love that and why
he did that, you never will. And that's okay. It
doesn't make you a bad person, doesn't make you just
you don't get it. But if you understand why he
had to do that, then you're probably similar to that.
And I am as well forcing that difficult moments. It's
(07:49):
one of my favorite moments in all of comedy and
then all of Saturday Night Live beyond Saturday Night Live.
Norm McDonald appeared in TV shows, films like Dirty Work
with Chevy Chase. If you if you have Netflix, there
is a show called Norm MacDonald has a show or
something like that, and his interview with Chevy Chase, they're
(08:12):
very similar, is extraordinarily awkward and extraordinarily glorious, and he
talks about not Chevy Chase, Dave Chappelle. He was in
a Dirty Work Dave Chapelle. He did stand up specials.
He had a he had a rather unique voice and delivery,
(08:33):
and he would often mis pronounce words on purpose, including
his own name, and you had to really get him
to get him, and if you did, you knew that
he was making jokes that not everyone would get, and
there's a certain kind of almost hipster element to that.
You know, we get the joke.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
And I just said, you.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Know, which is which is one of his which was
one of his crutches. We get the joke.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Can I bet nobody else does? It makes you feel special.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
One of the programs he appeared on was CTV News
with Joy Malboon, and I think she's his sister in law.
I wasn't even really sure when I first saw this
if this thing was a parody or not. But it's
a straight interview. He never does anything straight. Everything is
kind of a character on Letterman on Conan O'Brien. But
(09:26):
the reason he's the subject of our muse this Saturday
Bonus podcast is a because I love him and I've
been going deep into his body of work. But b
he says some really interesting things about the fact that
Jimmy Kimmels and the Fallon and all these folks who
are out there bashing Trump, that that's the weakest form
(09:49):
of comedy.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Trump is so bad at lying.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
He lets the public immediately know you lie.
Speaker 7 (09:56):
If Trump ever had to take a lie detector test,
he'd probably just draw the crazy himself.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
I did not collude with Russia.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
Since he announced his candidacy, Donald Trump has been fodder
for late night hosts, and throughout his presidency they found
new material in his policy and speeches and all those tweets.
Riffing off Trump has become a ratings bonanza, and some
are hitting the president pretty hard, infusing their satire with
objection and analysis. But is their comedy in today's politics?
(10:30):
Joining me now from Santa Monica, California, Norm McDonald and now,
full disclosure, we've shared many off camera laughs. He's my
brother in law. So hello, Norm, Welcome to question period.
So comedy in the time of Trump is it more
difficult than it was when you were on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
It's more difficult in the time of Trump for good comedians,
and it's way easier for bad comedians. You know, have
a worldview by just saying you don't like Trump, you
know what I mean, that doesn't count. Like you can't
you can't just say I hate Trump and that makes
you a good person. And the Democrats just can't say
(11:14):
I hate Trump, and that means they have a position.
You know, that's no position. So so for for idiots,
it's an easier time because you go, well, that guy's
the idiot, not me. But if you try to do
smart comedy, it's better to stay away from stay away
(11:36):
from Trump.
Speaker 6 (11:37):
You know you met Donald Trump when he was on
the Tonight Show, on Jimmy Fallon Show. That now, tell
us about that encounter you had with Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Well, I met Donald Trump many many times in New
York City, just because when I was on the Saturday
Night Live, he was a fixture in New York City
and he come to a lot of the shows, and
he was just a local eccentric you know that people
mostly loved in New York because he fixed the rink
in Central Park when the city couldn't. But you know
(12:11):
when I was on Jimmy Fallon, he was. That's when
he was. That's when Jimmy Fallon tussled his hair and
and got in trouble for it. And I was the
other guest. So I was just down in the hallway
and I said, Donald, can I have a picture? You
could call him Donald? Then, I guess you can still
call him Donald. We don't have to call him president apparently.
But I said, can I get a picture with you?
