favorite comedian, Norm Macdonald, died a little over a year ago. Norm was raised in a rural area outside of Quebec City, Canada. He was known by many as a “comedian’s comedian” and was known popularly for his work as host of Saturday Night Live’s weekend update and his movie Dirty Work.
Norm was something of a renaissance man. He wrote his own (very funny) book, created a YouTube podcast in 2013 before the format exploded in popularity, and played professional poker.
But what made Norm Macdonald so funny? We’ll answer that question with, you guessed it, economics.
Rational Humor
While economics may not be able to fully account for humor, it can account for an essential element: expectations. As we’ll see later on, Norm was a master at confounding expectations. But why are expectations important in comedy?
Consider a pitcher who always throws a fastball right up the middle on a 3-2 count. What will happen to him? Well, batters will begin to expect the fastball and will be able to hit home runs. This idea that people will learn and modify their expectations to match reality is known in economics as rational expectations.
In order to make things difficult for the batter, the pitcher needs to switch up his strategy. In economics, this is known as a mixed strategy.
Expectations play a similar role in comedy. Imagine a comic who goes up and tells a really funny joke about an answering machine. The audience laughs. He thinks to himself, “well that went well. I’ll tell it again.”
But as you know, it isn’t funny the second time because the audience expects the punchline. If listeners can anticipate the punchline before comics make it, the joke won’t be as funny. Much of comedy depends on surprise.
To combat this, the best jokes often start with a set up, then the comedian works to distract the audience away from the setup. When the comic finally returns to the punchline, the audience is reminded of the setup they were distracted from.
It’s very common for comedians in their bits to generate noise (distractions) to prevent the audience from correctly expecting the punchline.
Noise generation is necessary because audiences, like hitters, are rational. They learn the patterns of jokes.
While generating noise to confound expectations isn’t the only element associated with good comedy, it’s essential, and it’s what Norm excelled at.
Or, to quote Norm, “I feel comedy is surprise, right? So that’s the funniest thing—something they don’t expect.”
Let’s look at some examples of how Norm used surprise to make people laugh.
Three Ways Norm Confounded Expectations
- Playing dumb and never dropping the act
The first time I watched Norm a singular question swirled in my head—is this guy acting? He was so odd and somewhat incoherent, that it was unclear to me if his whole character was a joke. The answer of whether he was acting is a little bit yes and no, but it turns out that insofar as Norm ever appeared unintelligent, he was fooling audiences.
Let’s get one thing out of the way. Norm Macdonald was a smart man. He authored his own book, a memoir which blurs the line between fiction and truth (leaning towards the former). You may be suspicious that Norm used a ghostwriter. In fact, the ghostwriter of the book is a character in the book.
But author Michael Malice, a ghostwriter himself, confirmed someone familiar with the book told him that Norm made up the ghostwriter.
norm had the ghostwriter break the fourth wall in his autobiography
i asked my agent to keep me in mind for books like that in the future
agent let me know there was no ghostwriter, norm invented the entire character https://t.co/1x5NRfofWJ
— Michael Malice (@michaelmalice) September 14, 2021
So not only did Norm not use a ghostwriter—he wrote the book in such a way that he pretended he did.
His book also infused elements of Russian literature of which Norm was a big fan. He often used stereotypical Russian literature names in his long, meandering jokes and was seemingly well-read.
Norm frequently implied he dropped out of high school early, but the truth of the matter is he graduated early at 14. In college, Norm majored in math. Based on my research, it’s unclear if he graduated. Some sources say he dropped out of college while others claim he graduated college at 18.
He was a shy, smart kid.
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