Norm Macdonald Based His Comedy Persona on This Classic Sitcom Character

Norm Macdonald and Harland Williams were old buddies dating back to their early days as up-and-coming comedians in Canada. That’s one reason Macdonald never messed with Williams in the same way he teased other celebrities. “He couldn’t get away with anything with me, and he knew it,” Williams said on the We Think It’s Funny podcast. “We had a very good mutual friendship.”

The Norm Macdonald who Williams knew was different from Macdonald’s stand-up and podcast personas. “When we were just hanging out in real life, that wasn’t how he presented himself,” he said, imitating Macdonald’s comic cadence. “You know, it was a bit of a character.”

Williams was talking about Macdonald’s “Hey, buddy!” persona, a facade that was half Macdonald and half put-on. On several occasions, Macdonald told Williams that the funny delivery was rooted in his love for a certain cantankerous bigot from the 1970s sitcom All in the Family. “He loved Archie Bunker,” Williams said. “And so he borrowed from that Archie Bunker character and injected it into his own styling. And if you watch Archie — ‘Hey dere, meathead! You ding bat!’ — you can see some of it, which I love because I loved Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker.” 

One of the podcast’s hosts, comedian Daniel Lobell, remembered another interview where Macdonald cited Dean Martin as his biggest comedic influence. 

“Don’t really see it,” said his co-host, comic Mark Schiff, “but if he said it …”

Williams raised an eyebrow and smirked, implying to the hosts that Macdonald might have been having a little fun with an interviewer when he named Dean Martin as his comedy hero. No offense, Dino.

Williams has talked about the Macdonald/Archie Bunker connection before. On his own podcast, Williams told comedian Jeff Ross about Macdonald developing his oddly syncopated comic voice. As young friends, Williams was baffled: “What are you doing, dude?”

“I’m just doing Archie Bunker,” Macdonald confessed. 

“That stuff was him twisting and mimicking Archie Bunker,” Williams told Ross. “If you were to go back and watch Carroll O’Connor, you’d see a lot of Normisms in there.”

Macdonald never copped to the influence in an interview, but he did express his love for the All in the Family character. “Archie Bunker to me was by far the most likable,” he once told Tim Allen on his podcast. “The funny guy is the guy you’re going to go to.”