We Might Be Drunk – Ep 261: Sam Morril and Mark Normand

Release Date: December 8, 2025
Hosts: Sam Morril, Mark Normand
Episode Theme:
A classic, booze-fueled hang with Sam and Mark—a “solo ep” revisiting the agony and ecstasy of performing comedy in weird places, tales from the road, festival war stories, their everyday peeves, pop culture hot takes, and riff-heavy camaraderie. The episode is a deep dive into the social and psychological hazards of doing stand-up for unexpected audiences, the wild side of comedy fest living, and the simple pleasures and annoyances of a comic’s daily life.

Main Discussion Themes & Segments

1. Sam's Bomb at the Gold Glove Dinner

[01:05-08:00]

• Setting: Sam retells bombing spectacularly at the ultra-fancy Rawlings Gold Glove baseball award dinner at the Plaza Hotel.
• Key Details:
  • “Sometimes you bomb in front of one of your heroes. You don't think about that when you get into this.” – Sam [01:05]
  • The gig was “gonna be great,” but Sam knew those are “the worst ones.”
  • He wrote eight minutes of bespoke baseball jokes (Cuomo/joke about the Rockies/Clayton Kershaw/Costas), which did well, but after ten minutes, the baseball crowd checked out once he shifted to his regular act.
  • Riff on the pain of hearing “ugh” after a dick joke: “I did a dick joke, and I just heard a woman go, no. I was like, that's not the sound I was going for.” – Sam [05:28]
  • Required to do 30 minutes: “They did not want to hear me do 30.” – Sam [05:53]
  • Aftermath: Got drunk at the Plaza Manhattan bar with his agent. “Sometimes you bomb and you're like, alcohol will help.” – Sam [10:37]
  • Keith Robinson jokes at his expense (“read the fucking room”)—comics always hear when you eat shit. [07:01]

2. Bombing at Private & Corporate Gigs

[08:10-10:50], [46:13-50:00]

• Mark and Sam swap horror stories about poorly mismatched bookings and audience culture clash:
  • Mark’s Jewish gig joke disaster: “Boy, we’re so high up. I feel like Anne Frank.” – Mark [09:04]
  • “I have a Muslim bit...and then the mic went out and I went, ‘Oh, man, how ironic—the Muslim joke didn’t work here. You guys really do run shit.’ Applause break. And then I went back to bombing.” – Mark [09:37]
  • The agony of long stage times in bad rooms, and hosts booking acts they don’t really want
  • “Stop hiring comedians you don’t know about. If you’re gonna get a Gilbert Godfrey, he’s gonna say fucked up shit, you know?” – Mark [47:31]
  • Mark’s tuxedo gig in Philly: “I got fired after the opening...they were like, we’re gonna need the tuxedo, and you gotta get out of here naked.” – Mark [47:12]

3. Coping With Bombs and Hangovers

[10:10-12:24], [53:19-56:08]

• Drinking as therapy for rough sets; admiration for sober comics
  • “That’s why these sober people…I’m so impressed. Like you go through something and you just have to raw dog it.” – Sam [10:48]
  • Stories of late-night benders after tough gigs and how comics recover, or don’t
  • Festival-induced agony: “The best way to get through Skank Fest is I just drink the whole time...and then you have to do a set.” – Chris [10:57]
  • Both Sam and opener Gary Veder nearly have panic attacks on stage in Utah from over-caffeination/altitude: “We both had, like, near panic attacks on stage. I got off, I’m like, dude...I’m on stage, I’m just like, I can’t breathe.” – Sam [53:56]

4. Comedy Festival Life & Weird Gigs

[23:59-26:08], [80:07-82:44]

