Where to Stream: Jim Norton: Mouthful of Shame

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There’s nothing you can say about Jim Norton that he hasn’t heard from another comedian or said about himself, whether onstage over the course of 20 years in stand-up comedy, almost that many years on the radio airwaves with Opie and Anthony and now without them on SiriusXM, or in two best-selling books of personal essays.

As he pauses midway through his fourth televised stand-up hour and first for Netflix, Mouthful of Shame, Norton acknowledges: “Because I’ve talked about myself so much publicly, people know so many things about me, and none of it’s a secret.”

He’s famous enough now to have Ricky Gervais, Louis C.K. and Robert De Niro appear in an introductory sketch mocking Norton for asking them to deliver an intro worthy enough of this new Netflix audience. And mock him they shall. It’s funny because their zingers ring true, putting Norton back into his place. Much as he likes to put his own peers in place, either mornings now on the radio, or in late-night sessions back in the mid-2000s on Comedy Central’s Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn. But even now, even after years of appearances alongside Jay Leno on NBC, Norton knows he’s still not Kevin Hart famous. Instead, he observes, “I have the type of fame where people will see me and they kind of sometimes they know they’ve seen me somewhere, but they’re not sure where.”

Norton gets his kicks then by subverting those strangers’ expectations. He likes to throw off friends by grossly overestimating when they ask him to guess how their stories will end, or by just plain being grossly sexual.

You’ll learn more than you already knew about Norton’s sexual techniques, habits and online dating preferences, as well as why he feels his take on a Caitlyn Jenner joke is neither transgressive nor marginalizing. In fact, it’s just funny.

He also claims to be relatively happy these days. Despite previously having entertained suicidal thoughts, Norton promises, “Life has just been good, lately,” and the only upside to committing suicide in his mind would be by pranking someone random in his note, which he wouldn’t even get to see afterward anyhow.

Speaking of knocking on death’s door, Norton jokes about the one or four things he does have in common with Charlie Sheen, although they may not be what you were expecting.

Being so open, so rigorously honest gets Norton into trouble with both strangers and girlfriends alike. If only he could have the legal balls, or the real genitalia, of Hulk Hogan to protect his own privacy, Norton might have less to worry about. Speaking of the Hulkster, Norton briefly attempts an impersonation of the famous ‘rassler, including an act-out, which he says he included to compensate for his lack of skill. “That’s what you do when you can’t do an impression as a comedian. You just jazz it up by moving funny,” he jokes.

Speaking of Cosby…Norton doesn’t have an impersonation there, although he does draw a distinction between the legendary now infamous comedian’s sexual crimes with his own predilections. Norton may enjoy having his salad tossed, so to speak, or more explicitly having sex with transgender women, but he vows never to pursue sex with vulnerable, inebriated or too-young women. He doesn’t consider himself gay so much as mutter epithets at himself in the mirror, but he’s seemingly OK with whatever you want to call him. With one exception: “But I’m not a pervert.” No matter what a Google search of him turns up.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Jim Norton: Mouthful of Shame on Netflix