The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
AUGUST 16, 2005 (NBC)

Segment One

JAY: Welcome back. Alright. I’m a big fan of my first guest. Very funny actor, writer, and comedian. You can currently see him starring with Sir Anthony Hopkins and Judy Dench in Deuce Bigalow: Eurpean Gigalo. Which is playing in a theater near you right now. He’ll also be performing in Atlantic City, the Borgata, on September 10th. And in Connecticut, the Mohegan Sun. He’s hitting all the casinos. From the 14th through the 17th. Please welcome the lovely, Norm MacDonald!


[Norm enters sporting a big ol’ mustache]

JAY: How are you buddy, good to see you?

NORM: Aw, I’m fine. I’m happy. How ya doing? I got a bushy mustache!

JAY: Yeah, yeah.

NORM: Aw man, I’m happy.

JAY: Oh, you like it? Yeah?

NORM: Yeah, I got it for a motion picture, you know?

JAY: Yeah, yeah.

NORM: And uh, I haven’t got the motion picture yet. But, uh, the uh, I know the motion picture, like, producers and directors, are always looking for a dude with a bushy mustache.

JAY: Yeah? Is that right? Yeah.

NORM: Yeah, it’s a little career move.

JAY: Yeah. Well, well that’s- that’s good. I mentioned that you-


NORM: [Still looking at himself in the TVs] How manly does that look?

JAY: It does look manly. It does look- you don’t see any women with those. Well, not in this country, but yeah, yeah. So it is- it would be manly.

NORM: Yeah!

JAY: Now I mentioned that you were starring with Sir Anthony Hopkins and Judy Dench, and nobody got it, in Duece Bigalow. Now you shot that where? In Amsterdam?

NORM: Oh, Amsterdam. Yeah.

JAY: What was that like?

NORM: Oh, I was so excited to go to Amsterdam because, uh, my dad served in WWII, the big one, you know?

JAY: Right, right.

NORM: And uh… he liberated the joint!

JAY: Really?!?!

NORM: Yeah, from the grip of… Hilter’s… icy… hand!

JAY: Right.

[Audience Laughs]

NORM: And, uh, so I was happy to go back, you know? And, oh my god, I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but man, my dad would be… spinning in his grave if he ever saw what was going on there now.

[Audience Laughs]

NORM: It’s just a den of filth.

JAY: Really? Wow.

NORM: They got like, uh, they got like, prostitutes that you can go and for free- not free, but it’s legal.

JAY: Yeah, yeah.

NORM: They allow you to have prostitutes. And then drugs. Everyone’s doing fru- legal drugs. And that’s not my, I don’t cotton to that!

JAY: You don’t cotton to that? No?

NORM: Nah, man. You know… I’m from the time- let me tell you something Jay… I’m from the time, I remember when pot… was something you cooked your eggs in!

[Audience Laughs]

NORM: I remember when hash was something you made out of corn beef!

JAY: Exactly! Exactly!

NORM: I remember when acid was something you threw in a guy’s face when he made a pass at your wife!

[Audience Laughs]

JAY: Exactly! Where are those days?!

NORM: Where are those- I remember!

JAY: Yeah, exactly!

NORM: I remember ecstasy, when it was just that feeling you had when you threw the vile of acid in the guy’s face!

[Audience Laughs]

JAY: So these prostitutes are everywhere?

NORM: Oh my lord!

JAY: Yeah, yeah.


NORM: It’s- it’s- it’s… ughhh!

JAY: Did you talk to any them?

NORM: Nah man! I’m uncomfortable with ladies as it is, let alone ladies that are willing to have sex with me.

[Audience Laughs]

JAY: So you would not want to date any women that would be willing to have sex with you? Is that what you’re saying?

NORM: Well, they’re not-

JAY: That’s not your kind of woman?

NORM: Well, they’re not really willing. You know, because you have to pay them- you have to pay them cash.

JAY: Right

NORM: And then uh-

JAY: They don’t take credit cards or anything?

NORM: I don’t know! I didn’t go look at-

JAY: Oh, well, but the way you said it, you said ‘cash’ like you were pissed that they wouldn’t take your card.

[Audience Laughs: Even though they really shouldn’t be]

NORM: No! I’m against prostitution.

JAY: Oh, you’re against it?

NORM: Because I think the one thing that you should not sell… is love.

[Audience applauds]


JAY: Now I have to applaud… and it is love. You are in love when you go to a prostitute.

[Audience again laughs misguidedly]

JAY: Suppose you really love the pro-

NORM: If you say so.

JAY: Suppose you really love the prostitute? Is that okay then?

NORM: Well then there would be no transaction.

JAY: Yeah. There would be no transaction. Now… I heard you got arrested.

NORM: Well, no, I didn’t get arrested.

JAY: Was it because of love?

