Norman Gene "Norm" Macdonald is a
Canadian stand-up comedian, writer, producer and actor
. He is best known for his five seasons as a cast member on
Saturday Night Live, which included anchoring
Weekend Update for three years.
Early in his career, he wrote for the sitcom
Roseanne and made appearances on shows including
The Drew Carey Show and NewsRadio. He starred in
The Norm Show from
1999 to
2001.
Comedy Central named him #83 on the five-part miniseries
100 Greatest Stand-ups of All
Time. He is noted as a favorite talk show guest of
David Letterman,
Howard Stern,
Dennis Miller, and
Conan O'Brien. His brother is Canadian journalist
Neil Macdonald, of
CBC News.[
3][4]
Macdonald was born in
Quebec City, Quebec,
Canada,[2] and raised in
Ottawa, Ontario.[citation needed] Macdonald has a brother, Neil Macdonald, who is a journalist with the CBC.[4]
Career[edit]
Macdonald's first performances in comedy were at stand-up at clubs in
Ottawa. He appeared at the
1987 Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in
Montreal.[5]
Saturday Night Live[edit]
Macdonald joined the cast of
NBC's Saturday Night Live (
SNL) television program in
1993, where he performed impressions of
Larry King,
Burt Reynolds, David Letterman,
Charles Kuralt and
Bob Dole, among others.
Following Kevin Nealon's departure from SNL, Macdonald anchored the segment Weekend Update.
Chevy Chase, the first anchor of Weekend Update, has quipped that Macdonald was the "best Weekend Update anchor since – well – Chevy Chase".[6]
Current Update anchor and head writer
Colin Jost named Macdonald as a primary influence on Jost's own work behind the "Update" desk, explaining that Macdonald's tone was one that Jost grew up with in high school.[7]
Macdonald's version of Weekend Update often included repeated references to prison rape, crack whores and the
Germans' love of
Baywatch star
David Hasselhoff. Macdonald would occasionally deliver a piece of news, then take out his personal compact tape recorder and leave a "note to self" relevant to what he just discussed. He commonly used
Frank Stallone as a non sequitur punchline. Macdonald repeatedly ridiculed public figures such as
Marion Barry,
Michael Jackson and
O. J. Simpson. Throughout
Simpson's trial for murder, Macdonald constantly pilloried the former football star, often heavily implying Simpson was guilty of the brutal slaying of his wife
Nicole and her friend
Ronald Goldman. In the broadcast following Simpson's acquittal, Macdonald opened Weekend Update by saying: "Well, it is finally official: murder is legal in the state of
California."
During the
February 24,
1996, episode, Macdonald made a controversial joke about the sentencing of
John Lotter, one of the two men who committed the notorious murder of
Brandon Teena: "In
Falls City, Nebraska, John Lotter has been sentenced to death for attempting to kill three people in what prosecutors called a plot to silence a cross-dressing female who had accused him of rape. Now this might strike some viewers as harsh, but
I believe everyone involved in this story deserved to die."[8][9]
After the announcement that Michael Jackson and
Lisa Marie Presley planned to divorce, Macdonald joked about their irreconcilable differences on Weekend Update: "She's more of a stay-at-home type, and he's more of a homosexual pedophile." He followed this up a few episodes later with a report about the singer's collapse and hospitalization. Referring to a report of how
Jackson had decorated his hospital room with giant photographs of
Shirley Temple, Macdonald remarked that viewers should not get the wrong idea, adding, "Michael Jackson is a homosexual pedophile." The joke elicited audible gasps from some audience members. He responded to this by saying, "What? He is a homosexual pedophile."[10]
Another uncomfortable moment occurred during the April 12,
1997, show (host
Rob Lowe, musical guest
The Spice Girls), wherein, during a Weekend Update story about
Tabitha Soren, he accidentally coughed in the middle of a sentence and, live on the air, muttered, "
What the fuck was that?"
The audience applauded, and Macdonald laughed the
error away (saying at one
point "My fare
- published: 30 Apr 2016
- views: 25