Portrait of the Artist, as a Man

A brief critical note: The Judd Apatow–made documentary Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald was released on Netflix last weekend, and I plunked down $20 for a one-month subscription to a streaming service I will likely otherwise never use again, so much did I consider it mandatory viewing. It is a tale narrated entirely by Macdonald himself, not just his most famous moments — nearly all of which are collected here — but also excerpts from the audiobook reading of his remarkable work Based On a True Story. (Memoir? Novel? A bit of both, and a book I’ve bought twice myself already — once to enjoy it as prose, and once to enjoy it in Norm’s own voice.)

Norm should need no introduction, but for those unaware: I consider him to have been, without exaggeration, the greatest comedian of the past half-century — certainly the one most acutely tuned to my own comedic sensibilities. Few comedians loved the beauties of spoken (and written) language quite like Norm, or could ramble more entertainingly: His most famous viral moments often came in the form of luxuriously (and pointlessly) detailed shaggy-dog stories that would suddenly terminate abruptly in ridiculously unexpected punchlines.

Macdonald achieved early fame as the mid-’90s host of Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update;” his public martyrdom by NBC executive (and bosom buddy of O. J. Simpson) Don Ohlmeyer — and the dignified way he weathered his public blacklisting — had made him a legend of the stand-up comedy and late-night television circuits alike by the mid-’00s, though as his mutual admirer Larry King once said, “Show business . . .  never really found a place to put him.” Instead, his legend spread as much via YouTube as it did via his own, extremely popular stand-up specials, a fame that has proven uniquely symbiotic with the spread of the medium: One suspects that 15 percent of all YouTube clips may in fact be appearances of Norm on Conan O’Brien’s various shows.

Still, his legend has only grown since his death from cancer in 2021. Macdonald concealed his illness from the entire world, outside an extremely tight circle of family and friends — which meant that when it hit the rest of us so suddenly, it hauntingly recontextualized so much of the last decade or so of his life — and this the documentary makes clearest of all, in a supremely touching but low-key way. Special attention is paid — in the accounts of friends — to how fiercely loyal he was, and how filled with genuine love he was by those few he himself idolized or held close. For all of the razor-sharp wit in Norm’s repertoire, there wasn’t a personally mean bone in his body.

My greatest criticism of Norm is that Norm superfans — and we are legion — have seen nearly all of this material before. Aside from some very early clips of college-age Norm, and some moving stand-up from near the end of his life, there are few surprises. Which is inestimably sad, in its own way: Whether you’re unfamiliar with Macdonald or a longtime fan, what comes through the most is that the man is gone and there will be no new jokes.

But what a spectacular, fiercely intelligent wit! See it all: the classic clips, the silly impressions, the legendary talk show appearances, his torching of the ESPYs and the non-roast of Bob Saget. Only his delightfully defamatory 1997 hosting gig at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is left out. (Do not deny yourself!) And what comes through the most about Macdonald is the man himself — whose hilarious philosophical, literary, and religious interests become ever more obvious as his career progresses, and as he begins to quietly confront his own mortality.