Wayne Federman On Making The Norm Macdonald Documentary & Why Norm Will Last Forever

Adam Carolla Show

Adam Carolla and guest Wayne Federman discuss the upcoming Netflix documentary "Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald," exploring how Norm's carefully crafted naive persona masked a deeply sophisticated comedic genius. They analyze why certain

Key takeaways

• Wayne Federman co-produced/executive produced "Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald," which drops on Netflix October 16th.
• Carolla and Federman argue that Norm's "naive" stage persona was a deliberate, brilliant comedic device rather than actual ignorance.

Main topics

• Norm Macdonald documentary
• Stand-up comedy personas and longevity

Notable quotes

"You can say anything you want. It's kind of a thing that I want to tell Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom. You can talk about fourth largest economy... People are leaving. If they leave, that's a bad sign for your city."

Conclusion

The episode blends behind-the-scenes documentary insights with sharp comed

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:00) Wayne Fetterman, very funny stand-up comedian, and just finished that Norm doc that's out. Well, coming out. I saw it. Anyway, we'll talk to him about that, and we'll do the news with Rudy right after this. BetOnline. Hey, it's Adam Carolla from The Adam Carolla Show. Football season is here, and BetOnline is where the action lives. Competitive odds, spreads, totals, player props, and same game. parlay's. Live betting keeps you in it from the opening drive to the final whistle. And when the clock runs out, hundreds of slots, table games, and live dealers while they're waiting. Enjoy the freedom of online gaming where the action moves with you and every moment is yours. Visit BetOnline today and discover where the action never stops. Speaker 5 (0:53) In this life, you can't win. When Speaker 8 (0:55) the world gets you down. Speaker 5 (0:56) No! Escape to Pluto TV. This is objectively fantastic. Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love all for free. Swing! Even our news is uplifting. You stay classy, San Diego. Watch School of Rock, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The X-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more. We're not... The best things on TV really are free. You just have to know where to look. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never. Speaker 5 (1:30) From Corolla One Studios in Glendale, California, this is The Adam Corolla Show. Adam's guest today, actor, comedian, Wayne Fetterman. Plus the news with Rudy Povich. And now, Adam Corolla. Speaker 4 (1:45) Yeah, get it on. Got to get it on. No Speaker 1 (1:47) choice but to get it on. Speaker 8 (1:48) Mandate. Get it on. Thanks for telling a friend. Love that about you. Wayne Fetterman is here. Wayne. Well, lots to talk about with Wayne, but the Norm Dock, the tale. of Norm MacDonald, which will be out on the 16th of October, coming up on Netflix. Nice job, Wayne. Thank you. Thank you. People know Wayne as a stand-up. They know Wayne as a guy from, I don't know, Curb Your Enthusiasm, lots of acting roles as well. Teaches stand-up as well. Yes, in a book. Teaches the history of stand-up. In the history. Told me before the show started that Seinfeld first comedian. Billionaire. It's in the book. It's in the book. The first. Mom's Mabley wasn't a billionaire. She Speaker 2 (2:36) did not. She Speaker 8 (2:36) was very close. She must have gotten really. Speaker 2 (2:38) Yeah, very wealthy. Charlie Callis came close. Gunganin. People. Speaker 8 (2:44) Well, you can speak about this. We'll get to Norm. When we were kids, we would watch TV and guys. And comedians had their shtick and they had like their, you know, they had their version of get her done or, you know, your redneck or whatever. Right. And so they had guys and you'd see them on like Miller Lite commercials or you'd see them on Tony Orlando and Don, you know, Variety Hour or something. And they do things like, what's his name? Well, you don't have to call me Johnny. You can call me Speaker 2 (3:15) Donnie. Yeah, yeah, that guy. Speaker 8 (3:17) Wow. And it like. The Miller Lite commercial was 60 seconds. And so the guy would come up and go, Johnny. And I'd go, you don't have to call me Johnny. You don't have to call me