Comedian Norm Macdonald

David Letterman, Dave Chappelle and Adam Sandler are among the comedians who sat down to watch and discuss "Norm MacDonald: Nothing Special"

“That picture — it’s in the end of ‘The Closer’ — was the last time that I saw him. “I just had a sense of like, I could feel that he had this kind of urgency to say exactly what was on his mind in the moment. And there’s a picture of me and him and the back of Chris Rock’s head — I put it in my special,” Chappelle said.

The revered comic, who died last year, recorded his last Netflix set at home in 2020. It has the feel of a wake, as fans including David Letterman pay ...

It suggests that the outpouring of affection that greeted Macdonald’s death may have been as much to do with his personal qualities – of kindness, empathy and loyalty – as his work. Then there’s the closing riff, which peters out joke unfinished, the gag having dissolved into a halting expression of his love for his mum. There aren’t many duds in his final set, although there are sections that might be designed to spook the faint of heart. Here, this most secretive of comics (not for him the trend for confessional comedy) waxes nostalgic for a time when people weren’t expected to have opinions – which in turn triggers a thoughtful riff on why we allow elections to be decided by the “I don’t knows”. Here too, several sections on death: how we can’t pretend not to see it coming (“I made your hair white,” God tells Norm: “What do you think that was about? (“When he smiles,” says Chappelle, “I can picture him as a child.”) It’s a face that forbids us ever to take him seriously, ever to forget that it’s comedy that’s happening, that even the bits that sound truest or most throwaway are ticklesome constructions designed to make us (or Macdonald) laugh. Like the set Maria Bamford performed to her parents alone, it’s one of those specials where the ringing silences are compellingly part of the point.

In these Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special clips, the late actor/comedian discusses modern-day philosophers & if people have too many opinions.

And of course, O.J. Simpson ("In a brilliant move during closing arguments, Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran put on the knit cap prosecutors say O.J. wore during the night of the murders. He left this gift for all of us," said Lori Jo Hoekstra, Macdonald's long-time producing partner and executive producer of Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special. Following the special, Adam Sandler, Conan O'Brien, Dave Chappelle, David Letterman, David Spade, and Molly Shannon take part in a featurette focusing on their friend Macdonald and what he meant to them. Not only had the late comedian & actor Norm Macdonald recorded the trial run of a final stand-up special but he had an opportunity to screen it during a memorial for Macdonald that coincided with the "Netflix Is A Joke" festival.

Norm Macdonald's final standup special, filmed before the comedian's death in September, has made its way to Netflix with fellow funny people paying tribute ...

“It looked like he just wanted to get everything out,” 55-year-old Sandler said, calling the special a more “gentle Norm.” O’Brien reflected that Macdonald “didn’t want anybody to know” about his cancer and wishes he could have said goodbye. “This guy was, in a weird way, reconciling his mortality, hilariously. Topics in the special are far-ranging, but at several points, the “Screwed” star talked openly about his own death and mortality in general. “Norm was working hard preparing material for his Netflix special — until COVID shut things down,” another title card read. I thought it was the other fella. I should have been slaying apostates the entire time.

David Letterman, Dave Chappelle and Adam Sandler are among the comedians who sat down to watch and discuss "Norm MacDonald: Nothing Special"

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