“You were on the inside with him”—Fellow Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers salutes Norm Macdonald
The grieving Meyers also admitted to stealing Norm's delivery, but haven't we all?
TV News Seth Meyers
With comedy fans still reeling from the news that true stand-up original and former Saturday Night Live star Norm Macdonald had died at the age of 61, Seth Meyers took some time to process the loss on Tuesday’s Late Night. Paying homage to a guy whose inimitable deadpan style he nonetheless copped to imitating in his time delivering one-liners at SNL’s Weekend Update desk, Meyers began by noting that the famously undemonstrative Macdonald (who hid his cancer battle from pretty much everyone for a decade) wouldn’t “want anything sentimental.”
Maybe so, but Meyers’ segment saw the host sharing his heartfelt admiration for his Weekend Update predecessor, sharing some uniquely Norm Macdonald moments, such as the time at the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary show where Macdonald’s rambling entrance bit went off-script enough for venerable SNL (and now Late Night) cue card guy Wally Feresten to take the unprecedented step of making sure he wasn’t holding up the wrong cards. He wasn’t—that was just Norm being Norm. “I remember laughing really hard,” recalled Meyers, “not at what Norm was saying as much as the idea that any of us thought that Norm would play by anyone else’s rules.”
As to Macdonald’s influence on him personally, Meyers was unequivocal in noting that he still has to “beat Norm’s delivery out of me” when it comes to delivering topical jokes to an audience. Explaining that Macdonald’s greatest gift was the “ability to just stare into an audience unblinkingly, telling the jokes that you believed in,” Meyers shared Macdonald’s respect for SNL being “the last place in TV where you can bomb.” Meyers didn’t mention Macdonald’s infamous firing by then NBC boss, the late Don Ohlmeyer, ostensibly for Norm’s penchant for brashly cutting jokes about Ohlmeyer golf buddy O.J. Simpson. In retrospect, that can’t have helped, but Norm’s canning was more likely about the way that SNL’s audience was simply not willing to accept Norm’s signature, fearless unwillingness to hold anybody’s hand through jokes he knew were funny. With the admiration of a peer and a fan, Meyers explained that appreciating a Norm Macdonald joke meant feeling that “You were on the inside with him.”
Signing off, Meyers urged viewers still shellshocked by the announcement of Macdonald’s death (Meyers taped just hours after the news broke) to seek out Macdonald’s moth story on Late Night With Conan O’Brien for just a taste of what made him “truly timeless.” (We’ve compiled the moth joke alongside some of MacDonald’s other greatest hits for you, and a Dirty Work rewatch is never a bad idea.) “He was the gold standard, and he will continue to be the gold standard,” said Meyers, finally.
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Macdonald (who hid his cancer battle from pretty much everyone for a decade)Don’t use “battle with cancer” or “cancer battle” when you’re talking about Norm.
This bit was 100% my first thought when I heard the news.
It was about a year later when he was diagnosed, apparently.He was already diagnosed and had been in treatment for about 3 years when he made his famous final appearance on Letterman, which adds an extra layer of bittersweet depth to it:
Just wait ‘til you see his cancer tells the moth joke.
“I always think, ‘What would Seth Meyers do?’” Macdonald said. “If you really want to be really funny, then that’s what you want to do. You want to think, ‘What would make Seth Meyers laugh?’ That’s how I live my life.”- Norm Macdonald
I honestly feel like an idiot for never catching that Meyers’ WU delivery so often mimicked Norm’s, especially when a joke didn’t land. Just hold the silence a beat longer, stare into the camera or give the audience a quick glance aside, laugh to himself a bit, and move on.Granted the audience typically didn’t need a few seconds to process a Meyers joke, it landed or didn’t, while many of Norms’ needed to roll around for a second (and even then plenty of people wouldn’t get it).Norm entertained himself first and foremost, so if you thought something was funny you were definitely on the inside because he wasn’t coming to you.
