By Marlow Stern
Plus IconMarlow Stern
Chief Correspondent
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Courtesy of Netflix Norm Macdonald wasn’t for everyone. Armed with a deadpan delivery, devil-may-care attitude and cracker-barrel charm, the Canadian comic got his start writing for “Roseanne” before earning acclaim as the host of SNL’s Weekend Update, where his unrelenting ridicule of O.J. Simpson for being an alleged murderer — Macdonald was adamant that it wasn’t so “alleged” — eventually got him canned from the show. His one big shot at movie stardom, the Bob Saget-helmed 1998 comedy film “Dirty Work,” bombed spectacularly, and he subsequently presided over the quietly uproarious video podcast “Norm Macdonald Live” before dying from complications from leukemia in 2021 at the age of 61. Perhaps his old pal Larry King said it best, calling Macdonald, “One of the most respected comedians today, though show business has never found a place to put him.”
In the handful of years since his death, however, Macdonald has blossomed into an internet darling, as new generations of comedy enthusiasts stumble upon his hilariously awkward late-night appearances — particularly on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” — Weekend Update segments and podcast clips. Nobody did it like Macdonald, whose downright desiccated sense of humor is sorely absent in today’s doing-too-much comedy landscape. This new cultural appreciation for Macdonald is celebrated in “Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald,” a new documentary from Judd Apatow that premieres Friday on Netflix. Apatow’s loving tribute to his late pal contains no talking heads or any of the other conventions of these types of docs; rather, it explores the comedy giant’s life in Macdonald’s own words, largely borrowed from the narration of his absurdist biographical book “Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir,” as well as home videos, photos and archival interviews.
Here are five big takeaways from “Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald.”
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The Weekend Update Secret Sauce
Image Credit: ©NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection Next to Chevy Chase, Macdonald is regarded as the greatest Weekend Update host in “Saturday Night Live” history. And in the documentary, he gives a lot of credit to Lori Jo Hoekstra, his longtime collaborator who produced his stand-up specials and oversaw Weekend Update during his tenure. It was Hoekstra, he says, who wanted to make their Weekend Update different from the rest of SNL by hiring a team of outside writers, including Ross Abrash and Frank Sebastiano (who joined Macdonald’s creative partner, the legendary SNL writer Jim Downey), and having its own separate comedy identity. “Lori Jo [Hoekstra] then suggested we hire outside writers so Weekend Update would have a completely different flavor from the rest of SNL,” Macdonald recalls in the doc. “We all agreed that the jokes should be stripped of any cleverness, play on words or innuendo… A joke should catch people by surprise. It should never pander. Applause is voluntary, but laughter is involuntary.”
