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Norm Macdonald Riffs On Sitting In The Back Seat

This comedy bit is from Norm Macdonald's HBO One-Night Stand performance, which originally aired in 1991. He riffs for a good three minutes on how much he hates sitting in the back seat on a long car ride, and I laughed nonstop!  I just thought the material was gold and had to post it! All credit goes to Norm Macdonald here.

" It’s good to be here, man. I got a lift down here.  We drove down, me and my two buddies, there, and 4 hours it took us to drive in.  And I was in the back seat all the way.   You ever be in the back seat for a long trip?  Oh man, does that stink or what?

Man, what a rough place that is!  When there’s only 3 of ya in the car, and you’re in the back seat… you know you’re not the most popular guy in the car. 

Got no diggity back there at all, ya know? 

Didn’t even have a door for me.  This is one of those 2 door cars.  Only had doors for the front seat guys.  I didn’t even have a door at all, I had to bum a door off one of the guys to get out of the car. 

Man, lonely back there.  You wanna be in the front seat, that’s where you wanna be.  Right beside the driver, that’s the place.  Second in command, there.  You get to look at a map and everything.  And check out the tapes out of the box, all that stuff.  You go, “Hey man. The driver dies… I’ll be the driver.  I got responsibility here, ya know?” 

Back seat, man you’re just cargo back there.  Nothing back there.  You can’t talk to them, you know?  Got that class barrier: front seat, back seat thing, there.  You can’t smash through that, you know?

You ever try and just stick your head into the front seat?  You’re, “Hi!  What are you guys talking about?!  It’s me, from the back seat!  Ok, I’ll go back there…” 



After a couple, three hours on the highway you get so lonely in the back seat, you know?  After a while you’ll  start trying to make contact with other people in other back seats along the way.  You ever do that?

Look out your little excuse for a window there… (Waving) “I’m back seat people too, over here! We must band together! I have some literature there for you to look at, there, if you want.”

Could be a cow on the back of a flatbed truck, there. (Waving) “Hello there! It’s livestock, but it noticed me, there.”

You really tell how they care about you there in the back seat by that fucking seat belt they give you.  Just right here, no shoulder strap or nothing.  Just… same seat belt they banned from the front seat in the ‘50s.

They said, “Man, we can’t have these in the front seat… throw those in the back seat!  We’ll give you shoulder straps up here, and air bags.  And, on impact, a medic will jump out of your glove compartment, there.  You’re good up here.”

Even got a head rest for you, you know?  So your head doesn’t hurt or anything. 

Man, you'll be in the back seat… that head rest will just be like a face smasher to you.  You know what I’m saying?  Just grimly mocking you for the whole trip, there.  Your head would go into that like an over-ripe cantaloupe, there, you know?  Just… splash! "

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