[Why do they keep laughing at this moron!]

NORM: No, this is what happened. I was on the set. Like, the movie set.

JAY: The movie set.

NORM: Like the- that means the- for people that aren’t familiar with the- that’s where you do the movie.

[Audience Laughs]

JAY: Right, right.

NORM: So, I was on the movie set. So I’m going home to- well not home, to the hotel, right?

JAY: Right.

NORM: So it’s the middle of the night and I don’t know where I’m going. And it’s, you know, Holland, and so-

JAY: And it’s dark!

NORM: -and it’s dark. And I’m walking and there’s some people around and I’m asking them but they’re all foreigners, you know?

[Audience Laughs]

JAY: Yeah, yeah.

NORM: So, I don’t know how to get- finally I see my hotel. Takes me forever. Uh, but there- the stoplight was red, so I had to stop, you know? So I’m waiting and- you ever been where it never changes?

JAY: Yeah, yeah.

NORM: You know, so, I’m standing there, like, for ever and the light never turns green or anything and I’m like, “What the deuce!”, you know?

[Audience Laughs]

NORM: And uh, uh-

JAY: So, you were pretty mad to say “What the deuce”… yeah, yeah.

[Audience Laughs at Jay, suddenly becomes self aware, then shoots itself in the face]

NORM: Well the deuce is the devil

JAY: Yeah, the devil, yeah.

NORM: But, I didn’t want to- you know? I said, “What the devil is going on here?”, you know? And uh, so finally I said, this is crazy. There’s no cars coming by or anything like that. So I go, alright, I’ll just, you know, walk across the red light and get to my hotel, right? So I walk across the red light, and just at that moment a police man comes in a bicycle, right? And so he stops in his bicycle and he’s like, uh, [in odd accent] “You can’t cross, uh, uh, red light!” you know, in this crazy accent? That’s not the accent, but I can’t do it.

[Audience Laughs]

JAY: Yeah. It’s just the crazy way they talk over there!

NORM: Yeah. “You can’t… do that! Cross the light.” And I’m going “What! Are you- you got- are you crazy? You got, like- your whole city’s a bunch of drug addicted whore people, you know?”

[Audience Laughs]

JAY: This is why Americans are so loved around the world. But, go ahead, go ahead.

NORM: All the sudden I’m the criminal!

JAY: Yeah.

NORM: And then I reminded him. I said, if it wasn’t for my dad, you wouldn’t have the freedom to-

[Audience Applauds]

JAY: I’ll tell you what-

NORM: If it wasn’t- if my dad hadn’t liberated that country, that guy wouldn’t be riding around in his fruity bicycle, I’ll tell you that. He’d be wearing a little Hitler mustache, you know… not a big supper cool bushy one like mine!

JAY: Now, look, we’ll take a break. More wisdom from Norm right after this.

Segment Two

JAY: Alright. Back with Norm MacDonald. Okay, so you’re in Amsterdam. How was the flight back? I imagine you were anxious to get home after being-

NORM: Yeah, I was man. I was happy to go back because, uh, you know, I don’t live over there. And I like being home. And uh… that didn’t- that didn’t make any sense, but, I uh, I had- I thought I was gonna be in big trouble at the airport because in the movie they had me with jet black hair and they made me grow a beard. I grew a big beard. And then they painted it like jet black. So my whole face had the demeanor of a- a vicious terrorist.

JAY: We have the photo. Where’s the photo?


[Photo shows on screen]

JAY: Okay, now that- that’s you flying back?

NORM: Yeah! So I looked like one of those guys from those Saddam playing cards, you know?

[Audience and Jay laugh]

NORM: Actually, I got one of those. You ever try and play poker with those things?

JAY: No. The-

NORM: It’s really weird, you’re like, “Yeah, I got a straight to Chemical Ali”

[Audience Laughs]

NORM: And the other guy goes, “Read ‘em and weap, Udays full of Qusays!”

[Audience Laughs. Norm throws up his hands, shrugging off the joke]

JAY: Not quite the same. Yeah, yeah. So what happened, I- didn’t you get on the plane?

NORM: That was just a joke.

JAY: No, I got it, yeah.

NORM: Ah, so no, I’m like, “Holy God!” I’m frightened, because I look like a crazy terrorist, right?

JAY: Right.

NORM: So I go, I know they’re gonna do stuff to me and everything. So I get there, and, uh, first thing I see… a dude with a giant turban, right? Biggest turban I’ve ever seen. Way bigger than his hair could possibly be, right? And uh, he gets right through. So I’m like, “woah, woah, woah.” Right? And, uh, meanwhile everybody’s taking their shoes off and everything, right? And I’m like, “Hey, uh, uh, buddy, what about that dude with the giant turban?” And he’s like, “Oh no, he’s barefoot!”

