Transcription
[Music]
Okay, we're all set. 1, 2, 3. Look Away. Norm McDonald. Norm McDonald. I'm going to throw up. Norm McDonald. Everybody. Norm McDonald's blend of deadpan jokes and meandering humor earned him a spot with the comedy greats. Norm McDonald was never not funny. He is truly the comic's comic. He was above the room.
"I'm a pretty lazy guy. I just hang around on my couch, watch TV. That's all I do. You know, lazy. I get hit by a truck tomorrow, a big truck could hit me, paralyze me from the neck down, wouldn't affect my lifestyle a bit."
Norm was sort of like a young old man. He has this everyday uncle in the backyard kind of a feel. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, you know, this guy over here got too many teeth. That's the problem. How many teeth do you need? Really? Five, six. He could say anything and it'll be funny. The only time you, you look bad, you ever see a guy, no tooth up in the front there, he got no tooth, man. And you look like a dork, boy.
He was an SNL cast member throughout the '90s, pushing the limits of comedy as the anchor of the show's Weekend Update segments. "Thanks, I'm Norm McDonald, and now the fake news." He really took big swings. You can't really take the culture of comedy to the next level if you're not taking those big swings. If you're not taking those big risks. It just seemed like he was whitewater rafting through his career and enjoying the, uh, the turbulence. As Norm once said to me, "Gambling is the most interesting thing in the world." He had some troubles with gambling. He had a problem with gambling at times. I think, "I've lost everything I own three times." His gambler's mentality is what made him such a risk-taking comedian. Norm McDonald really did not want to be told what he couldn't, couldn't do. Why would a comic who had everything risk losing it all over and over again? He not only poked the bear, he was kicking the bear.
"That's a little scoop for the viewers. Ladies and gentlemen, you're about to be entertained." Getting the laugh is the greatest addiction. More of it, they want more of it. She was getting death threats. "It's your hair out of his." That's what took her down. This is a crazy story. Bert Reynolds. "That's not my name." Okay. Turd Ferguson. "Yeah, what do you want?"
He influenced comedy. I think he's one of those people where his influence in comedy can never really be overstated. Norm had a natural rhythm and a way of talking and a way of thinking like nobody else I ever hung with. "Cuz I grew up on a farm. I had no running water." "You had no running water, right?" "What did you think of an outhouse?" "Cuz that's what I remember as the worst thing about growing up on a farm." "Goddamn outhouse. It's the most terrifying place in the world."
Norm McDonald was born in 1959, the middle child of three brothers. Norm, well, like a lot of people, he absorbed television as a child, and the stuff that he saw as a kid was the stuff that had the greatest influence. This is the CBC television network in Canada. In those days, there wasn't much television. Hockey Night in Canada. The comedy team of Wayne and Schuster, which was the only comedy show on CBC for a generation. Randy Dash, old friend of Norm's. Uh, Norm and I had a common interest we found right away was TV shows, especially classic retro stuff.
Norm's father was almost a generation older than the fathers of his schoolmates. I understand that, cuz I have a father who was of the same generation. And it's a bit cold and standoffish. You don't display a lot of emotion in things. And from what I saw, that's sort of how Percy was. Norm was sort of like a young old man or an old young man. You know, he had these elderly catchphrases and references and nuances. And certainly, he acquired those from his father. Norm used his ease of creating comedy and levity to impress his father.
He graduated from high school at the age of 14 in Ottawa. And Norm went to Carleton University in Ottawa, starting at the age of 16. So in every capacity, he's ahead of the class. Norm had just finished a year of journalism and quit. At loose ends after leaving college, Norm decides to take a shot at stand-up comedy. He told me that he was going to do amateur night, open mic at Yuk Yuk's. He was really nervous, very nervous, even fidgety, couldn't focus. They had a giant sign right behind the comic. And Norm got up there, and it was brilliant stuff. He started in Ottawa at our Ottawa Yuk Yuk's. We had an amateur night there run by the manager, Howard Wagman. Norm went on, did his five minutes, and walked out. And as he walked out, he muttered under his breath to Howard, "Well, that's that. I'll never be doing that again. I bombed." So Howard ran after him into the street. He said, "You didn't bomb at all. And in fact, I want you back here every single amateur night until you are ready to do regular nights." Then sometime in the next year, he moved to Toronto full-time.
