“I feel like you guys are two gays auditioning for the third gay.”
Respected by peers, adored by audiences, Mark Normand is one of the most popular comedians in the world. His idiosyncratic style has earned him praise from some of the most influential comics, described by Jerry Seinfeld as “the best up-and-comer” of his class. Normand has appeared on numerous late-night shows, including The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Conan. He released his critically acclaimed hour-long special Out to Lunch on YouTube in 2020, following it up with the similarly lauded Netflix exclusive Soup to Nuts in 2023. Today, he continues to perform stand-up and co-host the ferociously popular podcasts Tuesdays With Stories and We Might Be Drunk, and last month he released his latest Netflix special: None Too Pleased.
”Ellen’s been cancelled twice. In the ‘90s, we cancelled her for being gay. Then we cleaned up our act a bit, and 20 years later we cancelled her for being a c*nt. That’s progress.”
As well as being one of his generation of comics’ biggest stars, Mark has become something of a regular on Trig. He’s a hilarious and natural conversationalist, and our trips to the States never feel quite complete without catching up with him on the state of comedy, his country, and the wider world. His one-of-a-kind humour can’t be found elsewhere, so we have to go back to the source.
This might be our best conversatoin yet.
”There’s a Muslim joke in this special… I might be killed.”
We recorded this the day Mark dropped his latest hour, and he admits it has him a little worried. Francis assures him he has nothing to fret about. After all, every single one of Mark’s specials has had a joke like that. When Francis saw him most recently in London, Mark opened the set by shouting “Allahu Akbar”.
”I was just reminiscing on that Ariana Grande concert … The UK’s like a banana. The more time goes by, the browner it gets.”
It’s not yet been 60 seconds and we’ve arrived at our first brutal joke. Mark doesn’t allow us to come up for air.
”… But yeah, ‘white supremacy’ is your biggest problem. I don’t understand it. We recognise patterns with them. School shootings, that’s a lot of honkies… Why can’t we look at other patterns? It’s mostly trans now, but they’re still white. And better than the women!”
It’d be uncouthe of us to dwell on such a sensitive subject, so the chat moves to a much lighter, easy-breezy topic: Jeffrey Epstein. On this, Mark has advice.
”Never get photographic evidence. Back in the day there was just the guy at Walgreen’s who’d see your disposable photos, now with the internet… I read somewhere that kids aren’t dancing at their proms because they’re scared of being filmed and of being called ‘cringe’. No wonder they’re shooting up schools! They’re pent up!”
It turns out Mark is actually more more closely connected to the scandal than we would have expected - or hoped.