(12:33):
And he said yeah, absolutely, sure, Norham. And then he
walked down the hall and got in the elevator with
a secret service guy. So but he was just doing
it as a joke. A lot of times. The problem
with Kennedy, said our political candidate said, do comedy is
(12:54):
obviously comedy doesn't translate well to the page sometimes, you know,
sarcasm has lost obviously and things like that. So if
someone says something that's meant self disparagingly or satirically and
(13:17):
you want to take it out of context, you can.
That happened at a lot of times with Trump on
the campaign trail.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
But you know he's being caricatured on Saturday Night Life,
like quite mercilessly by Alec Baldwin, Like is it funny
to you? Is that funny?
Speaker 3 (13:35):
No? The only reason I don't find funny. When I
was there, Darryl Hammond did Donald Trump and then shows
how far back Trump goes because that was twenty years ago.
But Daryl did him then it was a softer Trump.
You know, I think it was a Trump was a
lot closer to his real self. But if you do
the problem with if you do an impression of someone,
(13:57):
you have to like that person. You know, because you're
playing the person and people like themselves, so you can't
play someone and have contempt for them at the same time.
You know, it doesn't work as an impression. So I
don't like I don't like his impression. And I have
no political affiliation. I just mean from a comedy, from
(14:20):
a comedy.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
Level, where is the funny in Donald Trump? Because he
does think he's funny, right.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yes, but other people think he's funny too. I attended
one of his just to see, you know, because because
I wanted to see it for myself, his performances in
front of these grand halls, and he's enormously funny and entertaining.
And I don't know that there's normally with politicians. You know,
(14:55):
it takes you need to be humble, you know, to
be really funny. And I that's why Ronald Reagan was
the funniest president that IRIS saw, because he always had
this humility to him. I was kind of lost with
President Obama because people told me he was funny, but
to me, he was too self aware. And of course
Hillary couldn't have been more strident, you know. And I
(15:19):
think people don't vote on issues as much as they
just vote on who they'd like. That old saw about
who you'd rather have a beer with, you know, and
nobody want to have a beer with Hillary Clinton. You know.
Speaker 6 (15:31):
You say that he has to be that one person
has to be humble to be funny, But I don't
think Donald Trump is very humble, is he.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
No, there's no humility to Donald Trump. Donald Trump is
more funny in the way that a WWE wrestler is,
you know, So he is a different kind of funny,
which is a sort of a self deluded I don't
know if it's self delusion though, I don't know if
it's all I think it's just all an agg I
don't think really that Trump wanted to be president. I
(16:01):
think that he was always just playing to be president
or whatever that hall he was playing in was, you know.
And I've seen this happen with comedians too, that you
start thinking you're good because the people that come to
see you are all like you, you know, But the
reason they came to see is because they like you.
(16:21):
So politicians and comedians both that make that mistake of
thinking they're much better than they are because they're never
they're never criticized by the people that don't like them.
That's why social media is so good, because you can
see the people that don't like you at all.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
I listened to an interview you gave Larry King, and
you said the ruin of Donald Trump will be his
addiction to playing the halls.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Right.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
So he's a great performer. He just wanted to be
you like he wanted to be a stand up comedian,
and he just accidentally became a president.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
My guess would be that his plan was to to
make a big splash lose. Oh that's not good. What
should we do now, Joyce?
Speaker 6 (17:09):
I just don't answer. Okay, if it's.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Should I start answering that question again?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Sure? Yeah, I think him becoming president surprised him. I
think you know, it's it's funny that people don't remember.
But back in the debates, uh, there was.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
A big, big.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Issue with Donald Trump saying if he lost, it meant
the a look, are you kidding me?
Speaker 5 (17:40):
I know I that I did.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
One second. Hello, Yes, oh I got to call you back.
I'm on the TV, man. Yeah, I'm on the TV
right now.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
But I'll call you right back.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
Okay, I'm not gonna ask you the question again.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I feel that Trump person, I feel that he didn't
think he was going to become president. And interestingly, the
thing that people don't remember was that what I remember
was that during the debates, there was all this talk
of Donald Trump saying if he loses, it means the
(18:23):
election is rigged, and all the media were saying, no, no,
that's impossible. You know, take that back. You cannot say
that about the American Republic. No election here could ever
be rigged. That's impossible. And of course now they're saying
the exact opposite. But I think it was Trump's idea
at that point that he would say it was going
(18:45):
to be rigged, thinking he thought Hillary was going to win,
I think, and then he would start a you know,
a network or something like that where he could speak
and and be the loyal opposition of his own, you know,
something something different than Fox.