"Ever get a present for your dog? My grandmother sent my dog a sweater. What a waste of wool that is. There, boy. Sweater for a dog. I don't want to put it on a dog. Just humiliates the dog. You know what happens if the dog gets lost? He's wearing a sweater. How long is he going to survive? And he alleyways with that. You know them mean streets. If you're a wiener dog in a cardigan again, you..."
I met Norm McDonald back in the '80s, and he was performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto. Was sort of part of a whole group of young comedians that were kind of the, uh, the kind of the new, the new vanguard of comedy in Toronto. I'm Dave Foley. Arguably a comedian. Norm, after they started hiring him locally, would then start to get billed in Montreal. In 1986, Norm McDonald gets the biggest break a young comedian can ask for. It's a stage that catapults the careers of many of the comedians of the day. Every agent and manager in comedy is at Just for Laughs, and there's a huge buzz around Norm McDonald.
I remember Norm getting sick back then. But before he can capitalize on the opportunity, Norm receives devastating news. He was very private, and he didn't speak much about it. He was in the hospital. Norm never talked about his physical stuff. In 1987, Norm was diagnosed with cancer, and I believe it was stomach cancer. And I think he told me because we were trying to book him, and he kept saying, "I can't go, I can't go, I can't do it." And he told me why, and he asked me not to tell people. He said, "The only other person I told was Jeremy Hotz," who was a comic out of Ottawa. Well, at the time, we thought, "Let's go visit him." So we went all the way out to some suburb that he was living in, a high-rise. And Norm came to the door, and he was in just a ratty bathrobe, and he had the complexion of concrete. And, you know, we spent the afternoon talking to him and stuff, and trying to make him laugh. And then we took a cab back. And Jeremy said to me, "He's going to die, man. He's going to die." And he didn't.
Norm takes a break to recuperate, then a year later, he returns to the stage. Norm was starting to get these gigs. There was this grist mill of just throwing stand-up comics on TV constantly. And so Norm was getting exposure that way. But I think to Norm personally, The Pat Sajak Show didn't really mean much to him. George Schlatter's Comedy Club, that appearance was something he wasn't proud of. And Star Search, I think he found kind of demeaning. Norm borrowed a suit from somebody because he didn't own his own suit. He looked like he's in a David Byrne music video with his giant oversized shoulders. You know, Norm had only one prize in mind.
"And now, making his network television debut, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Norm McDonald."
"So I had this dream. You ever have a dream and then you wake up right in the middle of a great dream, and then you're back in your stinking life again? So then you try to fall asleep, redream it."
Norm was completely elated to appear on Late Night with David Letterman. That was one thing he had always been working towards. He hadn't heard anyone else quite structure a joke the way Norm did. You know, that slow delivery. "That day, you know, I, I tell you, you ever lie for no reason at all? Just all of a sudden, a big lie spills out of your evil head there, you know? And you don't even know. Like a guy comes up, you go, 'Hey, you ever see that movie with Meryl Streep and a horse?' And you go, 'Yes.' Then you back, 'What the hell am I lying about over here? I stand to gain nothing by this lie. The hell am I thinking back here in my head?'"
Norm McDonald's style of comedy was a brilliant mix of sort of an "I'm a little naive about the world" so I don't know, man. "I got to get in shape. That's what I got to do. Work out. Be a big guy. I haven't worked out for ever. I never. Where it's at." "I was going to lie there again." Mixed in with a very smart, subversive tone, so that the audiences weren't sure where this guy was coming from. "He means those old guys, no matter what the hell they do to themselves, you know, they still grow old. Be the oldest bastard you ever met in your life, you know? Got every day. I smoke four packs of cigarettes. I drink a bottle of Jack Daniels. And I hit myself in the head with a shovel every day. I'd like to die."
