Name: Jim Downey on Norm Macdonald Getting Fired on Weekend Update
Uploaded: 2022-05-13T23:12:44.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jim Downey on Norm Macdonald Getting Fired on Weekend Update' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-05-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jim Downey on Norm Macdonald Getting Fired on Weekend Update' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-05-13. Transcript available.

we all love uh norm and uh at this oj situation on update that people have
asked me was was norm
leaving was it a direct result because you were i think you're writing for
update with him right
he was kind of a producer and co-writer with norm yeah you guys were like
locked in a room
doing it that was all you guys yeah norm on update was my one of my successful
projects at the show
was one that i it was entirely my he was my candidate um in a very crowded
field because the
network had determined that kevin they were not going to give kevin another
chance i personally
thought kevin yeah kevin nealon had been doing update from the time dennis left
and um uh i
personally uh you know neil nisi bonham about you know the dead but uh um herb
sergeant was not
doing kevin any favors the way he was running update and huh and it was hard to
sort of to get
to get help to kevin because you know it had to go through her had to go
through herb and herb was sort
of like ran interference and wouldn't know yeah through and everything so he
didn't love my update
pieces either and so i i um felt like the second week i met norm that he would
be a perfect guy if
kevin you know left the show or anything that and so when when the network
announced you know it was
all my ego no no no neiland's out he's dead he's gone forget about it not
happening so that started this
thing where there were several different candidates but norm was my guy and it's
sort of he wasn't
initially the favorite but he sort of survived and and um so as far as the oj
stuff is is is concerned
um that if you remember the murders by persons as yet unknown happened in june
of 1994 which is when we
were having this meeting out in l.a which by the way ended it was i was
summoned out for the first time to
have a a notes meeting with uh as you know head writer slash producer of the
show and um
lauren and i were out there at the nbc headquarters and it was don all myer and
uh rick ludwin and uh
warren littlefield i think bernie brilstein was in the meeting i'm pretty sure
and um talent so they
were and all myer they were very unhappy with the show because the ratings had
dropped and i thought
it was we were on like a sugar high the year before that in 92 93 from the wayne's
world movie you know
that that so we had the political down political yeah we had the debates and
stuff and so the ratings
dropped i'll i'll be albeit to a rating number that they would they would die
for yeah yeah yeah but but
anyway so they were taking they were giving us their notes and what they didn't
like and everything
and um i had gone there um my marriage was falling apart because of the time at
the show and stuff and
so i kind of i would i was sort of feeling like i don't know if i want to keep
doing this so my attitude
was i'm not going to do anything to save my job i'm not going to beg or plead
or agree to any take you
know i'm going to just tell them what i think and and if they don't like it it'll
it's just as
six and one to me if i get fired or not and in the end that sort of backfired
because i heard later like
oh myer was impressed by your moxie he didn't which is not not the intention
but anyway so they
were talking about update and they just said and kevin had to go i would never
have put i would
know i love kevin you still love him he's unreal one of our he was a great
favorite with the writers
yeah and you could have helped kevin i i could have i thought if if they had
been willing to keep kevin
but get rid of herb i think that we could have turned that thing around but um
but anyway that was not
the that was not the option available so anyway but the meeting the meeting
ended only because
visiting hours were starting at la county and and omeyer had to go visit oj wow
that's why that meeting
ended finally mercifully and so then when the fall came uh there's a whole
other story with how norm
came to be the guy but but norm is doing update and i told him at the beginning
i said look i don't mean
anything not nothing about her but attempts have been made in the past to to
help people doing update
and that her blocked all efforts to because he got you know was threatened and
territorial everything
and so i told norm like look we're not we're not going to around we're not
going to let her
do to you what he did to kevin and and so you can have your herb meeting but
you got to have a later
one with me because we're not i'm not around this time it's too important
and and then north yeah yeah that sounds great you know so so what would happen
is we first of all
opened the piece up for the first time to lots and lots of writers so you
suddenly got a lot more