• Social mishaps, networking nightmares, losing voices, festival party chaos, crowd-surfing at Skank Fest
  • “At some point, I’m at those, I’m getting drunk and I’m realizing I’m losing my voice. Oh, hell yeah. Because the music's on and everything.” – Sam [23:50]
  • “The airport was just riddled with comedians and everyone’s hung over, everyone’s miserable. And you realize, like, no one wants to talk to each other at the fest.” – Mark [24:11]
  • Skank Fest New Orleans: boxing matches, comedy jams, comics crowd-surfing, and tales of rockstar-level camaraderie.
  • “Just seeing Attell and Stanhope interact, you know, it’s fun.” – Chris [82:15]

5. Peeves and Petty Grievances

[12:42-14:01], [28:12-32:00]

• Morning flight times and people downplaying early departures: “That is bad because you gotta get there at 10, which means you gotta leave at 9. And I’ve been drinking till 4, so 9am isn’t late.” – Chris [13:09]
• Live jazz brunches and jazz in the morning: “No drums at breakfast.” – Sam [13:44]
• Slow eaters on the road: “Literally, like, what, are we filming a scene here?” – Sam [28:59]
• Chipotle peeves: staff putting sour cream without asking, customers getting pushy, unspoken gross-out at food handling
• “Still working on this”—annoying restaurant phrase
• Mayo scraped off burgers and condiment pet peeves: “If there’s, like, a special sauce that comes on it, that’s one thing. But just putting, like, ketchup or mayo on before is a fucking weird move.” – Sam [32:12]

6. Food, Bars, & Old New York Stories

[33:34-36:35]

• Dollar pizza memories (“You’re kind of like, what’s the catch? And then 30 minutes later, you’re like, oh yeah, I have to live with this inside me.” – Sam [33:56])
• Cash-only bars, comic strip lore, mugger money stories, and how digital is safer.
• Shoutouts to legendary NYC spots: Rudy’s Bar & Grill, Corner Bistro.

7. Threesome & Wild Hookup Tales

[15:29-18:23]

• Utah madness, rebellion against Mormon culture, and the sexual wildness of red state college towns
  • “It’s either Cub Scout or porn star.” – Sam [15:23]
  • Mark’s first (of a few) threesomes described as “she was an older broad, real, real saggy catcher’s mitt” [16:06-16:48]
  • Sam’s aspirations: “This is kind of the last phase of my life, I could probably pull that off. This is Sammy’s threesome year.” [18:36-18:45]
  • Bawdy tongue-in-butt stories—true to podcast form.

8. Comedy Recommendations & Pop Culture Hot Takes

[26:16-36:10], [56:08-61:32], [76:42-77:16]

• Movie recommendations:
  • Nebraska (Alexander Payne) – “Phenomenal. It’s black and white. It’s weird. It’s Bruce Dern, Will Forte…Loved it.” – Sam [26:29-26:56]
  • Alexander Payne’s other movies—Election, Sideways, The Descendants, About Schmidt
  • “Kathy Bates…now we’re talking. She’s awesome.” – Sam [27:30-28:01]
• David Lynch as a filmmaker:
  • “Don’t love it. I respect it, okay, but I don’t…like, Mulholland Drive’s a masterpiece, I think. But…Twin Peaks, I feel like every character is like, hey buddy, pal.” – Sam [56:21-56:31]
  • “Tim Burton is a weirdo, but it works sometimes.” – Chris [57:12]
  • Childhood forced to watch artsy movies by their moms; respect for old comedies—Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy.

9. Comic Inspirations and Discoveries

[68:00-74:13]

• Mitch Hedberg appreciation—unique delivery, simple but deep observational humor, and early-career footage.
  • “The delivery is like definitely…like when you hear Early Dangerfield and he didn’t have the rhythm yet.” – Sam [71:53]
  • Passing the torch, Chappelle crediting Tony Woods.