Norm is becoming a hot ticket on the stand-up circuit. But just when his career looks about to explode, he reveals an entirely different, darker side of himself. We used to go on trips, the comics and myself. We used to go to Vegas a lot. And we took Norm on one of these trips. It was the first time he'd ever even been in a casino. And the way the trip would start was we would go to this sort of downscale casino, not to gamble, but for the foot-long hot dog, which was only a buck. And we look over. Norm's not having a hot dog. Norm's already gambling. On that trip, he never even checked into his room. All he did was play at the tables and refused to even, he wouldn't go for dinner with us. He wouldn't, we went to a couple of shows, he didn't want to go to shows. Well, I'd never seen anything like it. This was the thing that was his vice. Something just clicked in his brain.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Norm McDonald. It's 1991, and now living in Los Angeles, Norm's career hits a new peak. He's offered his own HBO special."
"Wow, good to see you. Good crowd here. How are you doing tonight? You all right? Oh, well, it's good to be here, man. I came down here, I got a lift down here. We drove down, me and my two buddies there. And four hours it took us to drive down here. And I was in the back seat all the way. Ever be in the back seat for a long trip? Oh, man, is that stink or what, man? What a rough place that is. And when there's only three in the car, you know, and you're in the back seat, you know you're not the most popular guy in the car. Nothing back there. You can't talk to them, you know? You got that clasp barrier, front seat, back seat thing there. You can't smash through that, you know? Ever try just stick your head in at a front seat? You're hi, what are you guys talking about? It's me from the back seat. Okay, I'll go back."
It was not unusual for a comedian to skyrocket because the industry was just discovering stand-up as an art form, and they were basically giving TV deals and promoting anyone who they thought potentially could be a sitcom star. Norm fit the bill.
"Dennis Miller gave me my first job on his talk show that he had for a couple days." "Now, what do you do? You went in and pitched yourself. I mean, how do you get that first break to go on the Dennis Miller show?" "Well, the only way I ever got anything. They did stand-up, and some guys would see me, like Roseanne saw me."
I didn't watch Roseanne at the time. I remember hearing that Norm got hired as a writer on Roseanne, and that was a big deal. Norm's work on Roseanne means he's suddenly flushed with cash. He now has more money than ever to gamble away. Norm would work 12 to 14 hours a day in the writer's room of Roseanne. They'd finish up, and he and another guy from there would just get in a car and like zip to the Commerce. The Commerce is a small casino on the outskirts of LA. Imagine being in a giant bus station, and if everything was gone, like all the stores and everything, and instead of that, there were poker tables. Now, poker clubs in California are legal, so it's completely legal gambling. But they're pretty degenerate places. We'd be there, there'd be guys eating super greasy food, and they're not the kinds of guys who are going to sit there with like, you know, wash and dries, you know, cleaning up their hands before they touch the cards. They would just touch the cards with the greasy hands. You know, it was a pretty crazy environment. You could be there for days if you wanted. I mean, if your money held out and your stamina held out and you wanted to keep gambling, you were in there to play poker. And Norm fit right in. He loved playing poker there. So they play poker all night, then they go right back to Roseanne the next day. Despite Norm's endless hours at the poker tables, his work on Roseanne flourishes, soon attracting talent scouts from Saturday Night Live.
"I didn't think Norm was going to get big. I didn't. And then as soon as the Saturday Night Live thing happened, okay, it's real."
In October 1993, Norm makes his debut on Saturday Night Live. I wasn't surprised at all that Norm landed at SNL. He had the perfect credentials. He had an original voice. He was fearless. And he looked really good on camera. But they really cleaned him up on SNL. You know, got him out of his plaid shirts. And I think they also saw in him as somebody who could really kill it on the Update desk, which is a huge component of the show. He wanted to do the closest thing to stand-up that you could do on SNL.
