When he appeared on “Weekend Update” during Saturday Night’s Live’s 47th season premiere this week, Pete Davidson paid tribute to the late Norm Macdonald with his T-shirt. Fortunately, that wasn’t the only way the show honored the show’s all-time best “fake news” anchor, who succumbed to cancer last month.
“Guys, it is a bittersweet night for us tonight,” Colin Jost said, explaining that Macdonald is the reason he “ever wanted to do ‘Weekend Update’” in the first place. “So tonight we thought we’d turn the last few jokes of ‘Update’ over to Norm,” he added, before the show cut to a montage of some of Macdonald’s most iconic jokes.
Among them were this ‘90s era joke about President Bill Clinton: “At the White House this week, President Clinton officially came out against same-sex marriages. What’s more, the president said he is not too crazy about opposite-sex marriages either.”
ADVERTISEMENT
And the one that Conan O’Brien recently recalled as his favorite joke by the comedian: “In a brilliant move during closing arguments, Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran put on the knit cap prosecutors say O.J. wore the night he committed the murders. Although O.J. may have hurt his case when he suddenly blurted out, ‘Hey, hey, easy with that, that’s my lucky stabbing hat!’”
That was just one of the many, many jokes that ultimately led Macdonald to get fired from the show by NBC executive—and close friend to O.J. Simpson—Don Ohlmeyer.
For more, listen to Colin Quinn talk about Norm Macdonald on The Last Laugh podcast.