writers contributing and and then we would just overrule decisions that herb
made until and herb never i
never even had a conversation with herb about it and we just and so but the
basically so to answer your
original question um the way norm came to be fired was we just did the oj jokes
because they were funny
it wasn't none of us had i'm hard on for oj or anything but but it was he was
in the news every
day too like there's you can't you can't avoid it yeah and so luckily the
timing couldn't have been
better you know the trial opened just before we went on the air we uh um and
then the very next year
the fall of 95 the are the openings the week of the first show the verdict came
back
and so but anyway um he just the the every week i would hear occasionally from
lauren and i knew it
was omeyer calling him to complain but it was lauren would go like how how is
it that you and norm seem
to be the only people absolutely convinced of oj's guilt and i would go like lauren
lauren come on come
on i think it's i think it's hurting us with black audience and i said first of
all we have no black
very small second second um i think i think could only help us because the you
know black people know
that that oj did it come on and so and so anyway finally um we did the first
season of update which
was 94 95 uh that was the trial the second season 95 96 of norm's update that
was the aftermath of the
trial and the civil trial right and then we threw in we threw in the 96 97 the
third season just for
for shits and grins here we continue to do so we did i'm sure we did an oj joke
at least one oj joke
every every show yeah for for from 94 95 and 96 and then finally the fall of 97
you know that was norm's
fourth season and the season we were fired fall 97 package there was nothing to
do there was nothing
to do about oj it would have felt like you feel it's always well no no that no
that's long that no
we like the overkill we always said of course i heard this quote much later but
i wish i'd known it
joseph stalin you know someone like comedy people don't normally quote but yeah
joseph stalin said
it was like it was like david hasselhoff jokes too yeah yeah that's right well
we love and let me just
finish so so the so we opened that season the fall 97 right spring 98 we didn't
do any oj jokes and we
didn't do any oj jokes for the first eight shows and then the christmas it was
a strong stretch of like
it was like the bombardment has stopped and then suddenly i think they stopped
they have stopped
you know it's it's peace in in the valley and then on the eighth show we did
two oj jokes because there
was the one thing about latrell spreewell remember he was playing for the knicks
and he went nuts in a
practice choked the coach pj carl carlissima yeah yeah yeah so we did a joke
about johnny and he hired
johnny cochran as his attorney and so we did a joke about and cochran has vowed
to find a real choker
and then then there was oj if you remember this one oj was in a restaurant in
brentwood
and his presence was bothering some of the other patrons so the the manager of
the restaurant said
uh mr simpson um some of our our customers um have have um they're concerned
and we were wondering if
you would if you wouldn't mind um leaving and so oj sued the restaurant but got
something like 300 bucks
like a free dinner or something so so we did our joke was in addition the
restaurant must now
set up uh individual or separate murderer and non-murderer sections i know so
well this week
after a los angeles restaurant refused to seat him oj simpson demanded and got
500 in compensation
in addition the restaurant must now offer separate murderer and non-murderer
sections
on the radio sounding fake prince and chalice is for better anyway anyway
anyway
oj so anyway i'm i'm at so we did that that was the saturday show a couple days
later i'm in new canaan
visiting my little son and the first thing i see is the sound was off on the tv
and he's sitting in his
high chair and he was like you know two years old i guess and so he looks up at
the thing and there's
there's chris farley but with the sound off he didn't know exactly what it was
he starts laughing
hysterically just at the sight of chris farley and then the phone rings and it's
mike shoemaker
from the show who's a producer at the show and he says a couple things uh chris
farley's dead and you
and norm uh were fired and so yeah and so apparently and later not and guess
guess what
it was like three years later norm told me and he had never said this to me
because if it were
positions were reversed i would have said it right away he said you know they
um they told me like
it wasn't you know that they were only firing you that i was welcome to stay
and i said i won't i
won't do it without downey and so they said okay you know be our guest so that's
how norm came to be
fired he he went out of solidarity with me so well i think it's probably smart
because you made it
you guys together were really good it probably would have he would have been he
would have been he's
It's great, but, you know, you're great, right?