Hired as a regular cast member, SNL producer Lorne Michaels soon discovers the perfect vehicle for Norm's style. "Hi, I'm Norm McDonald, and now the fake news." He had that exquisite, it delivery. "In Walnut Creek, California, anyone who turns in his gun can get free therapy. And anyone who doesn't turn in his gun can get free anything." Laughter is one response to comedy, but I don't think it's the only response to comedy. And Norm embodied that. Norm saw bombing as part of the art form. "Wrong Way Oregon. The man who once flew all the way to Ireland by mistake, died this week at the age of 88. It was just like him, said his wife. He was trying to live." When the audience didn't laugh, you got it all wrong. He stared at the camera and just dared you not to laugh. "47-year-old Adrienne Brown, wife of soul legend James Brown, died suddenly last week. Most shocking of all, she was not killed by James Brown."
He really took big swings. That if it failed, he had to so boldly hold on to his commitment. If a joke died at dress, when he was doing Weekend Update, he would commit to the joke and do it on air because Norm liked the joke. "And in Poke City, Florida, a man had his stolen car returned, but the crated remains of his father, I say the crated remains, remains of his father are still missing. Don't I know it? Yeah."
Now, pulling in a reported six figures from his work on Saturday Night Live, Norm finds ever bigger opportunities to feed a habit that's become an obsession. He would go right from SNL to gamble in Atlantic City. I mean, he told me that if you watch old episodes of SNL, when everybody's on stage hugging each other and you know, celebrating the end, because often you wouldn't see me because I'd be in a limo heading down to Atlantic City.
As Norm's thirst for risk at the casino amplifies, so does his impulse to drive his comedy into more and more controversial territory. "Hey, it's comedian Jim Brewer, and now, ladies and gentlemen, Jim Brewer here." "He is. Summer of '96, going to Iowa. Big show. Me, Daryl Hammond. It's our first year. And Norm McDonald. Now, before the show, like, now, listen, you know, there's kids, you know, there's students here. Just no cursing. You know, try not to talk about sex and mention sexuality and don't make fun of church. And me, like, I'm a Sunday live. This is me every. Yeah, I get it. Live TV. Just same thing."
Norm goes out, he's smoking a cigarette, and they're already like, "Oh my God, he's smoking in front." And he, "So what did you say to them?" "I was just talking like I don't have a, my stand about. I just talk about whatever I'm thinking about." "L at the time, it was about having sex with an animal. And people are getting up and they're grabbing their kids and running up the aisles. People are fleeing for the exit." Next day, kicked out of the state. The governor wants some out. Uh, kicked off of the golf thing. I mean, it was, it was USA Today. It was all over the place. I think he said afterwards, he goes, "I don't care about the people left. I only cared about the kids who were there. They had a good time, and I had a good time."
"Other [Music] matters. Quite a world we live in. Incidentally, M. Masten will be represented in her civil suit by feminist attorney Gloria Allred, who is also quite unattractive."
Norm continues to push buttons on Weekend Update, starting to make increasingly questionable jokes about women. "No box of chocolates. That one. It's really, really interesting and kind of bizarre that someone who had such a fresh aesthetic and artistic ability was really not able to apply that in any kind of interesting way to women who are safer drivers. Men or women? Well, according to a new survey, 55% of adults feel that women are most responsible for minor fender benders, while 78% blame men for most fatal crashes. Please note that the percentage in these pie graphs do not add up to 100% because the math was done by a woman." "You know, it's called a punchline for a reason. It's supposed to punch. It's supposed to hit and elicit that laugh. For those of you hissing at that joke, it should be noted that that joke was written by a woman. So now you don't know what the hell to do." "D, no, I'm just kidding. We don't hire women."
