Same with Phil Hartman and Matt Berry, they can make the most boring lines instantly funny through sheer power of charisma and vocal inflections.
With all of these, there's an element of absurdity. It's not about the world Norm is creating, it's the fact that the words aren't the joke, the joke is on you. The joke is that it's a long, boring story to set up a shitty punchline. You wait, and wait, and wait for the catharsis, but it never comes from the joke itself, it comes only a beat or two after when you realize what just happened.
Matt Berry gets mileage out of responding to everything with a sort of bombastic over-seriousness. He is a character that does nothing small.
Observational comedy is the pointing out of absurdity in everyday life.
You and he were buddies, weren't you?