Norm Macdonald passed away eight months ago, but we may be seeing one last stand-up special from him.
David Spade, who appeared on Saturday Night Live with the late comedian revealed on his podcast Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey that he saw a secretly recorded run-through of a Norm Macdonald stand-up special. Spade said on the podcast that he saw the recording alongside a few close friends of Macdonald’s at a memorial service in his honor last weekend, per The New York Post. “I definitely cried,” Spade said about the footage. The “Celebrating Norm” event Spade is referring to took place during the Netflix Is A Joke festival at The Fonda Theatre on May 3. Attendees included Conan O’Brien, Adam Sandler, Bill Murray, and Kevin Nealon.
Macdonald, who became a legend for hosting the SNL segment Weekend Update, passed away in September 2021 at the age of 61 after battling leukemia privately for nine years. Spade said on the podcast that Macdonald recorded the run-through of the special at home during the COVID-19 lockdowns when theaters were closed so he couldn’t perform stand-up on stage.
“He just said, ‘You know, I keep trying to do my set,’ and he was getting weaker, which we didn’t know,” Spade said. “They keep shutting down theaters, and they wouldn’t let him go, so then he goes, ‘I’m just gonna run it once, just kind of say it out loud.’”
Spade also noted that cameras were present at the memorial, which spurred him to speculate that a documentary about Norm Macdonald is in the works for Netflix, which hosted the memorial. This is all pure speculation, but Spade also believes that the footage shown at the service will be in the (again, completely speculative) documentary.