[Applause] [Music] [Applause]
Norm is seemingly immune to criticism. But then he starts attacking another subject and won't let it go. "According to retailers, the most popular Halloween mask this year is O.J. Simpson. And the most popular Halloween greeting is, 'I'll kill you.' And that guy who's bringing over your glasses or traits. I was there when O.J. was acquitted. That was my first season at SNL. And Norm was passionate about the fact that O.J. Simpson had gotten away with murder. But his boss is a friend of O.J.'s and kept calling Lorne Michaels to say, 'You got to tell Norm, you could do every other joke, just no more O.J.'"
"I'm Norm McDonald, and now the fake news. Well, it is finally official. Murder is legal in the state of California." He deliberately antagonized Don Oh, uh, who kept telling him to lay off O.J., and he wouldn't do it. "You know, no more O.J. We don't want to hear anymore." And the more he was told not to poke the bear, he not only poked the bear, he was kicking the bear. "Let's get to O.J. O.J. Simpson. O.J. Simpson. O.J. Simpson. O.J. Simpson. O.J. is the O.J. Simpson trial." So he kept doing the O.J. jokes. But that's what made him great. That's what made him. And that's what excited him more because it is more dangerous. And that's what made him want to do it more because you told him not to do it. That made it funnier.
Norm doesn't seem to care about any offense he may be causing. Then he has given one more warning. He was called into Don Oh's office at NBC, and Don Oh said to Norm, "Look, I know you're talented, but you're too slow on Weekend Update. You need to pick up the pace." "Well, you're telling that to a comedy genius."
"Last weekend in Washington, a new museum dedicated to broadcast [Music] jerk was that last weekend in Washington, a new [Applause] museum. My farewell performance last weekend." "You can't really take the culture of comedy to the next level if you're not taking those big swings. If you're not taking those big risks." "I've heard people say that they thought Norm was reckless. I disagree with that completely. Norm was committed. Norm McDonald really did not want to be told what he couldn't, couldn't do."
Norm refuses to stop talking about O.J. until he pushes too far. "Our first guest is one of the funniest men working in television today. He is the anchor of Weekend Update on the popular Saturday Night Live program. Please welcome Norm Macdonald." "There is a tape of him on Letterman that day." "How you doing?" "I'm doing good." "H, oh, that's all right. I'm just, I'm just slow. That's okay." "Happy New Year, buddy." "Happy New Year to you. Thank you very much for being here." "Yeah, you don't mind if I ask you a question?" "What?" "I hear today, I hear this story, and it's like this press release. You get your ass fired. Is that true?" "No, you didn't get fired." "Yeah, they fired." "No, they didn't fire you." "No, I'm serious. I, I, I talked to a guy that said I'm fired." "Well, uh, who fired you? First of all, let's get some names here. Let's get this on the record." "They said that this guy, Don, turns out to be the president." "Yeah." "Now, I know Don, and just between you and me, he's an idiot." "So he goes, uh, oh, yeah, I'm, uh, uh, I'm firing you there from the show." "And then I, I said, oh, that's not good, you know?" "And then I said, why is that?" "Now, and he goes, uh, oh, you're not, you're not funny." "And then I said, I said, oh, holy Lord, that's even worse news, you know?" "He goes, no, I don't got nothing to fall back on." "He's a good man. He just fired you." "What do you mean he's a good? What is wrong with you?"
Weeks later, Norm relays the conversation he had with Don Oh on Howard Stern, and suddenly who was behind the firing seems less clear. "So then I said, but this decision is coming from you, right?" "And he goes, what?" "And then I go, cuz, uh, you know, cuz I talked to people on the show, Lorne and stuff, and they're for me." "And he goes, well, if that's what they tell you, sure, blame me."
