Seth Meyers shows the time Norm Macdonald took over a Blake Griffin press conference
Letterman's not the only comic to derail an NBA Q&A
TV News Blake Griffin
NBA all-star and new Brooklyn Net Blake Griffin dropped by Late Night With Seth Meyers on Monday, and while the host and the hoop legend talked some basketball (Griffin loves New York, the Nets organization, the fans, etc), the two spent some time talking comedy. Specifically, the time that the late Norm MacDonald crashed then-rookie Griffin’s 2010 Rookie Of The Year Press Conference. And while Griffin was then a Clipper, it took David Letterman’s intentionally dumb questions to fellow Net Kevin Durant this week for someone to dig up the old clip of Norm asking his own deadpan nonsense question to Griffin.
In the clip, Macdonald is shown surprising Griffin by grabbing the NBA TV mic and asking the newly crowned Rookie Of The Year what Meyers termed “a perfect Norm Macdonald joke.” With the real reporters tittering nervously around him, MacDonald deadpans to Griffin, “There’s kind of a curse with Rookie Of The Year—nobody’s ever repeated it.” Griffin, recalling his surprise at seeing “the funniest guy ever” in the press scrum, did some decent deadpanning himself at Norm’s implied challenge, replying that, while he hadn’t thought about that fact, he’d try his best next season.
For noted stand-up fan Griffin, his warm acquaintanceship with Macdonald saw the NBA star recalling how Macdonald invited him on his Comedy Central show, and how Norm, in turn, appeared at a charity event hosted by Griffin. (That said, Griffin chose Adam Sandler in response to Meyers’ question of which comedian most closely approximates Griffin’s game.) Agreeing with Meyers that Macdonald’s was “a perfect joke that has been there for the taking, forever,” Griffin revealed himself to be yet another of us mourning the too-soon death of the former SNL star with appreciative laughter. As for Griffin himself, Meyers asked about noted ref-baiter Griffin’s on-court feuds with those darn referees, with Griffin admitting that he’s transformed his prior line of ref taunting into a more collegial brand of gentle joshing. Someone will have to ask the hard-working NBA referee corps if it’s better or worse that the cheeky power forward has shifted from outright abuse to a running series of “ref-based puns.”
18 Comments
God damn it, he was great…
watched multiple specials over the weekend and finally checked out his netflix show, which is just so dumb and great. i’m pretty much just gonna punch norm standup into youtube every weekend and laugh my ass off for the foreseeable future.
Yep. It’s the closest I can come to an example of “good” trolling.
Here’s the link for the archive of all of his podcasts:https://archive.org/details/Norm_Macdonald_Live
On the subject of Letterman, the AV Clib really should put together a tribute memorializing his announcer Alan Kalter. So sad to hear of his passing. He was always one of the best parts of Letterman’s Late Show, especially in the later years.
That guy was fearless. “And that’s where Big Red comes in…”
Oh shit no way! That sucks. Just a couple weeks ago I was in a youtube rabbit hole, watching clips of him on The Late Show. I ended up looking into where he was now and what he was doing. Damn. Not much now I guess?
Don Giller is working on it as we speak. This is a very nice guy whose Patreon is worth supporting, who curates a massive treasure trove of old Letterman footage he collected over the years into YouTube gold.
“You know if you want to be really funny ask yourself, what would make Seth Meyers laugh.” -Norm Macdonald
Of course he was being sarcastic but hey.
Is the Sports Show segment available online?
It really was a funny show (and introduced the world to Kyle Mooney.)
Norm really wanted that Late Late Show gig, but CBS really wanted a different direction.
Yes they are on youtube as well as “Norm”, and “A Minute with Stan Hooper”. The video quality of that last one though not being the greatest.
After the delightful Craigy Ferg, I assume? That’d have been an acceptable replacement. Rather than that bloated british twat they have now.
Yup!
Only kinda related: Blake Griffin’s standup is actually better than I ever could have expected. It’s not great, but I’ve definitely seen much worse.
This hit YouTube on Sunday. I like it a lot.
“Derailed” a press conference? Most people didn’t get the joke or appear to even know who was speaking, or, didn’t who Norm Macdonald was. It was a great joke though, classic Norm Macdonald, but all it did was get some awkward chuckles from “sports journalists” – two words that should never be used together.
Check out Joe Posnanski, who is the best thing going in sports journalism at the moment — thoughtful, funny, readable, relatable. Just a supremely gifted writer.
The whole “lol sportsball journalism??” thing is a bit tired.