Mouthful of Shame

Jim Norton has made a career out of being the most uncomfortable person in the room, specifically by airing out the kind of sexual deviance most people wouldn’t admit to a priest. This hour, his first with Netflix, leans all the way into that reputation. He opens the set not with a standard stage walk, but with a pre-recorded sketch featuring cameos from Ricky Gervais, Louis C.K., and a bizarre climax where Robert De Niro spanks Norton’s bare rear end.

Taped at New York City’s Skirball Center at the end of December 2016, the special caught Norton at a major transition point. He was wrapping up his first nationwide theater tour and finding his footing on SiriusXM after the collapse of the long-running Opie and Anthony era.

On stage, Norton stays firmly in his lane of hyper-detailed, cringe-inducing sexual honesty. He riffs on sleeping with the same women as Charlie Sheen, his encounters with transgender sex workers, and the self-inflicted misery of his own Tinder profile. One of the more memorable routines involves a woman who stopped messaging him after googling his name and finding out about his habit of sending unsolicited photos.

The hour represents a shift in Norton’s delivery. While his previous specials often felt tense and tightly wound, he performs here with a loose, conversational ease that feels closer to his radio persona. It is dirty, unbothered by mainstream respectability, and deeply committed to the idea that there is nothing funnier than a man detailing his own degradation.