The late, great Norm MacDonald passed away before he could get his final routine out in front of an audience. The legendary SNL alum was famed for his deadpan delivery and now Netflix are giving us all one last chance to celebrate the great man by airing his final special.
MacDonald was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 but kept his illness hidden from public view. It was only in 2020 that MacDonald decided to record this final special in case his health rapidly deteriorated before he was admitted to hospital.
“His test results were not good, so during the heart of COVID-19 pandemic and literally the night before going in for a procedure, he wanted to get this on tape just in case — as he put it — things went south,” longtime friend and producer Lori Jo Hoekstra told The Hollywood Reporter. “It was his intention to have a special to share if something happened.”
“He looks great and the material’s fantastic,” Hoekstra said of the one-shot film recorded in his living room. When MacDonald returned from the hospital with a spring of good health in his step, the recording was shelved. However, “he ended up watching it before he passed away,” Hoekstra confirmed.
Adam Sandler, Conan O’Brien, Dave Chappelle, David Letterman, David Spade, and Molly Shannon will all pay tribute to MacDonald as part of the special’s finale. It will arrive on Netflix on May 30th, 2022.
“It makes me so happy that I can share it, but also so sad that we can’t share it with him,” Hoekstra said of the special. “He didn’t do this for the shock that it exists. He shot it because he loved his material and was so proud of his material. He worked so hard and it really would’ve bothered him to have done all that work and not been able to show everybody. He did it for the stand-up. I just hope people appreciate that he did this.”