[Audience Laughs. Norm continues his puzzled look]

NORM: The guy had no shoes, right? So they let him go right through. And I’m like, “Well maybe, shouldn’t you maybe listen to see if it’s ticking? The turban, or something, you know?”

[Laughter]

NORM: But now, you know, having shoes is really suspicious now!

JAY: A sign of suspicious activity.

NORM: You’re a suspicious character if you wear shoes! So, I go there, I take off my shoes. But meanwhile I’m like this insane looking uh- uh- terrorist looking guy, right? So the guy looks at my shoes and goes, “yeah, go ahead”. So then- then I became alarmed again, right? I’m like, “You sure? Really?”

[Laughter]

NORM: You know? I’m like, “You sure you don’t want to look in my ass or anything like that?”

[Laughter]

NORM: ‘Cause, uh, not that I want a customs guy looking at my ass but, I don’t want- I wouldn’t want a guy looking at me- uh, looking like me, without a customs guy looking at his ass.

JAY: Right.

NORM: So, I was like, uh, I was torn.

JAY: Torn. Yeah. I could see how you-

NORM: So, but anyway, I came up with a- I came up with an ingenious theory. Not a theory. An ingenious proposal… if you will.

JAY: Alright.

NORM: [Pauses for a moment] I never said, “If you will” before in my life.

JAY: Really? Well, you know, you did it well.

NORM: I heard people say that. I don’t even know what it means. What does that- what does that mean?

JAY: Well, go head. I even forgot what you said, but go ahead.

NORM: So I says to the- so I think in my head, I go, this was later, I thought… You know what’d be a great thing? This would work, I think, perfectly and solve all our security problems… you go through the thing, and then they take everybody. Every single person, and they take them back, and they look in their ass, right?

[Laughter]

NORM: But you don’t get just the customs guys because that’s a little unsettling, right? What you get is… an ass doctor! Right?

[Laughter]

NORM: So the idea would be, you see, you go- you leave the baggage- so you go into the, and there’s an ass doctor, right?

JAY: Right, yeah.


NORM: Now, if you got contraband in there. If you got drugs. If you got plastic explosives… straight off to the hoosegow!

JAY: Right. I see what you mean. Yeah.

NORM: And uh, but if you don’t! The guy checks up your ass, gives you a healthy bill of health and away ya go!

JAY: Well that’s a very ingenious theory.

[Norm turns to the audience looking for approval. They give it to him.]

JAY: Now let me ask you about some of your, uh, some of your pet peeves, I know whenever we talk you always have a pet peeve.

NORM: “What’s my beef”… is that what you’re asking?

JAY: Yeah, kinda like- kinda like my old bit, but you turned it around a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[Norm and Jay laugh together]

NORM: No, I uh, well- What is it? I don’t know. Is it on that paper?

JAY: It was dumb people… with opinions.

NORM: Oh no! It was celebrities with opinions, because-

JAY: Oh, oh, celebrities.

NORM: Because, I’m a celebrity- you know that, you can attest to that.

JAY: Yeah, I can- I can-

NORM: I find that, I- uh, have to remind people more and more I’m a celebrity.

JAY: Well, you’re a celebrity on the show in August.

NORM: Yeah!

[Jay and Norm laugh. For once Jay has said something even mildly humorous and the audience doesn’t laugh at all.]


JAY: So that’s different than a celebrity on the show, during sweeps.

NORM: Yeah, I got ya! [Norm still laughing] Exactly.

[Now that Jay’s explained it to everyone, they laugh]

NORM: Aw, now mine’s not very funny.

JAY: No, go ahead, go ahead.

NORM: No, but so ah- but they have opinions, the celebrities. They have opinions, and uh, I don’t have any opinions. I can’t think of one. I was on this show once, man, the Bill Maher Show. So, you go out there and the guy asks you questions, right? And, he has four subjects… and you’re supposed to have opinions on all of them, you know? And, I don’t have- you know, I have opinions like everybody has like, ‘a mustache makes you look super cool’, or whatever, right?

JAY: Oh yeah, right, right.

NORM: But, I don’t know stuff! So, anyways the subject was- uh, there was a guy sitting beside me on the panel… this guy wrote a book on China! Right? And uh, then there’s me and, uh, I’m like a night club comic, right, I’m sitting there. So Bill Maher – another night club comic – he says to me, he says, “Hey China and Taiwan! Chain Kai Shei” All these words I don’t know what they mean.

[Laughter]

NORM: He says, uh, “Let’s talk about that! Why don’t we start with you Norm?” Right? So I’m like, “Well this guy next to me wrote a book on the goddamn thing.”
[Laughter]

JAY: Well there you go. Norm MacDonald. Norm, thank you very much buddy. We’ll see you in Atlantic City and Connecticut. We’ll be right back with Ashlee Simpson right after this.