But the reality remains, Norm McDonald is out. In the aftermath of his firing, Norm appears to accept his defeat, but his reckless impulse to risk it all continues to ramp up. In 1999, "I spent a crazy lost weekend with Norm McDonald in Las Vegas. I was writing a lot for Details magazine at the time, and I knew that Norm liked to gamble, but I didn't know that much about his gambling proclivities. Norm was performing at the House of Blues in Mandalay Bay, and the idea was he would take what he earned for the performance, which was $40,000, and either double the money or lose it all. If he doubled the money, that would have been awesome. If I was a betting man, I would have bet that he was not going to double the money."
So why the attraction? Most people would think it's the wins that keep the gambler going, but any gambler knows this is not true. As you place your chips on the craps table, you feel anxiety and impatience. It is a particular moment, a magic moment. It is after the red dice are thrown, but before they lie still on the green felt where they fall. It is when the dice are in the air. And as long as they are there, time stops. As long as the red dice are in the air, the gambler has hope. And hope is a wonderful thing.
Norm blew $10,500 on craps, and then he was like, "Okay, let's go play Blackjack." We're sitting there playing Blackjack. I'm like, betting, you know, minimum bets. He's of course betting way more. We lost $17,000 at Blackjack. Norm, like, doesn't even seem to care about losing. It's like not a big deal to him. So we're back up in his room. He goes, "Can you loan me $10,000?" I'm like, "Norm, I don't have that kind of money with me." But I did feel like I was party to the loss. So I go, "Okay, Norm, I'll loan you a thousand." Sure enough, he was back in about five minutes, and he blew the money. So now he's broke. I loaned him $1,000, and I got back a check from him like in no time at all. And there was a note attached to it that said, "Better sorry than safe."
Norm's gambling addiction has reached shocking proportions, something he later reveals on TV. "Have you ever been devastated and lost like a big bet?" "I've lost everything I own three [Music] times." "Tapped out?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That happened to me three times. But since I've gotten control of it, since. See, actually, after you lose everything, sometimes you kind of feel good. It's odd, but you feel like you feel like clean. You go, 'Hey, man, I feel all right.' You know?" "Yeah. This was my big statement on the boardwalk. I threw $60,000 into the ocean. Yeah, to quit. That was my thing. I'm going to quit." "I guess it's like people that know they're going to hit bottom and kind of want it. Because it does get, it's exhausting taking the risk." "I think that's what he was addicted to. Throwing dice, not knowing where it's going to land, is 100% the same as spitting out a joke and not knowing where it's going to land. And it's almost like his gambler's mentality is what made him such a risk-taking comedian." "I remember a psychiatrist once telling me that I gamble in order to escape the reality of life. And I told him, that's why everyone does everything."
I think Norm's gambling, the toll it took, was mostly financial. I didn't see it really take a toll on him in terms of his spirit. He would lose a lot of money. He would need money. He would have to keep working. But Norm didn't mind working. I think Norm loved working.
"What brought you down? Gambling?" "Well, some, some have said it's been the ruin of me, Larry. The ruin. But I don't..."
If Norm McDonald had a dark side, I don't think that it was all about his relationship to gambling. I think that that was a symptom of something much more interesting and much more complicated, which is the darkest of all dark sides is this relationship we all have with death, where most of us live in complete denial. I mean, if you die, the cancer also dies at exactly the same time. So that, to me, is not a loss. That's a draw. That's a, you know what I mean? "My biggest problem is ruminating about death. If I could get over that somehow, how you do that regularly? I try to read books about it and [ __ ]."
I think Norm's dark side was he was acutely aware of it, thinking about it all the time. And everything he did, his comedy and his gambling, was all about cheating death to kind of prove that he was still alive.
[Music]
After a string of sitcoms, movies, and personal projects through the early 2000s, the next decade sees Norm still gigging and quietly becoming a late-night fixture on talk shows, settling into his role as a comedian's comedian. He was the ultimate comic's comic. You hear it a lot, like, "Oh, they're a comic's comic." But with Norm, like, no one would argue that. Norm McDonald. Norm McDonald. Norm.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the very funny Norm McDonald." "Norm McDonald." "Ladies and gentlemen, Norm McDonald."