Speaker 6 (19:04):
Let me ask you this, So you're you're your Bob
Dole imitation was pretty famous back in the day. So
would you do Donald Trump today? Would you do a
Donald Trump imitation?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
I try to not do comedy about Donald Trump, because
I think I had one joke about Donald Trump that
I ever did, where I said that that that people
that Americans hated Hillary Clinton so much that they voted
(19:38):
for someone they hated more than Hillary Clinton to rub
it in. And that's the only time I ever made
a joke about Trump. But I try to stay away
from it because it's just, you know, it's low hanging fruit.
And and and also you know, Trump oftentimes is doing
self self parody, and nothing looks a dumber then if
(20:02):
your parody self parody, you know, you really get caught
not understanding.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
Zora McDonald. Thanks so much for being with us today,
for spending this time with us.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
It was great.
Speaker 6 (20:16):
Great to see.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
You, Great to see you. I love you, Joyce, love
you too.
Speaker 6 (20:21):
Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
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The Michael Barry Show.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
My favorites tend to change, and therefore I don't really
name favorites, but I would say right now, my favorite
comedian is Norm MacDonald. Norm McDonald is what I would
consider a fearless comic. He told jokes often, not only
knowing they would bomb, hoping they would bomb. He enjoyed
(00:24):
the discomfort. It was kind of an Andy Kaufman type
thing for him. It's an incredible show of power.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But he also had had an insight into the way
we think, the way we process our hypocrisy, our peacocky,
and that I always found quite fascinating and wonderful. Anyway,
he was a comedian, writer, actor. He was Canadian, as
(00:58):
so many great comedians and singers have been.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
He was known for what I would call a sharp
wit and a very dry delivery, and his humor was
shall we say, deadpan, And if it was a joke
that bombed, if it fell flat, he didn't address the
fact that it fell flat. He looked at you as
if to say, what are you going to do now?
(01:26):
It was a complete power move and I loved it.
You will remember him as rising to fame in the uh,
I guess that would have been the nineties. Yeah, early nineties,
because he's claimed to fame. Was was was his whole
OJ coverage. He was on Saturday Night Live, and he
was the anchor of Weekend Update, which has which has
(01:51):
launched some careers, starting of course with Chevy Chase. His
style was at that point biting. He was, he was,
he was really feeling his oats at that point. And
there was a guy named was it Norm Omeyer, Dave Olmeyer,
Ohmeyer's guy's name, and he was big buddies with OJ,
and he didn't want OJ to be talked about as
(02:12):
part of the jokes on Weekend Update. So Norm McDonald
would do it every week, sometimes multiple times, and they
finally called him in and said, look, you're gonna be
fired if you bring it up. And his point was
it has to be talked about, and he did and
they fired him.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
By the way, you can now purchase a bronze statue
of the jokes for only three three hundred and ninety
five dollars, and for an even five grand you can
buy one that Al Collings has kissed the ass of
According to retailer, is the most popular Halloween mass This
year is OJ Simpson and the most popular Halloween greeting
(02:52):
is I'll kill you and that guy who's bringing over
your glasses or treats. And the Pope came out of
the book this week, which contains a series of essays
examining faith and morality in today's secular world and the
changing role of the Catholic Church as it approaches the
(03:14):
twenty first century. The book is entitled God Himself told
Me that OJ is Guilty. In other book news, Prince
Charles released an autobiography in which he states that he
never loved Princess Die and that his father pressured him
to marry her. The book is entitled of Course OJ
did it?
