- After a multicolored rock group introduces the cartoon, Norman Normal is asked by a boss to wine and dine a client at a nightclub party, something Normal is uncomfortable with. He talks with his dad about it who rambles on and tells Norman, "don't make waves". At the party, Norman talks with his lampshade-clad friend Leo, disapproves of a joke told by one of the guests suspecting it's about a "minority group" and is ridiculed by the bartender for only having a ginger ale. Norman leaves the party and returns us to the multicolored rock group.—Matt Yorston <george.y@ns.sympatico.ca>
- The opening titles are accompanied by the theme song of the same name, performed by N. Paul Stookey. As the cartoon begins, a multicolored band is seen playing the theme. A character then appears and closes a door on the band before introducing himself as Norman, a ball-bearing salesman and the hero of the piece. Norman walks down a long corridor that is full of doors and explains that each door has one of his many problems behind it.
Norman then opens a door and enters the office of his boss. The company they work for has been having trouble trying to get a man named Fanshawe to buy a large consignment of ball-bearings. The boss has since discovered that Fanshawe is an alcoholic, so in order to take advantage of this, he orders Norman to take Fanshawe to a bar, buy him as much alcohol as he wants and then get him to sign the contract while he is drunk. Norman refuses his boss's order and tells him that "it just isn't right", to which the boss replies "everybody's doing it" to try and reassure Norman. Norman and the boss continue to argue, and in the middle of their argument, they suddenly revert to children, and the argument's subject changes, with the boss now wanting Norman to bully a fellow child in order to be admitted into the boss's gang. They revert back to adults and the boss wonders out loud if he has misjudged Norman and whether or not he really is suitable for the job. This reverse psychology appears to work, with Norman caving in and agreeing to the boss's demands, but when he leaves the office and returns to the corridor, he vows not to do what the boss wants and simply ask Fanshawe to sign the contract if he thinks that the ball-bearings are good enough.
Then Norman opens another door and enters a room with his father. Norman asks his father several serious questions about what is right and what is wrong, but the father just floats around the room and gives Norman a mix of vague psychobabble and stories from his childhood and young adulthood. He then tells Norman that the key to success in life is "don't make waves" and fit in, after which he disappears.
Norman returns to the corridor and walks through another door, this time finding himself at a party where he is greeted by a man who appears to be named Leo, who wears a lampshade on his head and repeatedly asks "Approval?" as he walks around the room. A drunken salesman is the next to greet Norman by congratulating him on closing the deal with Fanshawe (how he has done this is not revealed in the cartoon, although it is inferred that it was done through honest means). The other salesman then begins to tell a joke about a travelling salesman who mistakes an Eskimo woman for a walrus, but Norman talks over him, meaning that we don't hear most of his joke, telling him that he shouldn't tell a joke that is designed to make another race or minority group look inferior.
After the salesman finishes telling his joke, Norman walks over to the bar, where he is asked by Hal, a drunk bartender, if he wants some more to drink. Although Norman hasn't had any alcoholic drinks, he tells Hal that he has had enough to drink and asks instead for a ginger ale. Hal then taunts Norman by accusing him of hating himself when he is drunk. Norman leaves the bar without replying to Hal's taunts.
In the corridor once more, Norman apologizes for the display that has just taken place, then he opens the door with the multicolored band behind it again. As the theme song begins playing again, it is revealed that both this version of Norman and the band are inside the head of another larger version of Norman, and are both visible through a door inside the larger Norman's head. The cartoon ends with the larger Norman closing the door on his head.
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