Norm Macdonald, Dennis Miller, and Kevin Nealon reunited to heckle the bejeezus out of David Spade
Aux Features TV
David Spade was a Weekend Update regular during his SNL tenure, and the three anchors with whom he routinely sparred swung by his Comedy Central series for a “rowdy” reunion of sorts. Dennis Miller, Kevin Nealon, and an ever-chuckling Norm Macdonald filled out the peanut gallery during Spade’s opening barrage of jokes, heckling him relentlessly between groaners about Snoop Dogg, Jason Momoa, and Wheel Of Fortune.
As loose and improvisatory as you might think, the segment should warm the cockles of SNL fans of a certain age—ones, perhaps, who miss having Weekend Update anchors who would threaten their own employment with apocalyptic O.J. Simpson bits and not smugly chuckle at their own jokes.
Speaking of O.J., Norm walked back his old criticism of the disgraced athlete. “He was found not guilty by a jury of his peers,” he said after Miller recalled the comedian’s old penchant for O.J. cracks. “I see him as the greatest rusher—that’s all he’s guilty of to me, is the greatest rusher in the history of the NFL. Maybe I was the greatest rusher to judgement.” Classic.
Watch that clip below.
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66 Comments
They’re gonna murder him and I’m here for it.
It’ll be like riding a bronco.
Also, Norm is fucking hilarious. No, I will not take calls on this matter.
Old men chuckling about how funny they used to be is quite a thing.
Norm and Kevin are still funny…
Norm is and was a master comedian.
Hell yes, still one of my favorite comics.
Same. Very established shtick, but he does it better than anyone.
There was really only one person missing from this panel. You guessed it…Frank Stallone!
Norm’s gift is confounding his interlocutor with the opposite of what is expected. example: just now, with the OJ reversal. also: his attending a roast, and using PG-rated Vaudevillian gags throughout.
Yep. People like to rip on MacDonald because of the shit he said on his podcast, but the dude is a comedian’s comedian. If the biggest asshole in the world bakes you a cherry pie, fine, don’t eat it. But don’t say it isn’t a pie.
And the way he does stuff like the Vaudeville gags, his almost serious but kind of sarcastic delivery just kills me.
“You dirty dog!”
I’m not so sure with Norm anymore and he used to be my favorite. I liked his podcast, but his Netflix show was garbage.
Agree with you 100% …..on Norm.
I didn’t mind Dennis. He seemed to shed his tribalism* for this event, the least i can do is shed mine 😉
* when he cited Norm as the genitor of “Fake News”, he directly contradicted his president, who claimed he was the wordsmith
For a young person, you’re awfully cranky. Great comedians ribbing each other is always entertaining. It’s like intellectual boxing.
Eh, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.
At least they were funny once. Lighten up sunshine.
I don’t know about that. I’m a millennial, and, I didn’t watch their show when they were on SNL. So, I don’t have that nostalgic feeling. But they’re funny to me. Especially Nealon with his show Hiking With Kevin. And it always hilarous whenever he was in Conan.
Yet another thing they each have over Spade.
The only way you could’ve had more un-funny in this room is if LCK stopped by for a larf.
Somewhere, the under side of a rock grows cold…Oh look, there’s Dennis Miller!
Victoria Jackson must be lonely now
she…… is not a bimbo
Norm Macdonald is younger than both Dennis Miller and Kevin Nealon, yet he looks a decade older.
Maybe he has been hanging out with Artie again.
I forgot what he looked like years ago, wow. I am a seasoned ICU nurse and I still wish there was a warning posted before showing any recent pics of Artie… Mother of Pearl… Well there is your anti drug PSA.
Yeah, I remember when Yasmine Bleeth was all over the news for getting busted for cocaine and how here looks had changed. I think her nose collapsed as well, but I went and looked yesterday and she was no where near this. His nose looks like someone smashed it with a cast iron frying pan.
And the contrast between that recent photo and his younger self is startling. His nose reminds me of photos showing those abandoned shopping malls, crumbling on the outside and inside there are only a few support beams left, the rest is gone to ruin.
All those liberal tears keep Miller young.(Note: I made that comment so some asshole who actually believes it wouldn’t have the chance.)
That’s the funny thing, I usually expect conservatives to look older than they are. Miller actually looks pretty good for his age.
His plastic surgeon thanks you.
Looks like Miller is also using the same plastic surgeon that keeps Kenny Rogers looking so young.
Can’t be the same one. Miller can actually movie his face.
I’ve listened to Kevin Nealon on podcasts and he has a very healthy lifestyle – I believe he’s been vegan for a long time. Norm strikes as someone who would never get Botox etc, where I could def see Dennis Miller doing so.
I’ve seen Nealon’s wife. I’d take care of myself too.
A classic That Actress From That Thing.
Also, I get the impression that Norm … likes a drink or three now and then, or anytime really. That can put some extra mileage on quickly.
He used to drink quite a bit, but has been sober for a loooooong time now from what I recall hearing
I don’t know about that. Norm looked like he had some face work done on his later episodes of The Middle.
I also heard Norm hasn’t had sex in a very long time, and I can’t imagine that’s good for you.
That is because he has lived the life of ten ordinary men.