Bobby. You don't have to. And they'd go, okay, that was the guy's shtick. Or, let's see, Avery Shriver and Burns. By the way, Speaker 2 (3:40) Burns was a comedy partner with George Carlin. Speaker 8 (3:43) Carlin. Did you know Speaker 2 (3:44) that? Yeah. Speaker 8 (3:45) No, Speaker 2 (3:45) I did not. Yeah. But that's why you're here. Speaker 8 (3:47) But they had a thing, and it was like, it was a patter, but it also was a rhythm. No, huh? Yeah. But then I start thinking back on it and go, but if you book these guys as headliners for an hour, and that's how much you do as a headliner, you do an hour. How was, you don't have to call me Johnny. Well, that guy. How does that Speaker 2 (4:10) work? I don't know if that gentleman, I don't know that gentleman's name, but that was more like a little schtick thing that caught on. Almost like that dude that used to speak really fast on the FedEx commercials. You remember that guy? Yes, Speaker 8 (4:24) yes. Speaker 2 (4:24) But for Burns and Schreiber, I assume they were mainly like opening act for Dionne Warwick. Oh, right. That Speaker 8 (4:34) would Speaker 2 (4:34) be my guess. Speaker 8 (4:35) So they do about 15. 20 minutes in Vegas, in Speaker 2 (4:38) Reno, in a place called Tahoe. Tahoe. Have you played Speaker 8 (4:42) there? I've played everywhere. As you know, when you have one of the best acts, Speaker 2 (4:47) the best bits, any comedian, according Speaker 8 (4:50) to the billionaire comedian, then you travel. Congratulations on the Norm doc. Thank you. Thank Speaker 2 (4:57) you. Speaker 8 (4:58) I sent a text to Judd saying how great I thought it was. I know you're executive producer on it. I don't know exactly how that works. I know Judd is now becoming the keeper, the archivist of all the comedians and all the materials. And he's sort of right back where he started as a teenager. 100%. Full Speaker 2 (5:16) circle. Speaker 8 (5:16) Full circle, right? Yeah, no, Speaker 2 (5:18) you got it. Speaker 8 (5:19) And Speaker 2 (5:19) it was a Speaker 8 (5:19) great, you know, I mean. Speaker 8 (5:23) There are certain things, like I've made docs, and it's like you're making a doc about the first black race car driver ever to go to India, and I would just go, look, if we fuck this up, that's on us because there's so much good stuff. It's so perfect that all you can do is fuck it up. Like all you can do is fuck up a Norm Macdonald documentary because it's so much great. Did we come close to fucking it up? It's great, and I'll tell you the thing. I watch the entire thing on my phone and it's two hours plus. And so you can tell whether a doc is good or a song is good or anything, any piece of entertainment. Any piece of entertainment is good by you watch it on your phone and it either holds your interest or it doesn't because there's a thousand other things to watch and do. And I'm watching it on my phone. sitting in front of an 80-inch TV that's on pause. Speaker 2 (6:17) Right. Speaker 8 (6:18) Right. So the second this thing slows down or kind of makes you go, okay, I heard that one before, then you pause that and turn the TV back, put SportsCenter back on. So you can say anything you want. It's kind of a thing that I want to tell Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom. You can talk about fourth largest economy. You can talk about whatever you want. People are leaving. If they leave, that's a bad sign for your city. If they come into your city, that's a good sign for your city. And this doc did not. I watched. It's over two hours. I watched the first hour just before I went to bed. And I was like, time to go to bed. And then the next day immediately got back, watched a second plus hour. And also did that thing when you're watching a really good piece of art, doc, movie, whatever. pause it well i just mean a entertainment something that is meant to capture you whatever that is a human being right you if you stop it and go oh there's only 14 minutes left and you go i wish there was like an hour left you know like i want more of this that's that's uh And you can do that with a good movie. You can just stop in the middle of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and go, oh, there's an hour and 12 minutes left. That's good. I do like that movie a lot. So this is a really good doc, and it's really well crafted and everything. And, of course, Judd and you