Speaker 5 (03:32):
I mean, come on. In his book, O. J.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Simpson says that he would have taken a bullet or
stood in front of a train for Nicole Man. I'm
gonna tell you, that is some bad luck. When the
one guy who would have died for you kills you.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
That's part of.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
You.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Don't get worse luck than that.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
And OJ announced this week that he's coming out with
a new book called I Want to Tell You and
if it's successful, OJ will work on yet another book
entitled From Football to prison my twenty five years of
showering with other men. And finally, in honor of the
(04:19):
fiftieth anniversary of their first publication, Random House will be
releasing special commemorative issues of many Doctor Seuss classics. The
first to hit the bookshelves will be Green Eggs and
Ham and oj is Guilty.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And what I love about this is didn't they bring
him back? A year? Year and a half later they
bring him back to guest host And instead of just
letting it go and pretending that they hadn't just fired him. No, no, no,
let me make this as awkward as possible for you.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
You know what, the people with the people here asked
me to do the show. You know, I got to say,
I felt kind of weird.
Speaker 7 (04:57):
You know.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
I don't know if you remember this, but I used
to actually be on this show.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You know.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
I used to do the weekend update news routine. You
remember that, and uh, yeah, that's where I did the
make believe news jokes. You know that was me? Right. So,
then a year and a half ago, right, I had
a sort of a disagreement with the management at at
(05:22):
the NBC.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
I wanted to keep my job, right and they felt
the exact opposite. So so you see.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
They like they fired me because they said that I
wasn't funny. You know now, now, with most jobs, I
could have had a hell of a lawsuit on my
hands for that. But but see, this is a comedy show,
so they got me, you know, you know, you know.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
But now it was the weird part, right. It's only
a year and a half later, and now they asked
me to host the show. So I wondered, I go, hey,
wait a second here.
Speaker 7 (06:04):
Hey, I know, how did I go in a year
and a half from being not funny enough to be
even allowed in the building.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
To being so funny that I'm now hosting the show?
How did I suddenly get so damn funny? It was
inexplicable to me because a year and a half, let's face,
(06:41):
is not enough time for a dude to learn how
to be funny. Dan, it occurred to me, I haven't
gotten funnier. The show has gotten really bad. Yeah I'm funny.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Compared to you. Well you'll see later. Okay, so let's recap.
The bad news is I'm still not funny. The good
news is the show blows.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
All right, folks, we got a bad show for you tonight,
Doctor Dre Snook, Doggy Dog and whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
If you don't understand why I love that and why
he did that, you never will. And that's okay. It
doesn't make you a bad person, doesn't make you just
you don't get it. But if you understand why he
had to do that, then you're probably similar to that.
And I am as well forcing that difficult moments. It's
(07:49):
one of my favorite moments in all of comedy and
then all of Saturday Night Live beyond Saturday Night Live.
Norm McDonald appeared in TV shows, films like Dirty Work
with Chevy Chase. If you if you have Netflix, there
is a show called Norm MacDonald has a show or
something like that, and his interview with Chevy Chase, they're
(08:12):
very similar, is extraordinarily awkward and extraordinarily glorious, and he
talks about not Chevy Chase, Dave Chappelle. He was in
a Dirty Work Dave Chapelle. He did stand up specials.
He had a he had a rather unique voice and delivery,
(08:33):
and he would often mis pronounce words on purpose, including
his own name, and you had to really get him
to get him, and if you did, you knew that
he was making jokes that not everyone would get, and
there's a certain kind of almost hipster element to that.
You know, we get the joke.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
And I just said, you.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Know, which is which is one of his which was
one of his crutches. We get the joke.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Can I bet nobody else does? It makes you feel special.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
One of the programs he appeared on was CTV News
with Joy Malboon, and I think she's his sister in law.
I wasn't even really sure when I first saw this
if this thing was a parody or not. But it's
a straight interview. He never does anything straight. Everything is
kind of a character on Letterman on Conan O'Brien. But
(09:26):
the reason he's the subject of our muse this Saturday
Bonus podcast is a because I love him and I've
been going deep into his body of work. But b
he says some really interesting things about the fact that
Jimmy Kimmels and the Fallon and all these folks who
are out there bashing Trump, that that's the weakest form
(09:49):
of comedy.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Trump is so bad at lying.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
He lets the public immediately know you lie.
Speaker 7 (09:56):
If Trump ever had to take a lie detector test,
he'd probably just draw the crazy himself.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
I did not collude with Russia.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
Since he announced his candidacy, Donald Trump has been fodder
for late night hosts, and throughout his presidency they found
new material in his policy and speeches and all those tweets.
Riffing off Trump has become a ratings bonanza, and some
are hitting the president pretty hard, infusing their satire with
objection and analysis. But is their comedy in today's politics?
(10:30):
Joining me now from Santa Monica, California, Norm McDonald and now,
full disclosure, we've shared many off camera laughs. He's my
brother in law. So hello, Norm, Welcome to question period.
So comedy in the time of Trump is it more
difficult than it was when you were on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
It's more difficult in the time of Trump for good comedians,
and it's way easier for bad comedians. You know, have
a worldview by just saying you don't like Trump, you
know what I mean, that doesn't count. Like you can't
you can't just say I hate Trump and that makes
you a good person. And the Democrats just can't say
(11:14):
I hate Trump, and that means they have a position.
You know, that's no position. So so for for idiots,
it's an easier time because you go, well, that guy's
the idiot, not me. But if you try to do
smart comedy, it's better to stay away from stay away
(11:36):
from Trump.
Speaker 6 (11:37):
You know you met Donald Trump when he was on
the Tonight Show, on Jimmy Fallon Show. That now, tell
us about that encounter you had with Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Well, I met Donald Trump many many times in New
York City, just because when I was on the Saturday
Night Live, he was a fixture in New York City
and he come to a lot of the shows, and
he was just a local eccentric you know that people
mostly loved in New York because he fixed the rink
in Central Park when the city couldn't. But you know
(12:11):
when I was on Jimmy Fallon, he was. That's when
he was. That's when Jimmy Fallon tussled his hair and
and got in trouble for it. And I was the
other guest. So I was just down in the hallway
and I said, Donald, can I have a picture? You
could call him Donald? Then, I guess you can still
call him Donald. We don't have to call him president apparently.
But I said, can I get a picture with you?
(12:33):
And he said yeah, absolutely, sure, Norham. And then he
walked down the hall and got in the elevator with
a secret service guy. So but he was just doing
it as a joke. A lot of times. The problem
with Kennedy, said our political candidate said, do comedy is
(12:54):
obviously comedy doesn't translate well to the page sometimes, you know,
sarcasm has lost obviously and things like that. So if
someone says something that's meant self disparagingly or satirically and
(13:17):
you want to take it out of context, you can.
That happened at a lot of times with Trump on
the campaign trail.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
But you know he's being caricatured on Saturday Night Life,
like quite mercilessly by Alec Baldwin, Like is it funny
to you? Is that funny?
Speaker 3 (13:35):
No? The only reason I don't find funny. When I
was there, Darryl Hammond did Donald Trump and then shows
how far back Trump goes because that was twenty years ago.
But Daryl did him then it was a softer Trump.
You know, I think it was a Trump was a
lot closer to his real self. But if you do
the problem with if you do an impression of someone,
(13:57):
you have to like that person. You know, because you're
playing the person and people like themselves, so you can't
play someone and have contempt for them at the same time.
You know, it doesn't work as an impression. So I
don't like I don't like his impression. And I have
no political affiliation. I just mean from a comedy, from
(14:20):
a comedy.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
Level, where is the funny in Donald Trump? Because he
does think he's funny, right.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yes, but other people think he's funny too. I attended
one of his just to see, you know, because because
I wanted to see it for myself, his performances in
front of these grand halls, and he's enormously funny and entertaining.
And I don't know that there's normally with politicians. You know,
(14:55):
it takes you need to be humble, you know, to
be really funny. And I that's why Ronald Reagan was
the funniest president that IRIS saw, because he always had
this humility to him. I was kind of lost with
President Obama because people told me he was funny, but
to me, he was too self aware. And of course
Hillary couldn't have been more strident, you know. And I
(15:19):
think people don't vote on issues as much as they
just vote on who they'd like. That old saw about
who you'd rather have a beer with, you know, and
nobody want to have a beer with Hillary Clinton. You know.
