The late Gilbert Gottfried is fondly remembered for his stand-up comedy, his long-running podcast, and, after all, his parrot-based thespianism. However he was additionally a sitcom star. Certain, the sitcom in query solely lasted for one episode, but it surely nonetheless counts. Whereas the short-lived Norman’s Nook at present resides within the ash heap of TV historical past and is beloved by virtually nobody, looking back, the forgotten sequence truly got here fairly near cracking the method that gave us some of the profitable TV reveals of all-time.
Again in 1987, Norman’s Nook starred Gottfried as a New York Metropolis newsstand operator and, properly, that’s about it. The sparse narrative structure actually solely existed to showcase Gottfried’s comedian persona; Norman interacts with pals and prospects (together with celeb visitor star Henny “Take My Spouse” Youngman) and succumbs to the occasional daydream. Despite the fact that the pilot was finally rejected, Norman’s Nook finally aired as a comedy particular on Cinemax, more likely to the confusion of each persistent masturbator within the Nineteen Eighties.
The present was created by Broadcast Arts’ Peter Rosenthal, who had beforehand constructed the set for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, and the primary (and solely) episode was scripted by a younger comic named Larry David. In keeping with Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Susie Essman, on the time, David and Gottfired have been the one two comics who have been recurrently requested by golf equipment to go on on the finish of the night time with a purpose to “clear the room” of “stragglers.”
Norman’s Nook could not have been a success, but it surely arguably made quite a lot of the identical daring inventive selections as David’s subsequent sitcom mission: Seinfeld. Not like most different sitcoms on the time, it was aggressively unsentimental, and principally served as an apt discussion board for reconfigured stand-up materials, mining the trivialities of on a regular basis life for laughs. Sound acquainted?
The present, which marked David’s first ever sitcom writing job, little doubt laid the groundwork for the minimalistic confines of traditional Seinfeld episodes like “The Chinese language Restaurant” and “The Parking Storage” by limiting its scope to only a single avenue nook. No less than Jerry and his pals went on dates and had social lives, Norman’s Nook actually was a present about nothing.
It additionally holds the excellence of being the very first sitcom to be shot in excessive definition. You possibly can virtually see the spittle popping out of Gottfried’s mouth.
In keeping with Gottfried, Norman’s Nook very practically prevented Seinfeld from getting the inexperienced mild, after an NBC govt, who was contemplating David and Seinfeld’s pitch, allegedly requested, “Isn’t Larry David the man who wrote that piece of shit pilot with Gilbert Gottfried?”
However the suggestions wasn’t all unhealthy. The Los Angeles Occasions raved that Norman’s Nook was “biting and charming on the identical time,” and did for Gottfried what Roseanne did for Roseanne Barr, making a “previously cantankerous and sometimes obnoxious slapstick comedian palatable.”
Who is aware of, perhaps in some alternate universe, Gilbert Gottfried simply made inappropriate feedback on social media and obtained fired from the twenty first century reboot of Norman’s Nook.
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