Since more or less touching the microphone for the first time, Norm McDonald has been unlike any other standup comedian. His humor was absurd and brilliant, the sharp-witted comedian who would always find the most original angle, the dumbest jokes by the sharpest brain. He was called a comedian of comedians, but the truth is that he was simply a comedian of a different frequency – with language, look, wit, cruelty, human love and a spirit unique only to him. When we lost it in September 2021, it felt like we had lost an entire comedy genre in one person.
The fact that the news of his death from cancer came as a surprise certainly added to that feeling. Norm kept his illness a secret from the public, leaving not even a hint. But he did leave something better than that – a few more recent jokes. The opening slide of the stand-up special “Norm McDonald: Nothing Special” that aired on Netflix today reads: “Norm worked hard to prepare material for his Netflix special – until the Corona virus shut everything down. In the summer of 2020 he was due for surgery, and as he put it: ‘No “I wanted to leave nothing on the table in case things got worse. At home, the night before the operation, he filmed it.”
Depending on the exceptional conditions that accompanied this special photo, it is an extraordinary TV – especially in the sense that it is not a TV, but a stand-up show filmed from a computer camera (quality, do not worry) of a man undergoing life-threatening surgery (he survived the surgery, as he passed away Only a year later). And yet, despite his thinness and slightly fragile look, McDonald’s is as sharp as ever, and his shiny head twists around himself as only he knows, and unfortunately – he photographed everything in just one take.
Netflix may have felt a little weird with putting out a stand-up special in home photography (which is not Bo Bernham’s), so at the end of Norm’s hour they added a panel full of first-rate comedians who would talk a little about the comedian of comedians. Among the panel members: Dave Shappel, David Letterman, Adam Sandler, Conan O’Brien and more. While the release of this special makes it clear that Norm did not have time to shoot a “real” special before his death, Norm’s fans already know that whether on stage, behind a news desk, in the second guest seat in a talk show or on camera in front of his home computer – he is still the funniest man in the world.
“Norm McDonald: Nothing Special,” now on Netflix