Bucket List Feature
Norm Macdonald – Heroic Pig
Late Night with Conan O'Brien · Aired May 25, 2000
Why this bit hits
Heroic Pig is Norm in full shaggy-dog mode: a cozy, straight-faced tale about a farmer’s pig that saves the barn, then somehow gets a parade, a book deal, and a movie. The story unfurls with Norm’s trademark calmno big “jokes,” just detail after unnecessary detail until the audience is trapped in the bit’s slow orbit, waiting for a punchline that refuses to arrive.
The humor isn’t a twist it’s the commitment. Norm treats obvious nonsense like breaking news, and Conan’s expressions (part bafflement, part admiration) become a second soundtrack. When the “payoff” finally limps in, the underwhelm is the point: this is a joke about the futility of looking for neat endings, delivered with absolute confidence.
It’s quintessential Norm: the wrong destination reached the right way. The audience laughs not at the line, but at the audacity of the journey how far he can stretch a premise without blinking.
“But you can’t eat a hero, can you? So they built the pig a little house.”
Transcript (excerpt)
Norm recounts a barn fire and a pig that “burst through the door” to save everyone. The town celebrates; the story balloons. Each new flourish moves further from the rescue and closer to the real joke: there’s nothing to land on. When Norm finally offers, “You can’t eat a hero,” the laugh is the release from the build-up.