One of the most popular hosts of Weekend Update may be gone, but he’s far from forgotten. It will be much easier to remember Norm Macdonald this month when Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald, a film by Judd Apatow, debuts on Netflix on Oct. 16.
The documentary examines the peculiar life and career of Macdonald, a standup comic that almost every standup comic reveres, and who also happened to sit behind the Weekend Update desk for a few years in the 1990s until he was fired.
Macdonald died in 2021 at the age of 61 following a private battle with cancer.
From 1993 to 1998, from Season 19 into Season 23, Macdonald was a cast member and writer at SNL. He succeeded Kevin Nealon as anchor of Weekend Update. But it was his incessant chirping about the infamous O.J. Simpson trial that led to Norm’s exit from the show.
During the Simpson trial in the mid-1990s, Macdonald and writer Jim Downey insisted on peppering the segment with jokes about the former football star and the murders. NBC executive Don Ohlymeyer had a strong friendship with Simpson, which led to the eventual firing of both Macdonald and Downey during Season 23.
That issue is sure to be a part of the Apatow documentary, but it’s far from the only highlights of the comic’s career. Macdonald had several standup specials, maintained a steady dedication to doing standup in clubs around the U.S. and his native Canada, and also made appearances in films. He briefly hosted his own podcast talk show, Norm Macdonald Live, from 2013 to 2018.
For most of Macdonald’s post-SNL career he was a wisecracking smart aleck sought after by TV show hosts like Conan O’Brien. He spent much of his later years as “one of the guys” on comedian-centric podcasts. A sitcom titled The Norm Show aired for three seasons to little fanfare in the late 1990s, in which Macdonald played a disgraceded professional hockey player. Former SNL cast member Laurie Metcalf was in the cast.
Apatow has previously developed documentaries on the first-ever SNL host George Carlin, Garry Shandling, and comic legend Mel Brooks.
