Don Ohlmeyer for one. He’s the NBC executive who had Norm fired as SNL’s Weekend Update anchor because he wouldn’t stop mocking Don’s friend, famous double murderer, O.J. Simpson.
It was great when Ohlmeyer went on Colbert Report and got mocked for saying NBC was going to lose money on the Winter Olympics. Colbert did a fund drive to help, and presented him with a giant check for like $5.08
It’s also great that he’s been dead since 2017. Conan was right when he called him one of the silverback gorillas running TV.
I think the only person offended was that one NBC executive who was buddies with noted double murderer OJ Simpson.
Isn’t it weird that we can hear him say that in our heads so clearly but imitating it is impossible.
Got mentioned in another comment.
Likely they didn’t know for the same reason I don’t… Dudes just not memorable ;)
Norm did bash the everloving fuck out of OJ tbh, but as far as in concerned, that shit was funny. You get a pass on stuff as a comic, ya know? At least until will smith shows up…
I mean, he said some blunt stuff about OJ being a murderer. It wasn’t really “controversial” but he was like, I don’t know, man… Okay, here’s the simplest way I can explain the whole thing - so I had this friend for a long time (he’s passed away at this point), and he always told this same story that I think of whenever people get upset with a comedian like Norm MacDonald. The story is about a moth, but the message inside is universal to anyone:
So a moth goes into a podiatrist’s office, and the podiatrist says, “What seems to be the problem, moth?” The moth says “What’s the problem? Where do I even begin, man? I go to work for this guy, Gregory Illinivich, and all day long I work. Honestly doc, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t even know if Gregory Illinivich knows. He only knows that he has power over me, and that seems to bring him happiness. But I don’t know, I wake up in a malaise, and I walk here and there… at night I… I sometimes wake up and I turn to some old lady in my bed that’s on my arm. A lady that I once loved, doc. I don’t know where to turn to. My youngest, Alexendria, she fell in the…in the cold of last year. The cold took her down, as it did many of us. And my other boy, and this is the hardest pill to swallow, doc. My other boy, Gregarro Ivinalititavitch… I no longer love him. As much as it pains me to say, when I look in his eyes, all I see is the same cowardice that I… that I catch when I take a glimpse of my own face in the mirror. If only I wasn’t such a coward, then perhaps… perhaps I could bring myself to reach over to that cocked and loaded gun that lays on the bedside behind me and end this hellish facade once and for all…Doc, sometimes I feel like a spider, even though I’m a moth, just barely hanging on to my web with an everlasting fire underneath me. I’m not feeling good." And so the doctor says, “Moth, man, you’re troubled. But you should be seeing a psychiatrist. Why on earth did you come here?” And the moth says, “Cause the light was on."
So that’s basically what I think.
Despite his appearance and delivery, i always thought Norm was the most “punk rock” comedian. He actually stood for something, stood by his friends and was true to himself. I did not always agree with his bits… But i never thought he was outright hateful. I think he tried to touch on the humorous or more absurd elements of society, with his commentary. Which was mostly the stuff i liked least… However, i believe that while Norm may not have understood some of these things, he wasn’t intolerant of them.
Norm was about as big of an anti-celebrity, celebrity as i can think of. He always seemed eager to be silly and to laugh, and to love his small group of friends. I’m fairly cemented as being left of center, and i adored Norm.
I believe the reason he got fired from SNL was he kept making OJ Simpsons jokes and one of the top NBC execs was friends with OJ. Not quite the same thing as a public outcry, but I’m not sure of any bigger controversy regarding Norm.
