It’s hard to figure out why we sometimes internalize the deaths of people we never knew personally. Maybe it forces an awareness of our own mortality we often try to ignore. Maybe it signifies the end of an era that gave you inspiration or happiness. In the case of comedian Norm Macdonald, his death hit me hard and I know precisely why. Another voice of truth is gone.
I’ve had the privilege over the years of interviewing great comics who come through town to promote their shows. It’s always a particular thrill when those comics happen to be people I grew up watching and appreciating stylistically. The late 80s and 90s-era Saturday Night Live cast are those people to me.
Something interesting has been bubbling up in so many of that era over the last decade or more. They’re becoming more and more outspoken over their concern for the direction of the country and comedy. Some like Rob Schnider or Jon Lovitz are more overt, while others like David Spade and Dana Carvey say a lot in what they don’t say. Norm Macdonald was in another category. If it came into his mind he said it. Blunt force truth about everything, all the time. No matter who was on the receiving end. Not partisanship. Always truth.
Isn’t that what we want from comics in an era so full of gaslighting and mistruths? Don’t we all crave people who are the proverbial referee to blow their whistles and say, “I think you’re a phony” no matter who’s in charge? Don’t we need people who stare down the barrel of our quirks and traditions and hang ups, point them out to us and ask us to consider them - even if it’s uncomfortable sometimes?
That’s what Norm did. It’s said he was fired for his stint as host on Weekend Update on SNL back in the 90s because of his relentless “O.J. Simpson is a murderer” jokes. You can watch literally hours of jokes he told during the months-long Simpson trial. I remember being a teenager at home doubled over in laughter while the sometimes groaning or uncomfortably quiet live studio audience didn’t seem to know how to react.
Covering the tail end of the trial for example, Macdonald said “Simpson attorney Johnny Cochran put on the knit cap prosecutors claim Simpson wore on the night of the murders. Although OJ may have hurt his case a bit when he blurted out ‘Hey, easy with that! That’s my lucky stabbin’ hat!”
There are YouTube videos that go on for ten minutes or more of jokes just like it. Relentlessly, pointedly, purposefully mocking the idea there was any serious person in America who attempted to pretend OJ Simpson was anything other than a murderer. Everyone knew it. Macdonald saw the humor in news stories and coverage and conversations of this obvious murderer being treated as though there was any doubt of his crimes. He saw the jokes in the phoniness, sometimes to an uncomfortably pointed degree.
The head of NBC’s entertainment division at the time was a friend of Simpson and ultimately fired Macdonald because he just “wasn’t funny,” or “wasn’t testing well with audiences,” or whatever rot entertainment executives tell themselves to confirm their own biases. The blunt truth was – Norm was too blunt and honest for powerful, connected, phony people. But it only made the appetite for his edge and honesty grow bigger amongst his fan base.
He was also great at pointing out silly things people say or obvious things people won’t say when bad things happen. When “Croc Hunter” Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray at age 44, Macdonald joked, “44 is a pretty ripe old age for a croc hunter.”
Or speaking of someone who died of cancer “losing their battle.” Macdonald lamented, “That’s no way to think of someone. ‘What a loser that guy was.’ Last thing he did was lose. He was waging a brave battle, but at the end he got kind of cowardly…”
Some would gasp and call those jokes tasteless I suppose, but millions like me appreciated Norm was telling us we’re the weird ones for the way we say things or the things we tell ourselves sometimes. We’re silly people sometimes. “Wokesness” is ridiculous. So are powerful and famous people. And it’s critical we have comedians who aren’t’ afraid to say so to all of us.
In an age of gaslighting and fake news propping up powerful people while maligning average people, Norm made us think the way we wish journalists made us think. Great comedians and journalists should offer clarity. Now media and comedy mostly cheerleads, gaslights, and panders. But that kind of behavior offended the sensibilities of Norm Macdonalad.
Much like the death of Rush Limbaugh, Norm was another brilliant truth-teller we lost far too soon. Men who believed their audiences were tough enough to handle the truth. I believe conservatives are truth-tellers by nature. They crave and deliver clarity and bluntness when necessary. Perhaps those are old-fashioned notions today.
But the truth is the culture will miss Norm Macdonald whether they realize it or not.
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