10. Technology & AI Gags

[76:22-79:09]

• AI as comedy content: MLK as a wrestling heel
  • “Want to know the truth? I ain’t got no dreams no more. I am the dream.” (AI MLK audio) [77:29]
  • “AI is going to take us over and kill us. But it’s funny.” – Sam [78:00]
  • Instagram catfishing, AI-generated content, fake videos—tricks and existential threats wrapped in comedy.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Bombing in front of Don Mattingly:
  “Sometimes you bomb in front of one of your heroes. That's part of—you don't think about that when you get into this.” – Sam [01:05]

• Comedy for the wrong crowd:
  “Read the booking sheet. You can't just book all these people and then go, oh, it wasn't exactly curated to my standards.” – Chris [07:38]

• Why no one wants 30 minutes at a gala:
  “If you're watching the Oscars, they're not doing 30. Yeah, of course, doing like five or 10. That's what it should be.” – Sam [07:56]

• On festival hangovers and socializing:
  “Everyone's hung over, everyone's miserable. And you realize, like, no one wants to talk to each other at the fest.” – Mark [24:11]

• On the perils of Chipotle:
  “They're so autopilot that they're like, they think they can predict your order…I'm like, I never said sour. She put the sour on, so now we got to make a new bowl.” – Chris [31:07]

• On AI’s danger and entertainment quotient:
  “AI is going to take us over and kill us. But it’s funny. That's no other thing that's going to, like, this existential threat has been hilarious.” – Sam [78:00]

• Sam’s hot take on Lynch:
  “I respect it. Okay, but I don't…like, Mulholland Drive's a masterpiece, I think. But then like, Twin Peaks, I feel like every character is like, hey buddy, pal.” – Sam [56:21]

• On the artistic grind:
  “You don't have to suffer for what you do. But maybe a little ain't the worst.” – Sam [58:06]

Recommendations

• Movie: Nebraska by Alexander Payne [26:16]
• Books: Elmore Leonard’s 52 Pick-Up and Glitz [76:42]
• NYC Bar: Rudy’s Bar & Grill; Corner Bistro (“cash-only can get annoying though”) [35:00]
• Pizza Spot in Tulsa: Andolini’s (Marco Slice) [84:17]

Fun Sidebars and Recurring Bits

• Butt plug subway riff as cold open
• Catcher’s mitt/Johnny Bench analogies for “older broads” in threesomes
• Childhood artsy movie memories, Marx Brothers/Laurel & Hardy shoutouts
• Ongoing peeve section: live band at brunch, slow eaters, condiment mishaps
• AI content as a source of both laughs and existential dread
• “Threesome counter” running gag for Sam
• Some light poking at aging—“39: the perfect age for your mom or your girlfriend”

Timestamps – Key Segments

• Sam’s baseball dinner bomb: [01:05–08:00]
• Jewish gig / awkward private event jokes: [09:00–10:10]
• Coping with bombing (alcohol, agents, late-night recovery): [10:48–12:24]
• Festival hangover, airport interactions: [23:59–24:33]
• NYC bar lore & cash-only talk: [35:00–36:35]
• Utah stories & threesomes: [15:29–18:23]
• Pop culture segment (Payne/Lynch/Burton): [26:16–36:10], [56:08–61:32]
• Old Hedberg footage / comic inspirations: [68:00–74:13]
• AI wrestling heel MLK: [77:22–78:09]
• Skankfest and festival party madness: [80:07–82:44]

Overall Tone

Loose, boozy, confessional, irreverent, and unfiltered, with Sam and Mark sliding naturally from passionate comedy shop talk and self-deprecating war stories to riffs on food, New York, and the absurd perils of modern tech, all while keeping the banter flowing and the laughs coming.

For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

If you want a window into the everyday grind, embarrassments, triumphs, and private headaches of two working headliner comics—plus some off-the-cuff pop culture analysis and food talk—this “solo ep” is peak We Might Be Drunk.
Expect:

• Candid honesty about professional failure
• The art/trauma of the bomb
• Raucous festival tales
• NYC lore
• Their uniquely specific, consistently funny complaints about daily life.
• Movie/book/restaurant recs you probably haven’t heard elsewhere

If you haven’t tuned in, you’ll come away feeling like you’re at the bar with these guys yourself.