“Norm entertained himself first and foremost, so if you thought something was funny you were definitely on the inside because he wasn’t coming to you.”I tell folk at work all the time, “I’m the funniest person I know”. I’m not sure if I stole that from Norm, but it’s perfect in how it sums up his comedy and personality. His tenure at SNL was the last I watched regularly until the end of the Tina Fey era when I started watching SNL again. Meyers really does have a bit of a Norm vibe, and I also can’t believe I never picked up on that. I’ll always watch Colbert, but Meyers is my automatic go to anymore. I’ll take dry wit over LOL funny every single day.
I straight-up wore out on Colbert during the Trump era. I swear it was the same show every night for four years.
I never was for him taking Letterman’s mantle. They’re just both very different, Colbert I consider more of an actor (and an amazing one) than a comedian.
The role he played on the Report let them take that show in all kinds of ridiculous directions that don’t work on a regular-way mainstream show. Letterman was at least unpredictable (before he became a complete curmudgeon) and razor sharp. I think your observation about Colbert being more actor than comedian is the reason he can’t generate that same spontaneous energy.
Yeah, Colbert I don’t think can respond to things in the same funny and sometimes dickish ways comedians do. He might just be too nice (though some comedians like Patton Oswalt are also nice) People like Letterman, Carson, Norm and Seinfeld have that quick wit to them, that innate desire to poke people and make trouble, like Woody Woodpecker.
It was the same show for every four years because of *rump. There’s no comedy gold when it’s nothing but face palms every single fucking day.I’ll admit Colbert became tiresome at times, but I feel he’s gotten back into the groove lately. Meyers would benefit from having an audience, but I’ve gotten so used to him alone in the studio with no one but writers and staff that I kinda like it now.
I always appreciated Norm breaking down cliches, like just cutting to “Michael Jackson is a homosexual pedophile” or “OJ Simpson murdered his wife and a waiter” as if he was mocking the writers (or himself) for touching on mining these subjects for comedy so much
I feel like often the very concept of “humor” or “jokes” was the butt of Norm’s material.
Even his legendary destruction of Courtney Thorne Smith’s film career had one of those great moments, where she talks about making out with Carrot Top (??!!!) while making a movie with him and the joke was it was like 9 1/2 Weeks, but with Carrot Top.Norm: So like 9 1/2 Seconds?(laughter)Norm: You know, because he’s a premature ejaculator.
Wierdest thing, for me, about getting older is not the friends and family dying. That’s not great, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve been prepared for that since I was a kid. Vampire fiction, my grandpa, etc. The wierdest thing is having complete strangers that I admired dying too. I didn’t realize how much of my identity was tied up in people I’d never meet.“They had two cakes.” Hilarious. RIP.
It does feel like certain public figures are simply part of the universe, fixtures that you assume will always comprise reality. When they die it feels completely outside the realm of possibility, almost absurd – as if Big Ben or the Empire State Building had vanished or even like the moon has disappeared from the sky. They were always there and now there’s just a space where they used to be. There’s the weirdness of it and then there’s also the uncomfortable feeling that the milestones that make up your own respective universe are dying, irreplaceable or replaced by weird things you don’t understand and don’t care to. And then one day you will be alone, surrounded by strangers and strange icons and a strange world you no longer recognize. And then it will be your time to go, too.“The light was on” lol
I’ve watched that clip from Conan several times over the years, and the genius of Norm was that he just kept on going, pulling you in, and it’s a good 4 minutes of him just rambling. And we all know what the punchline is, but you never know when it’s gonna come. And when it does, you still can’t help but laugh, because his delivery is perfect. RIP Norm. You did your Dirty Work, get some peace and quiet.
I was about to say you got problems, man, but you got to the right answer eventually.
It hits me how old I am when comedians reference people I remember who have since died. Like in a few of the roasts there was Norm, Cloris Leachman, Greg Giraldo, Joan Rivers, etc.
I re-watched Dirty Work yesterday (it’s currently on HBO MAX ) and I had forgotten that was Chris Farley’s last film role, movie is now extra bitter sweet. but it holds up, I hadn’t seen it since the year it came out (98). damn those hallucination scenes were the best.
I’ve got a vivid memory of seeing Dirty Work in the theater. Two people walked out before it was half over. I actually saw a guy laugh so hard he fell out of his seat.