Some politically correct hack at the Daily Beast took a run at Norm McDonald a few years back, and I basically wrote Norm a love letter: Norm McDonald has a Terrible Show....REBUTTAL.
My take was, and still is, is that Norm McDonald was one of the last Fearless comedians. My initial reaction to Norm's death was going to be: Instead of writing a long-winded essay about speech, I would just show the examples below as some off my favorite Norm moments.
I felt my obituary writing skills were not up to snuff for one of my heroes. There was a superb obituary written by Michael Tanenbaum at the Philly Voice about Norm that I was confident that I could not top.
But then I came across a "lost interview" with Norm at Rolling Stone Magazine published a week after his death. The interview was from 2018 when Norm was promoting his "Norm McDonald Has a Show" on Netflix. How the interview got lost was infuriating. Apparently, back in 2018, Norm said some nice things about Cancelled Louis CK and Cancelled Rosanne Barr. At that point, the media decided that Norm needed to be cancelled, too, for contradicting the narrative about CK and Barr. The editors at Rolling Stone sat on the story and, despite having zero controversial content, didn't allow the conversation to see the light of day for 3 years. Rolling Stone had a nice Norm story that contradicted Corporate Media's narrative and, all of a sudden, Rolling Stone couldn't find their inkwell.
Back when the interview was conducted, Norm clumsily continued to step on woke minefields at other outlets, and, after 10 episodes, his Netflix Show was quietly cancelled.
After Norm died, little Wokey McWokersons at the Daily Beast (Complicated Legacy of Norm McDonald) and Slate (Norm McDonald Never Stopped Bullshitting) took runs at the deceased comic, but I wasn't surprised. They were moving their website's overarching progressive agendas. They didn't really care about Norm's body of work or concepts of free speech.
But the Rolling Stone interview showed what a bunch of weasels they truly are. When Norm was unpopular, Rolling Stone kicked dirt on him. When the internet was flooded with kind words from Norm's peers, all of a sudden RS "found" their nice interview. Look, look, we love Norm too, RS exclaimed.
No, Rolling Stone loves the sound of clicks when you read their work.
Editor's Note to Rolling Stone Magazine: 5 years ago, you ranked Norm 139 out of 145 Saturday Night Live Comedians. Rob Sheffield can suck it. If we here at Beacon of Speech had to rank all SNL comedians, Norm would be around #6, only behind such legends as Bill Murray, TIna Fey, or Eddie Murphy.
Lorne Michaels is 76 years old. Doesn't it seem like a lot of SNL featured players have died too young?
For the zillionth time, Norm McDonald was a comedian. If you have trouble with any comedian, you really have trouble with yourself. Comedians should be judged on one metric only: Are you funny?
Norm McDonald was one of the funniest.
Just one more link:
You can find hundreds more on I'm Not Norm's You Tube Channel.
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