The turn of the millennium was a heady time. There was the Y2K bug and a change in American presidents to worry about, Creed was a legitimate force in pop culture, and, most importantly, those damn kids couldn’t stop talking about their damn Pokémon. Pokémania was spreading so quickly, in fact, that even Norm MacDonald—who’s never seemed one for cartoon monsters—took part in it on an episode of his old sitcom, The Norm Show.
If this seems unbelievable, watch the above clip, taken from the third episode of the show’s second season back in 1999, to see just how fully MacDonald commits to the scene. In it, MacDonald (who plays an amateur social worker) confronts a boy about how he spends all his time watching the Pokémon cartoon and running “around the city trying to capture these so-called creatures.”
The boy, dressed up in a full-on Ash Ketchum costume, soon gets into an argument with MacDonald, flips his ball cap backwards, and summons a Pikachu—which looks to be a big child or small adult decked out in an oversized plush suit. Though it seems too good to be true, MacDonald responds in kind.
“Surprise! For I, too, am a Pokey-mon trainer!” he says.
Anime-style flashes of light surround MacDonald’s face and a guy with blue face paint, standing uncomfortably in a Squirtle costume, appears to recite some painful jokes.
“I’ll be in my shell,” Squirtle says as the kid threatens him. “You tell me how it works out.”
There are some pretty-impressive-for-a-sitcom special effects as Pikachu fires an electric bolt and MacDonald recites lines like “Quit hiding, you’re a fighting Pokey-mon!” before throwing out Laurie Metcalf in a purple bodysuit. The jokes, such as turning Squirtle into soup, are terrible, but the costumes are surprisingly detailed and, really, seeing Norm MacDonald having to participate in a Pokémon battle to earn his paycheck is enough on its own.
An extremely brief Wikipedia summary of the episode—”Artie Comes To Town”—explains that it’s mostly about “Norm’s brother (Artie Lange) [visiting] him,” but adds a special, italicized note that “There is a Pokémon scene at the start of the episode.” There sure is, and it’s time the world remembered.
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24 Comments
Squirtle? I figured he would’ve chosen a Normal type.
I watched this show religiously and I have zero memory of this episode. Is this an elaborate scam, like when that dude convinced Reddit and IMDB there was a girl Street Shark? Anyhow Norm rocks, he’s the only conservative comedian who’s actually funny as opposed to just a gross old man complaining about kids.
I’ll be in my shell of my former self.
Jesus, I remember watching this when it aired. I think there was even an intro to this bit from Norm stating that they wanted to do something “for the kids” so the entire pre-title sequence would be kid-friendly before going into the normal show.
Whenever Norm MacDonald comes up I take the chance to post the greatest joke ever…t
Whenever Norm MacDonald comes up I take the chance to post the greatest joke ever…And I do the same with his ESPYs hosting gig.
Norm is just so fucking hilarious. Best delivery in the business for my money.
jesus christ that’s brilliant
When did social workers go free-lance?
Wasn’t Julie from the comic/animated series The Maxx also a freelance social worker? Maybe it was just a 90’s thing.
The idea was that he was a former hockey player who was thrown out of the league for illegal gambling and then busted for tax evasion, so the judge ordered him to work as a social worker as punishment.Yep, the show’s premise was basically the “What if the judge sentenced him to be my butler?” fake sitcom pitch from Seinfeld. It was kind of perfect, in that Norm MacDonald speeds past moronic and back around to hilarious sort of way.
How many Oscar nominees have dressed up as children’s cartoon characters before?
There’s an entire page devoted to the costumes of a certain Oscar Winner.
https://community-sitcom.fandom.com/wiki/Dean_Pelton%27s_outfits
Robert Downey Jr., Ian McKellan, Ben Kingsley,…
Any of the MCU actors who happen to ahve nominations.I know they were comic books, but many had their own shows -Iron Mean, X-Men, etc…
I’d love to listen to an oral history podcast about A Minute with Stan Hooper, another one of Norm’s sitcoms that was cancelled after 6 episodes. Apparently there was this whole plan for the show to take a huge dark twist as Stan figured out his wife had been murdered (or something). That would have been insane to watch play out on network television in 2000 without the same kind of instant-reaction internet media we have now.
Dang, Great Job Internet. You have… clips of old shows?
This is quality archival footage that I, nor any of my Norm MacDonald / Pokemon-minded friends, had ever seen before. It’s a true find.
Norm is a staunch defender in other rapey comedians so fuck him
Why, why am I able to clearly remember this dumb scene from a sit-com episode I haven’t seen in 20 years but I can’t remember important information for my job that I learned three days ago?
Wow I can’t even believe the full clip. Amazing.
I’ve had this clip saved for decades. Was always impressed by it because they actually did their damn research into what the Pokémon looked like and what their abilities were, as well as what the anime actually looked like.
Oh, Norm. You’ll never be a Poke-Master by countering an Electric-type Pikachu with your Water-type Squirtle!
I just signed off PoGo to go to bed and said that’s enough Pokemon for tonight….oh how naiive I was.
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