When Norm Macdonald Unknowingly Hosted His Last ‘Weekend Update’

Ulyimate Classic Rock ^ | December 13, 2022 | Dennis Perkins

[nickcarraway]

When Norm Macdonald closed out his Dec. 13, 1997, "Weekend Update," the Saturday Night Live star had no idea he’d never sit at the "Update" desk again. Nobody at Saturday Night Live knew that Macdonald would be fired from his job as SNL’s fake newsreader before the show returned from its holiday hiatus or that Colin Quinn would be installed in Macdonald’s place. Saturday Night Live is all about cast turnover. Still, Macdonald’s three-and-a-half year reign as the deadpan anchor of SNL’s venerable midshow centerpiece took viewers, cast members and even Macdonald completely by surprise.

That “and-a-half” segment of Macdonald’s time as "Weekend Update"’s anchor contains a multitude of backstage and network politicking, complete with unprecedented NBC interference in how SNL was run, producer Lorne Michaels’ desperate battle to maintain control over the late-night comedy show that had become his life’s work and perhaps a little intrigue surrounding Macdonald’s penchant for mocking America’s most infamously acquitted double-murderer, O.J. Simpson, the legendary NFL Hall of Famer whose 1995 acquittal for the murders of his estranged wife and a friend continued to provide the brashly cheeky Macdonald with explosive comic material right up to and including his last show.

Noting that Simpson's lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, had recently taken the case of NBA star Latrell Sprewell (who’d just been accused of attempting to strangle his coach), Macdonald explains that Cochran is floating a “second choker” theory, referencing Simpson’s never-materializing promise to find “the real killers.” And, more directly, Macdonald later references an incident where the freed Simpson was denied seating at a Los Angeles restaurant, noting that, in recompense, the eatery will now have to provide “murderer” and “non-murderer” sections.

Macdonald, who had a way of punching such jokes with just the right amount of knowingness to make them land even harder, had made a banquet out of O.J. jokes on "Update." “Well, it’s finally official. Murder is legal in the state of California,” Macdonald famously beamed, kicking off the first "Weekend Update" after Simpson’s trial had concluded, a cathartically explosive zinger right into the heart of an issue that had the entire country wound tight. It was a go-to vein of can’t-miss material for Macdonald over the years, which continued to get huge laughs from seemingly everyone but Don Ohlmeyer, then NBC’s powerful West Coast president and a longtime friend of O.J. Simpson.

James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales’ oral history of the show, Live From New York, goes into this period at length, providing a harrowing glimpse into how NBC — flush with the massive in-house success of Friends — began to apply the same micromanaging approach to all of its programming, including the previously more independent Saturday Night Live of Lorne Michaels. While it’s true that SNL of the mid-'90s was in something of a creative lull, what the authors uncover is a power struggle between a distant and overweening executive and a producer who’d perhaps become a bit detached from the show he’d been running for decades. (Ohlmeyer is quoted as even taking shots at how much time Michaels spent at his preferred vacation retreat of St. Barts as part of the exec’s long-distance sniping campaign.)

Olhmeyer’s influence was strong enough that Michaels conceded to firing fan-favorite cast members Adam Sandler and Chris Farley (two of the most popular proponents of the sort of SNL bro-humor critics were railing against) before their contracts were officially up. But those departures took place after the season, as is the SNL way of easing performers and writers out the door. Macdonald’s firing from "Weekend Update," along with that of venerable SNL writer and "Update: scribe Jim Downey, happened midseason and took Macdonald so by surprise that he went into the next show week still wondering if he had a job. Macdonald eventually had to phone Ohlmeyer himself to receive the bad news, with the executive puzzled that neither Michaels nor anyone else at SNL had stepped up to definitively explain the situation to their now ex-anchor.

In Live From New York, the O.J. Simpson conspiracy theory is aired out, with various parties expressing some skepticism that Ohlmeyer’s crusade to meddle in Michaels’ domain stemmed specifically from the fact that "Weekend Update" was rarely free from “Of course he did it” jokes. Ohlmeyer, who died in 2017, maintained that he just didn’t find Macdonald or Downey’s take on the news funny and that he felt that a change was necessary, citing internal numbers showing people tuning out during "Weekend Update."