Neelan hikes like a hundred miles a week through the Hollywood hills….Pretty sure he is some kind of day walking vampire.
Dude seriously looks amazing. When I googled him I was really surprised he is 66 years old. He could pass for 50. Norm though, especially in that first photo looks old AF.
Or serial killer…
And Spade actually got the best joke in with the ‘Looking for a Norm McDonald setup’ one, damn!
That was great but Norm’s delayed Wheel-Of-Fortune heckle was up there too.
If this lasts longer than “Norm Macdonald Has a Show”’s 10 delightful episodes, it will be a crime. Spade can be funny, but he’s just awful here and deserves to have his ass handed to him. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that Dennis Miller is also on that stage.
ok this is a ton of fun, love seeing comedians give each other shit.
I still remember when Norm and David Spade were guests on Miller’s HBO show, for it’s 100th episode. Norm and Miller gave Spade no end of grief during the show, and Spade just sat there with a deer in the headlights look, as he was being verbally pummelled. I would imagine that part of that look was for effect, and partly because was there was no way he could keep up with Norm & Miller’s jabs.
That’s what is fun about Spade’s show, it really seems like he has a lot of comic friends who he gets on and they just pretty much are there to make each other laugh and rib on each other on his show, all in good fun. If you think of it as less like a Daily Show and more like a comic line-up it’s enjoyable to watch
I’ve said this before, and probably will any time Norm’s SNL firing is discussed: as someone who was watching the show at the time, Norm’s performance was visibly degenerating week after week. It was getting ever-more-cringey: less laughs and longer pauses, getting more passive-aggressive with the audience, stumbling more, and getting more clearly affected by how poorly things were progressing. While I’m sure the OJ-friend thing had a strong chance of being the catalyst for his firing, even if that had not been a thing at all, he should have been fired. The OJ-friend thing is actually a huge boon for Norm: he gets to use it as an excuse to hide the fact that he was doing a progressively-poorer job.
“and not smugly chuckle at their own jokes.”Miller did that about 90% of the time and Norm did it about 50% of the time. I enjoyed Dennis Miller’s Update at the time but it hasn’t aged well (his delivery mostly). Norm’s jokes have aged horribly in many cases but he was a pretty good anchor otherwise. Kevin Nealon was an average anchor but had the best rapport with the ‘Update correspondents.’ Unfortunately he became visibly terrified of what he was doing the last year or so he was in the chair. Kevin and Norm’s best stuff is in sketches anyway.
This is exactly the point I was going to make. I remember being 13 years old and chuckling at half of Miller’s Weekend Update jokes (usually while he was also chuckling or cackling at his own esoteric references). The other half were way too arcane for me to get 🙂
This made me look up one of my favorite Norm sketches and holy cow I forgot it included a singing, dancing Robert Downey Jr. Oh wait and also Colin Quinn… and shit that’s Mark McKinney. I keep forgetting about that weird brief period where SNL tried hiring people who already had careers.
Mark was very underused on SNL but I always liked him. Glad he’s back on TV now, even if I haven’t seen much of Superstore. Colin was pretty good too. To think for the entirety of the ‘90s SNL had a Remote Control alum in the cast.
I couldn’t remember what you were talking about but then
One of the best Weekend Update anchors and two of the absolute worst, surpassed only by the cocaine addled stupidity that was Colin Quinn, hell you had the three worst anchors ever one right after the other.
Yes, these are accurate descriptions of things that happened on a show.
I’ve never understood the appeal of Kevin Nealon. Not for a moment.Norm is an actual comedy genius and daredevil, Dennis Miller may be a nut now, but he was genuinely groundbreaking at one point, but Nealon?
Nope, I don’t see it.
Neither did I regarding Kevin Nealon. Granted, other than the Hans and Franz thing, I never got the feeling that he was particularly liked by the masses (or the people in the SNL 30 Rock audience).That said, his eulogy of Garry Shandling (at the end of HBO’s documentary about Mr. Shandling) was brilliant. Just a few minutes of a few jokes, but they wrapped up the tribute perfectly. You do have to watch the (long) documentary to fully appreciate it.
Nealon seems to be more like a reliable guy to work with for any sketch. Yeah he might not be the best or most brilliant, but he won’t fuck it up, seems likeable enough and he knows how to not hog the spotlight or overshadow anyone else in the sketch or movie or TV show he’s in. For people who do this professionally, someone like that can be really valuable at the end of the day. Plus he comes across like a pretty nice and easy going guy in real life so makes sense that he made a lot of friends over at SNL that like to keep working with him on their projects. Almost like the antithesis of someone like John Belushi, who was hilarious but there was always a 50/50 shot of getting him to actually do the work.
I didn’t think he was particularly funny while on SNL, but the standup I’ve seen from him post-SNL has been pretty good. Feel similar about Chris Rock. Seems there’s been a number of folks who got the sketch comedy gig but were really more cut out for standup. Of course, there’s also been a number of SNL cast members who sucked in sketch comedy, and didn’t seem to have any standup game either.
“and not smugly chuckle at their own jokes”Clearly the author has never seen Dennis Miller as anchor.
In the monologue clip, I was ready to enjoy almost 8 minutes of folks kicking David Spade in the nuts but had to bail after “a brand new scar.” How does Spade keep getting work?