Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
MacDonald used a deadpan style during the newsegment, which included repeated references to prison rape, 'crack whores' and the Germans' love of Baywatch star David Hasselhoff. MacDonald would occasionally deliver a piece of news, then take out his personal compact tape recorder and leave a "note to self" relevant to what he just discussed. He also commonly and inexplicably used Frank Stallone as a non sequitur punchline.
MacDonald would repeatedly ridicule public figures such as Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson. Throughout the Simpson trial, MacDonald would constantly pillory the former football star, often heavily implying Simpson was guilty of the brutal slaying of his wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman. In the broadcast following Simpson's acquittal, MacDonald opened Weekend Update by saying: "Well, it's official: murder is legal in the state of California." He also continued to denounce Simpson after the trial.
After the announcement that Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley planned to divorce, MacDonald joked about their irreconcilable differences on Weekend Update: "She's more of a stay-at-home type, and he's more of a homosexual pedophile." He followed this up a few episodes later with a report about the singer's recent collapse and hospitalization. Referring to a report of how Jackson had decorated his hospital room with giant photographs of Shirley Temple, Macdonald remarked that viewers should not get the wrong idea, adding, "We'd like to remind you that Michael Jackson is, in fact, a homosexual pedophile." The joke elicited audible gasps from some audience members. He responded to this by saying, "What? He is a homosexual pedophile." [2]
MacDonald's time with Saturday Night Live effectively ended in late 1997 when he was finally fired from the Weekend Update segment upon the insistence of NBC West Coast Executive Don Ohlmeyer, who pressured the producers to remove him, explaining that MacDonald was "not funny." Some believe that Don Ohlmeyer's friendship with O. J. Simpson — a celebrity whom MacDonald often antagonized on the show — may have fueled Ohlmeyer's decision.[1] Ohlmeyer denied the rumor, arguing that other NBC late-night comedians (e.g., Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, and other SNL players) also constantly lampooned Simpson with little to no sanction, and that his decision was based solely on audience reaction through tapes he had personally reviewed. David Letterman and Howard Stern later insisted in interviews with Macdonald that Ohlmeyer was really just carrying out the work of producer Lorne Michaels, who was too cowardly to fire him directly.
On February 28, 1998, one of his last appearances on SNL occurred as host of a fictitious TV show called Who's More Grizzled?, who asked questions of "mountain men" played by that night's host Garth Brooks and special guest Robert Duvall. In the sketch, Brooks' character said to MacDonald's character, "I don't much care for you," to which MacDonald replied, "A lot of people don't."
After MacDonald left SNL, his successor, Colin Quinn, gave a short prologue in his first day anchoring Weekend Update, during which Quinn mentioned that MacDonald had shown him "the ropes" of the segment. Quinn then asked the audience if they ever went to their favorite pub seeking their favorite bartender—and found him to be replaced by a less qualified man named "Steve". After a brief pause, Quinn deadpanned, "Well I'm Steve, what can I get you." Castmember Will Ferrell then appeared as Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray, who repeatedly referred to Quinn as "Norm", adding, "Norm, have you gained some weight?"
Soon after leaving Saturday Night Live, Macdonald co-wrote and starred in the "revenge comedy" Dirty Work (1998), with Jack Warden, Don Rickles, Chevy Chase, Chris Farley, Artie Lange and Adam Sandler.
Later that year, Macdonald voiced the character of Lucky the dog in the Eddie Murphy remake of Doctor Dolittle. He reprised the role in both Doctor Dolittle 2 (2001) and Doctor Dolittle 3 (2006)
Macdonald voiced the character of Death on an episode of Family Guy. Due to a conflict with his stand-up comedy schedule, he was unavailable to voice the character for the next two appearances; the role went to Adam Carolla.
In 1999, Macdonald starred in the sitcom The Norm Show (later renamed Norm), co-starring Laurie Metcalf, Artie Lange and Ian Gomez. It ran for three seasons on ABC. Macdonald voiced Hardee's restaurant's (Carl's Jr. on the US West Coast) costumed mascot, the Hardee's star in advertisements. Macdonald also appeared on several Miller Lite commercials that year.
He appeared on the September 1999 Saturday Night Live primetime special celebrating the program's 25th year on the air. Macdonald was one of only three former Weekend Update anchors to introduce a retrospective on the segment.
Macdonald returned to Saturday Night Live to host the October 23, 1999 show. His multiple utterances of "God damn" were edited out of future repeats of the episode.
The next episode; airing November 6, 1999 and hosted by Dylan McDermott; featured a sketch where Chris Kattan, as the androgynous character Mango, is opening letters from celebrity admirers and, after opening the last one, says "[the letter is from] Norm Macdonald, who is that?"
Also in 1999, Macdonald made a cameo appearance in the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon. When Michael Richards refused to portray himself in the scene reenacting the famous Fridays incident where Kaufman throws water in his face, Macdonald stepped in to play Richards, although he is never referred to by name.
In 2000, Macdonald starred in his second motion picture, Screwed, which like Dirty Work, fared poorly at the box office.
On November 12 2000 Macdonald appeared on the Celebrity Edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and reached the $1 million question.[5] He guessed correctly for the $500,000 question and was going to answer the $1 million question, but Regis Philbin encouraged him to stop because of the amount of money at risk. Had he given an incorrect answer to the $1 million question, his charitable winnings would have plummeted to only $32,000, which Mcdonald had chosen to go to Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Camps. Philbin's unease made McDonald think he was giving the wrong answer, so Macdonald chose to stop. His answer was actually correct, so he would have won the $1,000,000 for Hole in the Wall Camps instead of $500,000. Philbin apologized for the incident on his show the next day.
