Why Norm Macdonald’s Career Never Took Off

[TMC]

https://www.yahoo.com/style/m/788a3b...9s-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-macdona...hat-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.

[TMC]

Norm Macdonald's brand of comedy is admittedly, not for everyone. I have the feeling that he could never at the very least find a niche like other SNL alumni (like Adam Sandler or even Rob Schneider) in no small part due to his gambling addiction, his insistence on telling “jokes” that were no longer funny (he arguably, basically stretched his O.J. Simpson shtick well into the area of racism), and his inability to keep things together. Either way, he is definitely not as successful as he could have been.

[Chocolate Moose]

It's a shame. He's very talented.

[TMC]

Norm Macdonald is also you can argue, an odd duck that has antagonized most of his former friends in the business. Even some of the people like Lorne Michaels that have a ton of respect for him apparently do not want to work with him.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by Chocolate Moose

It's a shame. He's very talented.

Others have noted that Norm Macdonald never really went away post-SNL but he never really had that big mainstream hit. The Norm Show was probably as much as he was willing to really compromise as far as mainstream TV.

Otherwise, Norm just seemed like a guy that much preferred to do his own thing (in addition to more often preferring standup). Basically, he's the type of guy that would just do whatever he felt like doing.