It’s occurred to me that this website was meant to be a revival and archival effort, but aside from reposting old articles and rebuilding The List using the Internet Archive, I really haven’t done much in the way of archival content.
So today, I’m going to revisit one of my favorite older articles, an article by TL over at Golden Literature called “The Dark Knight: Starring Norm MacDonald“.
This one isn’t really a rant, but that’s okay, because it’s funny as fucking hell.
The article came out in April of 2009, almost a year after The Dark Knight came out, so I guess it didn’t miss the party, but it was definitely a little bit late to it. The premise was that The Dark Knight would have been better with comedian Norm MacDonald as the lead instead of Christian Bale. And after reading TL’s article, I’m very much inclined to agree.
Norm has always been one of my favorite comedians. I absolutely love that deadpan delivery when he’s telling some long crazy story that’s probably not going to have a big payoff (apparently this is called a “shaggy dog story”, TIL). Dirty Work was fucking hilarious and underrated, and I don’t think I’d have enjoyed Mike Tyson Mysteries as much without Norm as Pigeon. The guy was a national treasure, and his untimely passing in 2021 made me legitimately sad.
When TL’s article came out, I remember reading it and laughing my ass off. Not just because it was funny, but also because of how accurately it captured Norm’s tone. This is a testament to both Norm’s iconicness and TL’s writing abilities. Any dickhead could throw a picture of Norm up, have him say some Batman lines, and call it a day. But the dialogue that TL wrote made me read it in Norm’s voice with Norm’s delivery. I was actually able to envision these scenes in my head, and even now as I’m rereading the article I find that I still can. The writing here is almost as timeless as Norm himself.
The entire piece is hilarious, but my favorite part is Bat-Norm’s exchange with the Joker. Bat-Norm repeatedly accuses the Joker of being OJ Simpson, until Joker surrenders out of frustration. Almost every line here is gold. Especially the “assistant crack whore” line. And, because it’s Norm MacDonald, TL had to work in a reference to Frank Stallone as Joker’s cellmate. The whole exchange is just great.
Even today, I think Golden Literature’s article still holds up pretty well. It still makes me laugh even 17 years later, and it makes me miss Norm even more. When I went with “superheroes” for last Thursday’s List update theme, I couldn’t wait to include it so I could reread it again. In fact, I think the superheroes theme was just me subconsciously making an excuse to read and share the article. I even almost included a note next to it that said “Editor’s pick”, that’s how much I loved the article.
If you haven’t already read it, go check out “The Dark Knight: Starring Norm MacDonald” now. Also, check out the rest of Golden Literature. It was one of the better sites on The List, and, even though he doesn’t update anymore, it’s one of the few sites left that’s still up and not just an archived copy.
I’ll probably be doing more of these old article revisits in the future. iRants are great and all, but I don’t want to lose sight of Rantlister’s history, so expect a bit more historical content going forward.