guys are going to do a great job on this. But then it's Norm because, you know, telling great Norm stories and jokes, and you can't go wrong. Speaker 2 (7:48) Yeah, I mean, obviously you knew him rather well. Yeah, Speaker 8 (7:52) I will say this about Norm. I don't know. You know, I don't know if you really could know him well. A lot of those, like, how well could you know Gilbert Godfrey? How well could you know Norm? Andy Kaufman. How well could you know Andy Kaufman? How well can you know Stephen Wright? Like, I don't know. Like, you can know Jay Leno well, but I don't. I don't claim I knew Norm. I've seen Norm a lot and I had some good times and great conversations with Norm. But I never claimed to know him well because I don't know that he would let anyone know him well. Can Speaker 2 (8:34) we talk about the title of the documentary? Yes. The tale. Right. And that's exactly what we're getting at. Speaker 8 (8:42) Right. He went to college. He didn't go to college. He went to Speaker 2 (8:46) two different colleges. Went to two different colleges. He Speaker 8 (8:48) was the Jim Morrison of comedy. Speaker 2 (8:52) I was thinking more of Dylan because Dylan was very much a fabulist about where he came from. Well, Speaker 8 (8:58) yes. Jim Morrison's dad was a rear admiral for the Navy, and he said he died. Right. Now, I guess in 1967, it wasn't cool to have a dad in the Gulf of Tonkin, like firing at Vietnamese people. But his dad was a rear admiral, which is a pretty high place to get in the Navy and a great name for a gay bar by the wharf. But Speaker 1 (9:23) he just said he's dead. That Speaker 2 (9:25) was it. Right. Doesn't he scream in a song, kill your dad or something like that? I think there's some. Speaker 8 (9:31) It was a great, like he wanted to fuck his mom and kill his dad. Yeah. It was great. But Speaker 1 (9:37) to be fair, if you'd asked Admiral Morrison about his son, he'd be like, he died. He didn't want any of his buddies knowing that freak show was his son either. Speaker 8 (9:48) It was probably a two-way street. Me and my dad had that relationship too. Really? No. Speaker 2 (9:54) Your dad was in the military? Was Speaker 8 (9:56) your dad Pershing? Yes, General. Admiral Pershing. So, yeah, Norm had a—you didn't know what was true and what wasn't true. That's a little bit in our doc. Speaker 2 (10:09) Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that we try to—as opposed to, we're going to do deep dive investigative reporter every year of his life. What actually happened, that's not what this is at all. This is— his life through what he said, which was often very contradictory. Speaker 8 (10:29) Yeah. And I think in a weird way, I guess he kind of liked it that way because it helped him tell his jokes because he could say, I was doing this or I was doing that. And, you know, when you're telling a joke, it helps. He actually sort of maybe thought he was doing it. The line was blurry between reality and jokes. Family and college and everything else. But Speaker 1 (10:51) he still, Speaker 8 (10:51) at Speaker 2 (10:51) the heart of it, had to write material like a comedian. Like at the heart of it all, he still had to write those bits. Speaker 8 (10:59) It was, you know, the thing that's a little interesting about Norm is you do, he was sliding into a character a little bit. you know, when you would see him on Letterman going, so this fella, you know, says. Right, the Speaker 2 (11:14) anachronistic language. Yes, Speaker 8 (11:16) yes, and kind of little Canadian stuff and a little stuff. Like he was kind of putting it on a little bit. The reality is he was, you know, really sophisticated, smart, and bright guy. But played dumb. Speaker 8 (11:32) You know what he played? He played naive. Right, right, right. You know, he kind of said so, you know, he would, anachronistic stuff. Yeah, he would play, yeah, he wouldn't play dumb. He'd play. What? What? Like kind of what's going on? Like, why can't I say this? Or isn't this what's happening now? Like he'd go on The View and say the Clintons are killers, you know, and they'd be like, what? He'd be like, what? Why? You don't Speaker 1 (11:57) know Speaker 8 (11:57) this? I thought everyone knew this. Right. So that's not really playing dumb. It's sort of it's playing naive or innocent or something. Do Speaker 2 (12:05) you think Speaker 8 (12:05) he