And there may be some truth to that last point, as Macdonald’s style, while held up as brilliant and original by many (Chevy Chase called Macdonald the best of his "Update" successors), was fashioned to be deliberately alienating. Macdonald holds on for a beat or two too long after a joke that doesn’t land with his audience, his defiant stare-down with viewers more challenging than the crowd-pleasing laugh lines they’re used to. There’s also a complexly layered meta-bit in this last outing where Macdonald subverted his joke about female drivers by flipping the script on the audience not once, but twice, toying with his penchant for perceived misogyny in a technical marvel of joke-telling that, nonetheless, left the in-studio audience more uneasy than rolling with laughter. “I don’t want to say anything that an audience already thinks,” Macdonald stated in Live From New York, adding, “'Update' was never a big pep rally when I was there. It was never a big party. So I think the network started going, ‘It doesn’t seem like as much fun as it could be.’”

Whatever Ohlmeyer’s motivations were for messing with Saturday Night Live, the writing was on the wall, not just for Macdonald, but for Michaels’ ability to steer the show free from outside interference. There’s an offhandedness to Macdonald’s sign-off on his last "Update," with the comic already pulling off his lapel mic as he says a casual, “That’s the news, folks. Thanks.” It’s interesting in retrospect that the one correspondent piece that night came from Colin Quinn, playing an eggnog-drunk version of himself and mocking Macdonald’s position as “some antihero” and belittling his “precious little 'Update' desk, from whence the oracle will enlighten us.” When Saturday Night Live came back for the Samuel L. Jackson-hosted Jan. 10, 1998, episode, it would be Quinn at the desk, addressing the elephant in the room (after a deep sigh) with an anecdote about your favorite bar changing bartenders, but you still wanting a drink even though new guy Steve doesn’t make things as well as old bartender Jeff. “Well, I’m Steve,” Quinn kicked off his, as it turned out, brief time as the anchor. “What can I get you?”

[Larry Lucido]

http://funny115.com/norm/normsaysfireme3.htm

Our top story tonight, as new questions arise about Hillary Clinton’s role in Whitewater, the President appears to be distancing himself from the First Lady. Earlier today, in his weekly radio address, the President insisted, “Hey, I sleep with hundreds of girls, I can’t vouch for all of ‘em. You know?”

Rejecting conspiracy theories that President Clinton killed Vince Foster, a report out this week from independent counsel Kenneth Starr has officially concluded that Vince Foster took his own life. Among other things, the report cites evidence that Foster was deeply depressed in the days leading up to his death. Although the report does concede, Foster was deeply depressed because President Clinton was trying to murder him.

[Larry Lucido]

For years, Hillary Rodham Clinton has told people that she was named for the first man to climb Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary. But as Esquire magazine recently pointed out to her, Edmund did not climb Mount Everest until 1953, six years after Hillary was born. However, the First Lady does have a good explanation for the discrepancy: she loves to lie.

Meanwhile, President Clinton is hard at work on Tuesday’s State of the Union Address, in which he’ll focus on crime, education, and the economy. At the request of the First Lady, part of the President’s speech will be huge lies.

Well, the Trial of the Century is over. Late yesterday, the fate of O.J. Simpson, the most famous murder suspect in United States history, was placed in the hands of the jurors. They must now decide whether to free him or get all their heads cut off.

[EEGator]

Classic. He didn’t pull punches and people loved it.
Maybe not Ohlmeyer...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Ohlmeyer#Firing_of_Norm_Macdonald

[nicollo]

I honestly don’t understand the point of this article other than Norm was amazing, NBC was/is political and Colin Quinn sucked.

Is the larger story here network censorship of comedy?

[dangus]

When ratings were getting shaky, the LA honchos looked at the cast including Jim Breuer and Chris Katan, and decided Norm McDonald had to go.

Now, Will Ferrell was consistently great. And I have nothing against Anna Gasteyer, Tim Meadows, Darrell Hammond, Cheri Oteri or Molly Shannon. But there are precisely zero stars here besides Ferrell. (Hammond’s Sean Connery on Celebrity Jeopardy still leaves me in a heap on the floor laughing... but he’s actually too good: you remember the people he impersonates, not him.) Love him or hate him, apart from Will Ferrell, Norm MacDonald was the star of that show. That they never used him beyond Weekend Update is their fault, not his.

[dangus]

Read EEGator’s link:

“In early 1998, Ohlmeyer had Norm Macdonald fired from his role as anchor of Saturday Night Live’s popular Weekend Update segment, falsely citing declining ratings and a drop-off in quality. The actual reason for the decision was Macdonald’s inclusion of a series of lacerating jokes calling O. J. Simpson a murderer during and after his murder trial (1994–95).[8] The jokes were written primarily by Macdonald and longtime SNL writer Jim Downey, who was fired from SNL outright at the same time (he was rehired in 2000). Downey said later that Ohlmeyer and Simpson were good friends.[9]”