Norm was the very last comic to do stand-up on Dave's CBS show before Dave went off the air. Nobody made Letterman laugh harder than Norm McDonald. So this was the perfect moment. And, you know, you guys, we all know that David Letterman was the greatest talk show host who ever lived. But [Applause] I remember Dave differently because the first time I saw him, I was 13 years old. I was living in, I was living in Toronto, camp. And I went to a talk show they had there, and David Letterman was the stand-up comedian on the show. And I loved stand-up. So anyways, I just like to say, I know that Mr. Letterman is, uh, uh, uh, not for the mock, and he has, he has no truck for the sentimental. But if something is true, it is not sentimental. And I say in truth, I love you. Oh, yeah."
Norm was standing there, and Letterman came over, and he was crying. And I thought, "That's the most emotional I've ever seen Norm McDonald ever." It meant a lot to Dave, and it meant a lot to Norm. Now, keep in mind, Norm had to have known he was sick at the time that he did that.
"Oh my God. Very funny, Norm. And thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you, Norm McDonald." "Ladies and gentlemen, that was very sweet. Norm. He knew that he had a terminal illness at the time that he did that Letterman performance. But he was really a humble guy. And I think for him, it was all about Letterman and not about himself."
Norm's heartfelt appearance on Letterman reveals a side of the comedian never seen before in public, and the media takes notice. "When you're doing stand-up, you know, it's false by nature. Yes. And then all of a sudden, you kind of opened up as to who you were for real. And you showed Letterman how much you cared about him."
Netflix offers him his own talk show, and suddenly Norm McDonald is back in the spotlight. "Do you miss cocaine?" "Oh, there's a dog on the set, Chevy." "I never went to a strip club." "Well, we got tonight." "I feel bad that Roseanne got fired."
But when Norm speaks to a Hollywood Reporter while promoting the show, he puts himself in the center of an ugly controversy. He openly sympathizes with comedian Louis C.K., who is widely accused of sexual harassment. "Five women came forward with sexual misconduct allegations against comedian Louis C.K." "I was walking to set to shoot my scene, and he approached me and got really close to my face and said, 'Can I ask you something?' And I said, 'Yes.' And he said, 'Can I masturbate in front of you in your dressing room?'"
Norm McDonald did an interview about this new Netflix talk show he's doing. He's promoting it, and he made comments about the #MeToo movement and his friend Roseanne and Louis C.K. And here's what he said: "There are very few people that have gone through what they have, losing everything in a day. Of course, people will say, 'What about the victims?' But you know what? The victims didn't have to go through that." Essentially, Norm McDonald's argument is Louis C.K. lost his comedy special, he's lost a lot of cultural cache, people are mad at him, his legacy has been tarnished, and he says, "People say, 'What about what the victims go through?' Well, the victims never went through that."
Norm attempts to explain his statements in a social media post, but criticism continues to build. "I don't want to make light of being the center of a public shaming as Louis C.K. was. I'm sure that's devastating to experience. But it's interesting that Norm McDonald's immediate thought was, 'Well, that's way worse than experiencing sexual assault.' Like, is that an equivalent that we're all comfortable drawing? Is that really what we're going to say is the baseline here?"
Norm's comments begin to cast a chill over his career. "Comedian Norm McDonald has had a Tonight Show appearance next after some controversial remarks." "Every year I do a big charity event which raises actually a couple of million dollars for a kids' charity like Sick Kids or something. And we floated the idea of, 'We could get Norm McDonald.' We thought, 'Wow, they're going to love us for that.' And the committee came back and said, 'No, we don't want Norm McDonald because he defended Louis C.K.'"