Speaker 6 (15:31):
You say that he has to be that one person
has to be humble to be funny, But I don't
think Donald Trump is very humble, is he.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
No, there's no humility to Donald Trump. Donald Trump is
more funny in the way that a WWE wrestler is,
you know, So he is a different kind of funny,
which is a sort of a self deluded I don't
know if it's self delusion though, I don't know if
it's all I think it's just all an agg I
don't think really that Trump wanted to be president. I
(16:01):
think that he was always just playing to be president
or whatever that hall he was playing in was, you know.
And I've seen this happen with comedians too, that you
start thinking you're good because the people that come to
see you are all like you, you know, But the
reason they came to see is because they like you.
(16:21):
So politicians and comedians both that make that mistake of
thinking they're much better than they are because they're never
they're never criticized by the people that don't like them.
That's why social media is so good, because you can
see the people that don't like you at all.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
I listened to an interview you gave Larry King, and
you said the ruin of Donald Trump will be his
addiction to playing the halls.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Right.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
So he's a great performer. He just wanted to be
you like he wanted to be a stand up comedian,
and he just accidentally became a president.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
My guess would be that his plan was to to
make a big splash lose. Oh that's not good. What
should we do now, Joyce?
Speaker 6 (17:09):
I just don't answer. Okay, if it's.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Should I start answering that question again?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Sure? Yeah, I think him becoming president surprised him. I
think you know, it's it's funny that people don't remember.
But back in the debates, uh, there was.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
A big, big.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Issue with Donald Trump saying if he lost, it meant
the a look, are you kidding me?
Speaker 5 (17:40):
I know I that I did.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
One second. Hello, Yes, oh I got to call you back.
I'm on the TV, man. Yeah, I'm on the TV
right now.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
But I'll call you right back.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
Okay, I'm not gonna ask you the question again.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I feel that Trump person, I feel that he didn't
think he was going to become president. And interestingly, the
thing that people don't remember was that what I remember
was that during the debates, there was all this talk
of Donald Trump saying if he loses, it means the
(18:23):
election is rigged, and all the media were saying, no, no,
that's impossible. You know, take that back. You cannot say
that about the American Republic. No election here could ever
be rigged. That's impossible. And of course now they're saying
the exact opposite. But I think it was Trump's idea
at that point that he would say it was going
(18:45):
to be rigged, thinking he thought Hillary was going to win,
I think, and then he would start a you know,
a network or something like that where he could speak
and and be the loyal opposition of his own, you know,
something something different than Fox.
Speaker 6 (19:04):
Let me ask you this, So you're you're your Bob
Dole imitation was pretty famous back in the day. So
would you do Donald Trump today? Would you do a
Donald Trump imitation?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
I try to not do comedy about Donald Trump, because
I think I had one joke about Donald Trump that
I ever did, where I said that that that people
that Americans hated Hillary Clinton so much that they voted
(19:38):
for someone they hated more than Hillary Clinton to rub
it in. And that's the only time I ever made
a joke about Trump. But I try to stay away
from it because it's just, you know, it's low hanging fruit.
And and and also you know, Trump oftentimes is doing
self self parody, and nothing looks a dumber then if
(20:02):
your parody self parody, you know, you really get caught
not understanding.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
Zora McDonald. Thanks so much for being with us today,
for spending this time with us.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
It was great.
Speaker 6 (20:16):
Great to see.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
You, Great to see you. I love you, Joyce, love
you too.
Speaker 6 (20:21):
Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
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(20:44):
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Podcast is produced by Ramon Roebliss, The King of Ding.
Executive producer is Chad Knakanishi, Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(21:08):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery, and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our
assistant listener and super fan. Contributions are appreciated and often
incorporated into our production. Where possible, we give credit, where not,
(21:31):
we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the
memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple
man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
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Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
(21:56):
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