TMC
05-25-2017, 04:24 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/style/m/788a3b98-4ebc-3ef3-bfd7-8da7a17e7019/ss_why-norm-macdonald%E2%80%99s-career.html
Macdonald, best known for anchoring SNL’s Weekend Update from 1994 through 1997, has been enjoying a late-career renaissance. In 2015, he performed the final stand-up set on The Late Show with David Letterman, holding back tears as he told the host, “I say in truth, I love you.” In 2016, The Washington Post published a profile—“actually a journalistic intervention”—titled “Will somebody please give Norm Macdonald another TV show?” He is in his third season of Norm Macdonald Live, an interview show that broadcasts on YouTube. Earlier this month, Netflix released his newest stand-up special, Hitler’s Dog, Gossip & Trickery. Macdonald’s set avoids current events almost entirely. He riffs instead ...
http://www.gq.com/story/norm-macdonalds-career-in-never-doing-what-you-expect
Macdonald did enjoy some minor success with Norm, a sitcom that ran for three seasons on ABC (1999 – 2001). If you can ignore the obligatory laugh track, Norm, which costars a deliciously antic Laurie Metcalf, is pleasant enough, despite the inevitable clash between Macdonald’s anarchic nihilism and the neat, three-act structure within which it’s forced to exist. The pilot, for example, pivots on Macdonald—playing a disgraced former hockey player who becomes a social worker to avoid doing prison time for tax evasion—telling one of his clients, who is employed at a massage parlor, “You’re a huge whore!” One wonders how that moment would play without the pre-recorded guffaws that punctuate Macdonald’s declaration, if viewers were forced to sit with their discomfort—as they would be on a contemporary show like Louie. Then again: a great deal of Macdonald’s charm comes from his apparent refusal to give a **** (one thing punk rockers were never good at: playing their instruments). It’s hard to maintain that façade while producing your own show.
Macdonald, best known for anchoring SNL’s Weekend Update from 1994 through 1997, has been enjoying a late-career renaissance. In 2015, he performed the final stand-up set on The Late Show with David Letterman, holding back tears as he told the host, “I say in truth, I love you.” In 2016, The Washington Post published a profile—“actually a journalistic intervention”—titled “Will somebody please give Norm Macdonald another TV show?” He is in his third season of Norm Macdonald Live, an interview show that broadcasts on YouTube. Earlier this month, Netflix released his newest stand-up special, Hitler’s Dog, Gossip & Trickery. Macdonald’s set avoids current events almost entirely. He riffs instead ...
http://www.gq.com/story/norm-macdonalds-career-in-never-doing-what-you-expect
Macdonald did enjoy some minor success with Norm, a sitcom that ran for three seasons on ABC (1999 – 2001). If you can ignore the obligatory laugh track, Norm, which costars a deliciously antic Laurie Metcalf, is pleasant enough, despite the inevitable clash between Macdonald’s anarchic nihilism and the neat, three-act structure within which it’s forced to exist. The pilot, for example, pivots on Macdonald—playing a disgraced former hockey player who becomes a social worker to avoid doing prison time for tax evasion—telling one of his clients, who is employed at a massage parlor, “You’re a huge whore!” One wonders how that moment would play without the pre-recorded guffaws that punctuate Macdonald’s declaration, if viewers were forced to sit with their discomfort—as they would be on a contemporary show like Louie. Then again: a great deal of Macdonald’s charm comes from his apparent refusal to give a **** (one thing punk rockers were never good at: playing their instruments). It’s hard to maintain that façade while producing your own show.