Norm MacDonald is a funny guy but he's had a hard time finding an ideal medium for his humor outside of standup or Saturday Night Live. Try as he might to work himself into films and sitcoms, it often was an uneasy fit as likely to succeed (Dirty Work or at least the first season of
Norm) as it did not (Screwed and The Norm MacDonald Show) . Just a little over a year after his Comedy Central sketch show was unceremoniously dumped,
Norm got around to releasing his first comedy album, Ridiculous. Recorded over several years and featuring several of his friends and colleagues, including
Will Ferrell and
Artie Lange, Ridiculous is a collection of sketches that adds up to a fitfully funny affair. The problem with the record is a perennial
Norm problem -- he's funniest when he's just being himself, commenting on situations and throwing out quips, not when he's playing a role, which he is throughout the record. Some of the situations are funny, as are the executions, but this is funniest when he throws out an aside -- and since an entire album can't consist of nothing but asides, this is more amusing than laugh-out-loud funny, which may qualify it as a bit of a disappointment for fans who have been waiting for years to hear a
Norm comedy album. Even so, mediocre
Norm is better than no
Norm -- and given his sporadic working schedule of late, it's been years with no
Norm in the 2000s -- so fans should check this out since it has just enough good moments to make it worthwhile. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine