Finally watched it last night. Probably the weakest episode of the show thus far but still entertaining. Ray Romano never seemed to get fully on board and the appearance of Fred Stoller ruined whatever flow of the conversation had. What a weird decision to have him come on for so long in Norm's first episode back. He's just so mopey and he seemed to make Ray Romano uncomfortable. To cap things off, Romano wasn't game for the jokes segment. I was
so looking forward to the return of the joke segment and this one was totally flat.
I agree with everyone who said that Norm looked too restrained. Maybe he was trying to avoid subject matter that could be objectionable to future employers? Who knows.
That said, it was still enjoyable and there were a lot of funny moments.
I like Norm a lot and the previous podcast episodes were mostly good, but I didn't really care for the Ray Romano one. Not too many laughs throughout, Fred Stoller's skype call went on way too long and was just kind of awkward, and there seemed to be even more commercials throughout the episode.
Hoping it gets better again.
Pretty much.
I agree that this wasn't his best episode. I actually thought Stoller's awkwardness saved the show from being complete shit as it finally gave Norm something to rip on. Ramano seems like a nice guy but he was pretty boring.
And yeah the commercials used to be awesome, the Mangrate thing was one of the highlights of the entire show, now they are canned and boring.
I agree that Norm's jabs at Stoller were some of the best moments but I still wish they hadn't included him.
Regarding the ads, I don't think you're being fair. The Mangrate affair was one of highlights of last year for sure but I think that was a case of capturing lighting in a bottle. I don't think there's any reason to assume that the ads for Hulu and Dollar Shave Club would have reached Mangrate-levels if he had done them live.
