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Norm Macdonald’s first encounter with one of his comedy idols, Rodney Dangerfield, couldn’t have gone worse, Macdonald told Howard Stern in 2011. In fact, he said, “I made the worst mistake ever.”
Macdonald was working at a casino and entered an elevator when he spotted the icon. “I’m like, Oh my God, it’s Rodney! I got to say something to him.” Macdonald remembered that he’d worked on a project with a director who’d also worked with Rodney, so he used that common ground to introduce himself.
“Hey Rodney, we have a common friend.”
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“Who’s that?”
“Paul Johnson.”
Wrong answer. “He goes, ‘That cocksucker! That fucker’s no friend of mine!’” Mind you, this was on an elevator full of people, Macdonald told Stern. “You tell him he can suck my dick!”
“I’m not his friend! I’m not his friend!” Macdonald insisted.
Macdonald got a second chance when Dangerfield was booked to do a guest spot for his 75th birthday on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update. But the aging comic had a problem. On a typical show night, SNL performs a dress rehearsal at 8:30 p.m., then regroups for the live show at 11:30 p.m. “So he comes, and he’s like, ‘Hey Norm, I gotta fucking talk to you,’” Macdonald remembered. “He goes, ‘Listen, man, what the fuck? Why am I doing it at 8:30? You know, it’s the same thing! I know my fucking jokes, I’ll just come back at 11:30.’”
Macdonald explained that was just how SNL worked, and he had to rehearse. Dangerfield wasn’t happy. “He goes, ‘Let me tell you something, kid. This fucking TV shit, you know? It’s waiting around all the fucking time. It’s all shit, you know? It’s the same with fucking movies, you know? You’re in the movie and then you’re in the fucking trailer all the time. That’s all you’re doing, you’re jerking off in the trailer.’”
Then Dangerfield dispensed some sage comedy advice. “Remember this and remember it forever,” he said. “Stand-up, man. That’s all there is. Stand-up.”
Macdonald considered the advice — no other art form could touch Dangerfield’s first love, stand-up comedy. The younger comic took it to heart until Dangerfield contradicted himself just minutes later while on another rant: “Stand-up is shit.”
Despite his mercurial moods, Dangerfield loved no place more than the comedy club. Macdonald remembered another story he heard from Bob Saget about when Dangerfield was in the hospital. The details of the aging comic’s health condition sound sketchy — Macdonald describes it as a brain tumor that threatened to cause a heart attack — but safe to say Dangerfield wasn’t doing well and his comic friends were worried about him.
So Saget was shocked when he walked into the Comedy Store two days later to find Dangerfield, who’d had enough and checked himself out of the hospital. He was sitting backstage with two young ladies, waiting to meet up with porn star Ron Jeremy.
“Rodney!” exclaimed a befuddled Saget. “What’s going on? How are you doing?”
“How am I doing?” Rodney replied. “I’m sitting here with two whores waiting for a guy who can suck his own dick. How you doing?”