It’s up for debate whether Norm Macdonald was the best host of SNL’s Weekend Update, but he was at least the most eccentric. He brought his anarchic style of anti-comedy to a gig whose topical jokes can get a bit Jay Leno-y. He made a running gag out of randomly mentioning Frank Stallone. But what if Macdonald never got the job? What if they went with one of the other frontrunners, Bill Maher?
Per The Daily Beast, SNL writer Jim Downey joined fellow alum Al Franken on the latter’s podcast, where he revealed that when the show was looking to replace departing Weekend Udpate anchor Kevin Nealon, the future Real Time host’s name was in the running. So was Franken, who had been mostly working behind the scenes at that point. But Maher had the “backing” of agent Bernie Brillstein, who also repped SNL honcho Lorne Michaels as well as other cast members at the time.
Macdonald’s name, Downey said, “emerged late,” but before then it was between Franken and Maher. But once Franken was out of the running, remembered Downey, “then I was like, can it please be Norm Macdonald and not Bill Maher?”
Michaels went with Macdonald, though he was only behind the desk for three seasons; Michaels fired both Macdonald and Downey for too frequently slamming O.J. Simpson, a pal of NBC exec Don Ohlmeyer.
As for Maher, he had already started hosting the early, Comedy Central iteration of Politically Incorrect, which moved to ABC in 1997. But imagine if Maher had been stuck behind a desk rather than yakking it up with people he didn’t always agree with, like, recently, Oliver Stone.
Could this be the source of the apparent beef between Macdonald and Maher? Not long before his death, Macdonald shredded him in a chat with The Hollywood Reporter, saying, “I find him completely unfunny. Like, maybe the unfunniest person I’ve ever encountered that’s called a comedian.” Dang.
(Via The Daily Beast)