Norm Macdonald – The Turtle Joke

Why this bit hits

The Turtle Joke is a perfect example of Norm Macdonald's mastery of pacing and perspective. The setup is simple and absurd: a turtle gets mugged by two snails. The joke then fast-forwards a year, when a police officer is finally taking the turtle's report. This time jump immediately establishes the bit's central theme: the comically slow passage of time from a turtle's point of view.

Norm tells the joke with his signature straight face, letting the silence and the audience's anticipation do most of the heavy lifting. The humor isn't in the action of the mugging but in the aftermath—the turtle's incredibly delayed reaction to the trauma. By drawing out the setup and focusing on the mundane details of the police report, Norm forces the audience to slow down and enter the turtle's world, making the final punchline all the more effective.

The payoff, "I don't know... it all happened so fast," is a brilliant piece of anti-humor. It's a line that is completely illogical from a human perspective but makes perfect, hilarious sense from the turtle's. It's a simple, elegant joke that rewards the listener for their patience. This bit is quintessential Norm: finding a profound (and profoundly stupid) truth in an absurd situation, and proving that the best punchlines are often the ones you have to wait for.