She feels like an actor who I must have been watching and loving for years, before she played Rita, but looking at her past credits, I realize I either never watched any of the shows she was on or wouldn’t have noticed her. But sometimes it takes an actor to really find a role that shows off their talents. (I’m sure…

April Bowlby is a fucking riot as Rita Farr. Every other line is camp perfection. She’s so effortlessly, hilariously great that I don’t know if I’d recognize her even if I’d seen her in stuff before.

When I first watched Doom Patrol I was blown away by April Bowlby, who is so good at the mid-20th century prissy actress thing and whom I didn’t know at all. I looked her up and couldn’t believe she was best known for wearing bikinis on Two and a Half Men. I guess it’s a rare case of someone breaking through …

Sample bias.

Sample bias.

I saw Norm in a small community theatre in British Columbia. Throughout his entire set he held a cigarette and lighter. While he was going through his material he would bring the cigarette to his mouth and come real close to lighting it. You could sense the audience getting real nervous about it. Just when you’d think…

For some reason, this passing has affected me much more than any in the past decade...

I’d say it falls a hair shy because he told the tamest jokes imaginable in a place where you’re specifically expected to tell the meanest ones. That adds an extra layer of straightforward bait-and-switch humor beyond the normal “you thought I was going to be funny but I wasn’t” anti-comedy thing.

He’s right though. I use to watch a lot of Dateline NBC and other murder docs, and it’s always amazed me, way before I heard that joke, how bad murderers are at disposing of bodies, which is a really important part of getting away with murder.

My all time favorite non-OJ joke by Norm on Weekend Update:

I knew one of Joey Buttafouco’s nephews, also named Joey Buttafouco. He was pretty quiet about it. Seeing his full name on an EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK board still makes me giggle.

“You can’t hear laughter through a TV screen.”

Yep. He liked busting balls, and could do so in such a way that he could turn people. Any balls. 

Ya dirty dog!

To be a good comedian, you have to have a good amount of intelligence. More smarts than the average person. That’s what allows you to see concepts, interactions, life situations from different POVs and can find the humor in it necessary to perform the craft well. Norm’s smarts though go well beyond what’s necessary.…

how did Norm die? You guessed it:

“Norm Macdonald didn’t present himself like the tortured artist who bore his soul to the audience. He wasn’t a soothsayer or a martyr, a free-speech crusader or a social justice warrior. He was simply a comedian, one who knew how to make people laugh with the slightest nudge, the mere suggestion of a pause.”

I remember his OJ jokes quite well.  Fred Goldmen got in a shouting match with OJ saying don't give me that look.  I wasn't looking at you, your just mad I killed your son.

The thing with Norm is he could take the most unfunny joke no matter what it is and make it hilarious. That’s what made his comedy great.

He was a master at telling a joke, he could take something not funny on paper and make it hilarious. You can tell what comedians need something crafted and which ones can just be funny by sheer force of will