Speaker 2 (12:05) did that when he did the roast? Speaker 8 (12:08) Well, the roast was kind of interesting because he didn't want – I think in a weird way Norm is a little bit of a gentleman in his own way. I don't think it sat right to him to do what we do now in roasts. And so he just took jokes from a joke book his dad gave him or so he said and just went out there and just sort of told Dixie Riddle Cup jokes, you know, with Saget I guess it was. Speaker 2 (12:34) Yeah. Speaker 8 (12:35) And Saget was always a super nice guy, so I think he probably didn't want to be mean. Speaker 2 (12:40) Yeah, and in the room it didn't kill, but then when it was cut down, the concept of it became almost legendary, in my opinion. I don't know how you felt, or you felt like you just like, I'm just going to abdicate and just do the simplest 50s. Speaker 8 (12:59) I don't study the genre as closely as you do, and there's so much norm stuff out there that... Speaker 8 (13:08) I will watch any time he would do a Letterman appearance. I mean, it is very interesting. Speaker 8 (13:16) Who sticks and who doesn't stick? Like Norm and Gilbert went about the same time. And every time I pick up my phone, there's a Norm clip on it. I don't see a Gilbert clip on it. It's not a slight to Gilbert. Right, right. But I do believe like the aforementioned Doors. I mean, Jim Morrison died in 1970 or something, 71. He's been gone for over 50 years. Right. You can turn on your stereo, car radio, you're going to hear some doors. Some break on through. You will break on through. I mean, the stuff that was built to last will last, you know, the quality. I mean, it's that way with automotive. It's that way with architecture. I think it's that way with ideas. I think Norm had some really interesting ideas, and the ideas will stick longer than the fads or the trends. And Speaker 2 (14:11) I Speaker 8 (14:11) think Speaker 2 (14:11) also he didn't, yeah, I mean. The Clinton bit on The View notwithstanding, I think a lot of his standup wasn't topical about what's going on right now. It was a bigger thing about cancer or AA, the anonymous part of AA and how ridiculous that is. That's my guess. Yeah. One of the reasons. Speaker 8 (14:35) Look. Speaker 8 (14:38) We quote, you pick up your phone, you'll see quotes from the founding fathers, you know, and you'll go, if he said something stupid that didn't hold up, if he said his version of a quote was his version of the Macarena or Mambo No. 5 or something, like people go, that stuff's gone. It's like, if you go to... You go to Pebble Beach and you go walk the lawn on the car show, you see cars from 1963 and you go, look at it. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's timeless. Sculpture. Beautiful. It's a work of art. But there are other cars built in 1963. There's a Ford Maverick. It's not out there. It looks dated. It looks like shit. Architecture's that way. There's stuff that really holds. I don't think that jokes, comedians, or ideas are going to be any different. The shit that was really just... sort of, I can't believe I ate the whole thing, you know, kind of jokes. Like, they're here, gone, empty calories. But the people who had the ideas, like, you know, I think the people that had, Norm had ideas in his jokes. And you hear him, George Garland's that way. You hear him talking about stuff from 30 years ago. And you go, God damn, that's what's Speaker 1 (15:55) happening now. Like, you go, that's so spot on. Like, they're kind of. They say that comedians are sort of truth tellers, but they're more soothsayers. Speaker 8 (16:05) You know what I mean? Like, we're jumping in. I'm Speaker 2 (16:07) going Speaker 8 (16:07) to look in the future and see what's going on. I will tell you what's happening. Hopefully, Speaker 2 (16:11) they'll be rich and poor people. Oh, yeah, rich man, Speaker 8 (16:15) poor man. Speaker 2 (16:16) I'm just hoping there will be a gap. So your bit. Maybe eventually Speaker 8 (16:22) there'll be a little daylight like out here in California between, let's say, Jay-Z and Beyonce and someone living downtown. Like, let's say a little. Speaker 2 (16:30) Hypothetically. Hypothetically. It'd be nice. Just to help your bit out a little bit. Speaker 8 (16:35) So, yeah, I thought it was a great doc. Speaker 2 (16:38) Oh, thank you. Thank you. I mean, I'm just one part of the whole. Yeah, Speaker 8 (16:42) I Speaker 2 (16:42) get it. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 8 (16:43) But it was so good that I remember. I said to someone, can I get this from my phone to my TV set? And they go, I don't know. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. That was enough for me to quit on it. I was like, all right, I'm out. Just with that, I'm out. Just knowing I'm out. You'd have to rip the phone out of my hands right now and do it for me. Otherwise, I'm out. And I watch the whole thing on my phone. And then. By Speaker 2 (17:08) the way, I watch The Odyssey on my phone. So the same kind of thing. Speaker 8 (17:12) Oh, that's a Speaker 2 (17:13) joke. That's a comedy joke. Speaker 8 (17:16) I watched the whole thing, and then I thought to myself, well, I'm looking forward to when it comes out on Netflix in a few weeks, and then I will watch it on the TV like I want to. So Speaker 2 (17:27) you think you're going to watch it again? Speaker 8 (17:30) I definitely think that. Why should we listen to a song over and over again and not watch a really good movie or really good doc over and over again? Like you can watch The Last Dance about the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jackson. I mean Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson and all that kind of stuff. It would be cool if Michael Speaker 2 (17:53) Jackson was part of it. Speaker 8 (17:54) Well, Phil Jackson. Scotty Piven. You can watch that whole thing all the way through and then nine months later, just go watch it again. It's just as good. That Speaker 2 (18:05) was an incredible COVID-19 moment, right? Speaker 8 (18:09) Yeah, but also like, why can we listen to Beatles songs 200,000 times, but we can't watch a Norm doc twice? You know, I Speaker 2 (18:19) love that you want to watch it twice. I think Speaker 8 (18:22) people should do that. Like someone just showed me a clip from Heat, the Al Pacino movie. And I was like, I haven't seen that in a while. And I remember thinking, I want to go watch that. Because why not? It's been enough time. Yeah. So congrats on that. Thank you. Norm's great. Was Speaker 2 (18:40) he sitting right here? Speaker 8 (18:42) Norm has been in my radio studio a few times, and Norm also came in here a few times, as I recall. Speaker 2 (18:51) Miss Jer? Speaker 8 (18:53) Well, I don't know. You smell it and tell me. Okay. And, you know, I never... Speaker 8 (19:02) Norm was a guy who people really appreciated and thought of as a genius. But I also was like, I can have Norm in and we can spar. We can go together. And I felt like... Speaker 8 (19:21) I always feel like these guys, like one of Mike Tyson's sparring partners who could have got the best of Mike Tyson in training camp or something. If you said to that guy, Mike Tyson's the baddest man on the planet, he'd go, I think I could do a few rounds with him. I always felt that way with Norm. Not in a competitive way, but I was like, I can hang with this guy. Speaker 2 (19:44) Now, as a car guy, I'm going to call you that. The fact he didn't drive and lived in L.A. all these years, how does that land with you? My Speaker 8 (19:54) greatest regret with Norm, because Norm was always that guy. I said to him years ago, I go, look, Norm. Let's take the GoPros. Let's put them in the car. Let's camera. Let's mic up. And let's do an internet series called Adam Carolla Teaches Norm MacDonald How to Drive. It's going to be comedy. It's going to be all-found comedy. It's going to be perfect. Speaker 8 (20:21) Because he's Norm, we never did it. Did he at all light to the idea? Yeah, he was like, you know, but who knows who you were talking to, which Norm and whatever. That's why I would never say we were close. We were just friendly because he could have went, yeah, that's a good idea, and had no intention of ever doing it. Speaker 8 (20:46) Five years later, I saw on Jay Leno's Garage, it was Jay Leno teaches Gilbert Godfrey how to drive. And I was like, I don't think they ripped me off, but I was like, this would have been better if we did a web series with me and Norm. Speaker 2 (21:00) Yeah, so, oh, that's interesting. So Gilbert never did know how to drive. Speaker 8 (21:06) None of the deceased great comedic minds knew how to drive. I mean, it's a very new, it's a New York thing. Saget Speaker 2 (21:16) could Speaker 8 (21:16) drive. Speaker 2 (21:17) Saget could drive. But he wasn't a genius. Oh, my God. Speaker 8 (21:19) Why are you saying that? To not know how to drive. No, I mean, Saget was Saget, you know. I mean, you know, I don't. I don't think we need to have like insane comic reverence for everyone who died before their time. Saget was a host. Saget was affable. Saget was the nicest guy in the world. He was nice. But he wasn't on Norm's level comedically, which is fine. Nobody, I mean, I don't know how we have to do this. Now everyone is on Norm's level because Saget's on Norm's level. Whatever. Saget was the greatest guy in the world who went too soon. But he was sane enough to drive. Speaker 2 (21:56) I love this scale. I love it. Speaker 8 (21:58) There is something. You feel Speaker 2 (22:01) like you have to have something a little clicked off for you not to even think about driving and live in L.A. Speaker 8 (22:08) Yes, yes. But in that thing. Could also be part of the thing that makes you kind of a comedic genius. Right, right, right, right. You know, or you could, you know, collect the skins of runaways, you know, like, but something's off. Like, also, I do think there's a thing where if you don't drive, you can, it's sort of your version of, I got a bad back and no one will ever ask you to help them move. because he'll just get left alone. Speaker 2 (22:39) I got you. It's a forever excuse. Speaker 8 (22:41) Well, Norm didn't really want to leave his apartment. Speaker 2 (22:43) Evergreen. Speaker 8 (22:44) Did he ever want to leave? He really didn't like getting out. Right. You know what I mean? So it's perfect if you don't have a license because... You can never say, hey, we're having lunch at Cantor's. Come on down at noon on Tuesday. He'd go, I don't have the light. I got the car. I don't have anyone to drive. Like it was a, it's a bad back built in excuse. You can just get out of anything you want and or you can do whatever you want with a bad back if you want to do it. Right. But it's always a car. Speaker 2 (23:16) Especially when he was starting out in Canada. It was the thing we talked because I talked to some people and what. Again, this doc, as you know, I don't know, there's no talking heads. This is the first doc I've ever done where there's no one interviewed on camera for the entire documentary. It's all found, what we call archive footage. So that was... And Speaker 1 (23:38) audio book, I'm guessing. Speaker 2 (23:39) A little bit, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but we were talking to those, you know... Canada, you got to drive to gigs. Right. But even early on, he was such a light in all of that world that comedians were more than happy to drive him to Saskatchewan or whatever the name of those cities are that they would do this, you know, yuck, yuck, outside gigs and stuff. Interesting, right? Because that's like your life. That's your money. Speaker 8 (24:13) Yeah. I've sort of found in life, like I found this out when me and Kevin and Bean and Jimmy Kimmel and The Morning Show, Frank Murphy was the producer. And Frank was just cheap. He's like super cheap. And everyone knew how cheap Frank was. And so like all five or six of us would go out. to Bob's Big Boy after the show for breakfast or something. And then would come time to settle up and people go, who's paying for Frank? Frank's just sitting there. Frank's 10 years older than me and makes more money than I do. But it's like, all right, we got to take care of Frank. Who's going to take care of Frank? All right, I'm going to chip in an extra $4 for Frank. And it's like, it just was. It's the guy with the bad back. He gets left alone. It's the person that... Bitches and complaints will never pick you up from the airport. You'll just go, don't even bother. Speaker 2 (25:07) It's not even on the table as an option. Speaker 8 (25:09) Don Barris did not have a license. He didn't have a car for 20 years. And when we'd be done with karaoke night at Kimmel's house up in the hills, I was like, all right, who's driving Don home? Where is he? He's down under the Sunset Strip. All right, I'll drive him home. But it's like, no one ever went, he's 44. Get a fucking car. Speaker 1 (25:33) Like, everyone's like, we're going to draw straws to see who has to take Don home. Like, people have a kind of a, it's a thing Speaker 8 (25:40) that's like. It's kind of like losing a limb or