Macdonald continued to make appearances on television shows and in films, including Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, and The Animal, all of which starred fellow Saturday Night Live alumnus Rob Schneider and were produced by Adam Sandler. He also appeared in the People Vs. Larry Flynt.
In 2005, Macdonald signed a deal with Comedy Central to create a new sketch comedy pilot called Back To Norm, which debuted that May. The pilot was never turned into a series. Its infamous cold opening parodied the suicide of Budd Dwyer, a Pennsylvania politician who, facing decades of incarceration, committed suicide on live television in 1987. Rob Schneider appeared in the pilot.
In September 2006, Macdonald's sketch comedy album, Ridiculous, was released by Comedy Central Records. It features appearances by Will Ferrell, Jon Lovitz, Tim Meadows, Molly Shannon and Artie Lange. On September 14, 2006, Macdonald appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote Ridiculous. During the appearance, Macdonald made some jokes about the recent death of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. Stewart, holding back laughter, asked Norm to change the subject
Macdonald was a guest character on My Name Is Earl in the episode "Two Balls, Two Strikes" as "Lil Chubby", the son of "Chubby" (played by Burt Reynolds), similar to Macdonald's portrayals of Reynolds on SNL.
Norm Macdonald is a poker player. In the 2007 World Series of Poker, he came in 20th place out of 827 entrants in the $3,000 No Limit Texas Hold 'em event, winning $14,608.[7] He also made it to round two of the $5,000 World Championship of Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em.
On the comedy website, Super Deluxe, he has created an animated series entitled "The Fake News".[8]
Norm has filled in during Dennis Miller's weekly O'Reilly Factor "Miller Time" segment on January 2, 2008, and guest-hosted Dennis Miller's Radio show on January 3, 2008. Norm had also been a regular contributor on the Dennis Miller Radio show every Friday, prior to an unexplained absence that left Miller wondering on-air if the show had somehow miffed Norm. Macdonald returned after many months on May 30, 2008, but not before missing a scheduled appearance the day before. He hosted Miller's radio show for the second time on July 16, 2008, along with Macdonald's friend Stevie Ray Fromstein.
On June 19, 2008, Norm was a celebrity panelist on two episodes of a revived version of the popular game show Match Game, which was taped at CBS Television City in Los Angeles. The new version features the same set used in the early years of the 1970s version and also stars comedienne Sarah Silverman as a fellow celebrity panelist.[9]
On August 17, 2008, Norm was a participant in the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget.
Despite referring to himself as apolitical, Macdonald has made controversial references to politically-charged issues, with mixed humorous results.
At the end of the Weekend Update segment before the 1996 presidential election, Norm urged viewers to vote for Bob Dole (of whom Macdonald frequently performed a comic impersonation), though hinting that he had solely said it so that he could continue impersonating him. In 2003, Macdonald appeared on Barbara Walters' program The View, publicly renouncing his Canadian citizenship as a joke over his home country's decision not to participate in the Iraq War, stated his belief that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president ever and said that he would be becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States (as of January 2006, he stated that he is not a United States citizen. "I just keep renewing my green card", said Macdonald in a telephone interview[10]). On the November 16, 2000 episode of The View Macdonald said that he thought George W. Bush was "a decent man" and he called Bill Clinton a "murderer" (regarding the Vince Foster case). Macdonald later stated in Maxim magazine that he is completely apolitical, and that he was joking when he said Clinton "killed a guy". However, on the January 2, 2008 episode of The O'Reilly Factor, Macdonald stated that he is "very pro-life, but against the death penalty," his friend Artie Lange would soon afterwards confirm these opinions as sincere on The Howard Stern Show. Macdonald also revealed that he supports John McCain for president in the 2008 US Presidential Election.[11] He later recanted this and said on the Howard Stern radio show on September 25th "If the election was tomorrow, and I had American citizenship, I'd vote Obama." McDonald commented that he was concerned with the fundamentalist Christian views of McCain's running-mate, Sarah Palin.
NEW YORK (Oct. 22) - Just two weeks after a Nobel Prize highlighted theoretical work on subatomic particles, physicists are announcing a startling discovery about a much more familiar form of matter: Scotch tape. It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers.
Who knew? Actually, more than 50 years ago, some Russian scientists reported evidence of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off glass. But the new work demonstrates that you can get a lot of X-rays, a study co-author says.
"We were very surprised," said Juan Escobar. "The power you could get from just peeling tape was enormous."
Escobar, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, reports the work with UCLA colleagues in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
He suggests that with some refinements, the process might be harnessed for making inexpensive X-ray machines for paramedics or for places where electricity is expensive or hard to get. After all, you could peel tape or do something similar in such machines with just human power, like cranking.
The researchers and UCLA have applied for a patent covering such devices.
In the new work, a machine peeled ordinary Scotch tape off a roll in a vacuum chamber at about 1.2 inches per second. Rapid pulses of X-rays, each about a billionth of a second long, emerged from very close to where the tape was coming off the roll.
That's where electrons jumped from the roll to the sticky underside of the tape that was being pulled away, a journey of about two-thousandths of an inch, Escobar said. When those electrons struck the sticky side they slowed down, and that slowing made them emit X-rays.
So is this a health hazard for unsuspecting tape-peelers?
Escobar noted that no X-rays are produced in the presence of air. You need to work in a vacuum — not exactly an everyday situation.
"If you're going to peel tape in a vacuum, you should be extra careful," he said. But "I will continue to use Scotch tape during my daily life, and I think it's safe to do it in your office. No guarantees."
James Hevezi, who chairs the American College of Radiology's Commission on Medical Physics, said the notion of developing an X-ray machine from the new finding was "a very interesting idea, and I think it should be carried further in research."
.jpg)
