Norm MacDonald

Norm MacDonald was famously fired fromSaturday Night Live for supposedly not being funny enough, which is hard to believe considering: 1.) he’s hilarious, and 2.) Jimmy Fallon and Cheri Oteri were gainfully employed by SNL for years. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that MacDonald isn’t quite “pleasant” enough for weekly consumption. Scathingly sarcastic and proudly misanthropic, MacDonald has milked his creepy-asshole persona for all it’s worth through talk-show appearances, movies (like 1998’s disreputable Dirty Work), and manly TV (hosting High Stakes Poker on the Game Show Network and the now-canceled Sports Show With Norm MacDonald). Still, someone as thorny as MacDonald is perhaps appreciated when he’s freed of the constraints of TV and film. Onstage, there’s no one to prevent him from being a total prick, or, say, devoting the first half of his set to a meditation on death, as seen on last year’s excellent Me Doing Standup.

Updated 02/08/2012