Norm Macdonald would have been the last person to support the idea of an obituary for Norm Macdonald. Still, as the legendary comedian died last week at the age of 61 following a protracted but largely silent battle with cancer, it’s only fair. He might, at least, call it a punchline.
After all, his trademark was making the audience wait for it. And it took Macdonald’s surprise passing for the genuine content of his character to emerge. He may be best known for his time in the “Weekend Update” anchor chair on Saturday Night Live, but Macdonald quietly changed lives, corresponding privately with writers, offering his help to fledgling comedians, and waxing philosophically on the greater meaning of the cosmos on a Twitter account.
He would likely hate the outpouring of sentimentality, but like the punchlines to his jokes, he earned it.
Before SNL, Norm Macdonald “worked in blue-collar jobs for years” in his native Ottawa, according to the New York Times. He wrote for The Dennis Miller Show and several half-hour sitcoms, including Roseanne, before earning a meeting with SNL producer Lorne Michaels in 1993. “There’s something in his comedy — there’s just a toughness to it,” Michaels said of Macdonald. “Also, he’s incredibly patient. He can wait.” He can wait for the punchline. He can wait for the audience. “I think it took some getting used to for the audience,” Michaels continued. “It wasn’t instantly a hit. But he just grew on them.”
And if it didn’t, Macdonald had the power to ad-lib lines until the audience was on his side. “He was a standout writer and had a droll physical presence, often delivering over-the-top impressions of such figures as Sen. Robert Dole (R-KS), broadcaster Larry King and especially actor Burt Reynolds,” the Washington Post noted, referencing the Jeopardy! sketch he pioneered with Will Ferrell and Darrell Hammond that has since become part of the cultural zeitgeist.
He was best known for “Weekend Update,” SNL’s take on the evening news. NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer fired Macdonald, growing tired of his weekly potshots at O.J. Simpson following his arrest and trial for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend, Ronald Goldman. The former NFL star and Ohlmeyer were personal friends.
When the trial ended with an acquittal, Macdonald sealed the cultural moment and perhaps his fate on SNL by declaring, “It is finally official: Murder is legal in the state of California.”
After leaving SNL, Macdonald found mixed success on television but continued to perform at standup clubs and hone his comedy style. Clips that circulated on social media this week were mostly of his appearances on late-night talk shows, a circuit on which he became a staple because he was so unpredictable.
“When Norm steps out from behind the curtain, I honestly don’t know what is going to happen, and that electrical charge comes through the television,” host Conan O’Brien once remarked.
Macdonald said once that he simply wanted to be honest.
“I never wanted fame at all. I just wanted to do stand-up,” he said in an interview with an Ottawa newspaper in the early 2010s. “I found when I came to Los Angeles to do more stand-up comedy that people wanted me to do other things, which I really didn’t want to.”
“He was an original,” Lorne Michaels told the New York Times, “and he didn’t compromise in a business that’s based on compromise — show business.”
Macdonald leaves behind his son, his mother, and two of his sisters. It’s not immediately clear whether even his family knew he had been diagnosed with cancer nine years ago, as he was so private and unassuming. But in the end, he’s likely happy cancer got him before O.J. Simpson did.
