Norm MacDonald

He is the son of a Scottish-Canadian father and was raised in Ottawa, Canada. His father served with the Canadian Army during World War II. He has two brothers, both of whom are journalists.

He entered the world of comedy by performing stand-up acts at Ottawa clubs and then started performing all over Canada as his confidence grew. In 1987 he got a chance to perform at the ‘Just For Laughs’ Comedy Festival.

Realizing that he needed to be on a bigger platform to further his career, he went to Los Angeles in order to try his luck. There he found work as a writer for the sitcom ‘Roseanne’.

In 1993, he joined NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ (SNL) television program as a writer and a cast member. There he performed impersonations of different celebrities like Larry King, David Letterman, and Burt Reynolds which had the audience rolling in laughter.

He was made the anchor of the segment ‘Weekend Update’, a fake news section of the SNL after the departure of the previous host Kevin Nealon. As an anchor he often made references to topics like prison rapes, crack whores, etc. He often made scathing remarks about celebrities like Michael Jackson and Marion Barry.

He was fired from SNL in late 1997 as the anchor of the ‘Weekend Update’, ostensibly the reason being that MacDonald was “not funny”. However, it is widely believed that some tensions had been brewing between him and the management which resulted in his being fired.

He is best known for being a cast member of ‘Saturday Night Live’ for five years and for anchoring the ‘Weekend Update’. During his time with SNL he became both popular and notorious for his sarcastic and mocking comments on celebrities and political issues.