It does seem as though he was pretty taken aback by the backlash, which was so intense that he just sort of stopped doing press cycle for his new show. Appearing on The View, Norm tries to explain himself and mitigate the damage. "But you kind of lose me when you imply that the hardship that your friend, Louis C.K. is a friend of mine too, really, I know him a long time, that the hardship that he went through is equal to the hardship that the victims went through. That doesn't, that doesn't compute." "No, it's not true. Can you explain yourself a little there?" "Yeah, uh, that's not, that's not what I was saying. Um, when this happened, I was working for Roseanne. When Roseanne's thing went down, and I called her the next day, and she was crying the whole time I was talking to her. I've known Roseanne for a while, and I was worried about her because she seemed really, really, um, in a bad place. And I said, 'I can't really talk to you about this because I've never been through anything like this.' And I said, 'I know Louie, and he's been through this where he's had everything taken from him.' And I said, 'Not many of us have gone through this.' And so you should talk to each other because you've." "And then the guy said, 'What about the victims?' And I said, 'Well, the victims haven't gone through this.'"
"It's too little too late." By the time the dust settles, Netflix chooses to end Norm's talk show after one [Music] season.
A shocking loss in the comedy world today. Comedian Norm McDonald has died after a private battle with cancer. On September 14th, 2021, Norm McDonald dies of leukemia, suddenly laying bare a secret he has long been hiding. He wasn't open about his health issues, which apparently were incredibly shocking to a lot of us who said, who found out that he had been suffering for years and years. I, I had no clue. The way Norm was able to keep his illness secret was because he's so respected. That I think between his right to privacy and not telling many people, the few who knew weren't going to say a word. I spoke to Norm the last time, the July before he passed away that fall, and I knew something was wrong. Spidey senses. Norm's illness was definitely a surprise to me, and not only me, to many people. I'm sure there were a few in his family that knew about it. I don't think it was hard to hide it because you don't talk about it. It's hidden.
"We were making a run across the open. Richard Farnsworth was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie. And if he had said he was filled with cancer, he would have won for sure. But instead, he didn't say it. And in fact, no one knew it. His family didn't know it. He kept it from everyone. So that, to me, is courageous. Like you're, you're not being a burden to your family. They know nothing about it. And then you're gone."
His was doing comedy and doing interesting, funny things in his life. And I, I don't know this, but I would imagine he felt that if it was public, it would color what he was doing, how he was doing it, and how he was being received. And the Laugh Factory's marquee in Hollywood tonight lit up with McDonald's bright smile and the message: "Make God Laugh."
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In light of the controversies that dogged him in the last few years of his life, Norm's legacy has become more complicated. "I didn't know Norm. Like, again, I feel like I knew surface Norm. I never got to know the deeper layers of Norm. He never would let. I don't know if he let too many people in there. There certainly was a darkness embedded in all of Norm McDonald's comedy. I mean, he could do corny stuff, sure, but there was almost a resentment or anger built in there." I think after Norm McDonald died, there's this really big impulse in popular culture, and especially in comedy, to want to just celebrate him and his life in this uncomplicated, lovely way. You know, and I think a lot of people experience that as like, "Oh, what a buzzkill." You know, I just wanted to love this man uncomplicated. And what I think some of the women have said is, "I didn't do this to his legacy. He did it to his own legacy."
I think Norm McDonald's legacy is that he was a completely unique voice in comedy. He is one of the finest anchors that SNL ever had on Weekend Update. That's all for now, folks. That's the way it is. Good night. You know, the people that leave legacies, people like Norm are just brave in their art. And anybody who's non-conforming inspires the next generation to not conform. I don't think Norm was ever ambitious. I think he, the fact that he kind of ambled his way into success, I think he didn't really, he never seemed driven. You know, he never seemed like a guy who wanted to be a big star. He just seemed like a guy who liked who wanted to tell good jokes.
"When I have my funeral, you know, and you know, most of these funerals, crying and sad and everything like that. And, uh, uh, that's what I like. You know, I don't want. I've heard of other ones. Let's have a party. Whoa, whoa. No party. There'll be a lot of party days later. But right now, this is the I'm dead."
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