FIRED UP

Why Norm Macdonald Refused to ‘Bend the Knee’ to Power

Director Judd Apatow tells “Obsessed: The Podcast” how the “SNL” icon stood up to NBC’s demands.

Long before Stephen Colbert got kicked to the curb by a TV network that caved to power, comedian Norm Macdonald faced a very similar fate.

Legendary producer Judd Apatow, 58, explores Macdonald’s career and rebellion in his new Netflix documentary, Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald, premiering Oct. 16. The documentary explores NBC bigwig Don Ohlmeyer firing the Saturday Night Live icon from anchoring “Weekend Update” in 1997 because he claimed Macdonald wasn’t funny. The real reason was Macdonald’s relentless mockery of Ohlmeyer’s close friend, O.J. Simpson.

Watch the full interview with Judd Apatow on YouTube:

“Norm was there during the O.J. Simpson years,” Apatow told Obsessed: The Podcast. “Norm went at him very hard. He did not hold back. And he was ultimately fired from ‘Weekend Update’ because they asked him to ease up on all of the O.J .jokes because Don Olmeyer, the head of the network, was best friends with O.J. Norm and [SNL writer] James Downey, who ran ‘Update’ at that time—they just went harder. Ultimately, they did say, ‘You can’t do Update.’”

Apatow sees the whole affair as a precursor to what’s happening at television networks now as media executives cave to MAGA and fire their biggest stars. CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ahead of its parent company’s merger with Trumpy billionaire David Ellison’s Skydance. And the following Sept., ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! for Kimmel’s jokes about MAGA’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

“We live in a world where everybody bends the knee to Trump,” Apatow said. “You see all these corporations and media corporations, and they’re clearly making alternative, and often unethical, judgments to not get in trouble or to keep the paycheck.”

“This was a big deal in comedy, to be in that seat,” Apatow continued about Macdonald’s ‘Update’ gig. “It would have been very easy to go, ‘All right, we don’t have to do more, or maybe we’ll come at it from a different angle.’ It would have been easy, but Norm and Downey, they just decided not to. And you know we don’t see that in the culture very often.”

Removing Macdonald from the ‘Update’ desk didn’t stop him from skewering power players on TV. Apatow said his firing led to some of Macdonald’s funniest moments, like his appearance on Letterman just weeks after. There, Macdonald named Ohlmeyer as the person who fired him; Letterman, 79, responded in front of the live audience, “I know Don Ohlmeyer, and between you and me, he’s an idiot.”

Macdonald laughed, adding that he hadn’t known NBC’s executives until they removed him.

“What happens is, you work on the show, and then there’s these guys that hang out in the halls. They’re called executives. They’re NBC executives,” Macdonald quipped. “I’d see them. I didn’t know who the hell they were, what they did. Now I know what they do: they fire me from ‘Weekend Update.’”

Though Ohlmeyer removed Macdonald from his anchor chair, the comedian was still part of SNL’s cast. He wrote and performed in sketches, but “Update” was always his principal role. Without it, he wasn’t as happy, Apatow said. Macdonald officially left the show in March 1998.

His firing “was a crime to comedy,” Apatow continued. “You would watch a ‘Weekend Update’ with Norm, and it was like watching a stand-up special where you couldn’t believe the level of the jokes.”

“When he was let go for ‘not being funny,’ it was clearly such a lie that it really bothered people,” Apatow added. “Because we all lost getting to see that. All to protect a murderer, which is really what it was.”

Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald is streaming now on Netflix.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch new episodes of ‘Obsessed: The Podcast’ every Wednesday and Friday. And follow our feed to listen to the show the next morning on your favorite podcast platform.

Dana Herrnstadt Editorial Intern, Obsessed

Obsessed: The PodcastPodcast

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.